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Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business

indiehackers.com

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Re: Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business

#121

Post by tudorconstantin »

rfrey wrote: post #3

I devour indiehacker's interviews and I love the transparency - thanks to both sides of the table. According to the numbers here, 42% of the 17,000 monthly revenues are spent on 6 people. That's $1190 per person per month if everyone is paid equally. Is everyone in Romania, and is that a living wage there? If not, how are your employees making ends meet? Edit: that last sentence sounds accusatory - I don't mean it to…

I wrote a blog post back in 2013 regarding how much I should make in more expensive cities of the world (London, SF, NY, etc) in order to have the same standard of living as in Romania for 1700 eur/month: http://programming.tudorconstantin.com/2013/10/why-ill-never...

Re: Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business

#123

Post by someguydave »

Hbthegreat wrote: post #94
csallen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In his defense, he's really comparing ~$200k to ~$400k, not poverty to $400k. Beyond a certain point, the more money you have, the less extra money matters.

This mentality is what drives people to mediocrity. Not reaching your full potential just hurts yourself, your family and your community in the long run. If you have the capability to learn more, earn more and create great businesses don't sit on the sidelines the world needs more action takers.

>This mentality is what drives people to mediocrity.

One reason for someone to think this way: in most western countries income at these levels is taxed at very high rates. Why work more when the government just takes a big chunk of your earnings?

Re: Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business

#124

Post by spraak »

morgante wrote: post #91
lemming wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because money isn't everything. What I'm working on isn't a side project, it's my main gig, but it's paying the bills nicely. But I started this after quitting from a post-acquisition job at Google paying $400k plus 4 years of retention bonus totalling a lot of money. I would absolutely have been financially much, much better off at Google. But I would have had to live in the US which I didn't want to do, and I would…

I think you're been unnecessary defensive. I'm not questioning the value of doing side projects. Money might not be everything , but it certainly is something . This is especially true when comparing consulting (something I genuinely quite like doing, it's almost totally bullshit free) with running my own SaaS startup (which also seems attractive, but would involve doing more of the things I dislike than now). Still,…

It seems like you're taking it harder than they meant it. They do say money isn't everything, but from their viewpoint, they have enough for what they need in balance with the rest of the their life. I don't see where they're saying it isn't anything/something.

Re: Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business

#125

Post by spraak »

morgante wrote: post #91
lemming wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because money isn't everything. What I'm working on isn't a side project, it's my main gig, but it's paying the bills nicely. But I started this after quitting from a post-acquisition job at Google paying $400k plus 4 years of retention bonus totalling a lot of money. I would absolutely have been financially much, much better off at Google. But I would have had to live in the US which I didn't want to do, and I would…

I think you're been unnecessary defensive. I'm not questioning the value of doing side projects. Money might not be everything , but it certainly is something . This is especially true when comparing consulting (something I genuinely quite like doing, it's almost totally bullshit free) with running my own SaaS startup (which also seems attractive, but would involve doing more of the things I dislike than now). Still,…

It seems like you're taking it harder than they meant it. They do say money isn't everything, but from their viewpoint, they have enough for what they need in balance with the rest of the their life. I don't see where they're saying it isn't anything/something.

Re: Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business

#127

Post by koonsolo »

limelight wrote: post #36

I really love these IndieHackers interviews but surprisingly find them somewhat demotivating. Even the more successful interviewees make less revenue per month than I can make through straight consulting. And they're the success stories—most people (including myself) make far less per month from their products. How do people keep motivated to work on side projects when consulting is so much more profitable?

Don't focus on what revenue he makes per month. Next to his revenue, he's also building value into his company.

When you are ill, don't work in the weekend, go on holiday, you don't get paid.

His business keeps selling, in weekends, during vacations. When he wants to get out, he can sell his company for 2x to 4x his annual profit. Or he can remove himself out of the equation and spend only a small amount of time on it, and still make a profit each month.

He is building something of value next to getting paid, you are not.

Re: Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business

#128

Post by patio11 »

zump wrote: post #111
ffumarola wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a modest $200/hr, that's 85 hours. It definitely can be hard to line up that much work month after month, but I've had a few months in a row where I achieved that level of consulting revenue. The key is to keep raising your rates.

I'm a new grad, but since when do consultants get to charge > ~double the hourly rate of what wages would be? Did I miss the memo?

Two memos from the archives:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8706043 (see in particular the linked comment)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7155387 (why a consultancy charges an $8k per month programmer out at $6k per week)

Re: Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business

#129

Post by vertex-four »

Hbthegreat wrote: post #94
csallen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In his defense, he's really comparing ~$200k to ~$400k, not poverty to $400k. Beyond a certain point, the more money you have, the less extra money matters.

This mentality is what drives people to mediocrity. Not reaching your full potential just hurts yourself, your family and your community in the long run. If you have the capability to learn more, earn more and create great businesses don't sit on the sidelines the world needs more action takers.

There are things in life other than money, and people you can make happy in ways you never could with an extra couple of hundred thousand a year. We're social creatures, by and large - if you're trading away your time spent being part of society for some extra money, unless you're a certain type of person, you're almost definitely making yourself less happy - and if many people do it, they're making everyone else less happy as well as people have less opportunity to socialise and are more pressured into a game of increasing a number.

Re: Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business

#130

Post by patio11 »

zump wrote: post #118
kleinsch wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happens all the time. As a consultant you're responsible for self employment tax (7.5%), benefits, vacation, sick leave, etc. You also have no job security, so you need to make enough that you can cover gaps in between gigs that ended. You price it into your hourly rate accordingly. So yes, your hourly rate is significantly higher than a comparable salaried employee. No, you're not actually ending up with double the…

How do I establish a background to be a profitable consultant? - Work at X company for Y years? - GitHub? - Networking?

The only thing you need to get paid (picking a number) $40,000 for solving a business problem is to be able to sell a client you have identified on the desirability of paying you $40,000 to solve a business problem. This is the hardest thing for engineers to stomach about business. Being good at what you do is table stakes for consulting; a major determinant of one's success is one's ability to get good at selling.

There are ways to use OSS contributions or networking to assist in developing that client and making that sale, but they are not required. "I worked 5 years at Google" does not entitle one to a consulting gig.

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