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Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

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Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#61

Post by Razengan »

> What are some simple things I can build by myself? Any ideas?

How about an iOS/Android game with optional micro-transactions?

In game development you can indulge and improve as many different skills as you want; graphics, sound, music, mathematics, networking, AI, UX design, character design, writing, storytelling, difficulty balancing, teaching..

An indie game project will give the freedom to be as creative as you want, and you get to enjoy your own product, but of course you don't have to arrive at a finished, marketable product to have fun building it.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#63

Post by ssijak »

mikekchar wrote: post #25

This is going to sounds like crazy advice, but having worked on many side projects in my life the last thing that's going to let you down is your skills. What you really need is time. Let's say it takes you 400 hours to build your project -- in those 400 hours, you will build up enough skills to get you started (not nearly enough to be good at it, but good enough). So you need to work consistently 1-2 hours a day on…

My biggest problem is in "no need to get fancy". Do not know how to overcome that urge to overengineer everything in the start and how to be satisfied with minimal working thing even if it looks like crap.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#65

Post by metakermit »

mikekchar wrote: post #25

This is going to sounds like crazy advice, but having worked on many side projects in my life the last thing that's going to let you down is your skills. What you really need is time. Let's say it takes you 400 hours to build your project -- in those 400 hours, you will build up enough skills to get you started (not nearly enough to be good at it, but good enough). So you need to work consistently 1-2 hours a day on…

> So you need to work consistently 1-2 hours a day on your side project.

I would underline this consistency. I found that as long as I'm regularly doing even the tiniest of improvements to my side-project, I am very efficient over the span of a few months. When due to other obligations I drop the habit, I start forgetting how parts of the codebase work. It becomes harder to restart the project and the whole thing just seems depressing. Consistency is key!

Also, I would recommend checking out Indie Hackers if you need inspiration :)

https://www.indiehackers.com/

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#66

Post by noir_lord »

If you are weaker on the FE side from a project point of view keep your 'stack' really small, jQuery and Vue.js would get you a long way without really needing much front end knowledge, you can then gradually add in the other tools as you go (things like SASS/Less etc).

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#67

Post by SyneRyder »

nurettin wrote: post #30

Not sure if I should share this, as it is a trivial and obvious thing to do. Recently I created a ramen-profitable on google play with currently a couple of thousand users. The idea is to look for apps that have low ratings, high downloads and lots of recent comments, then make them better. You can use synonyms and the same niche category to increase visibility on google play. This is where the money is.

> Not sure if I should share this, as it is a trivial and obvious thing to do...

Probably worth linking here to Derek Sivers' post "Obvious To You, Amazing To Others": https://sivers.org/obvious

I've heard of your method before, but I first read it in Fast Company in a story called The Amazon Whisperer, and while it might seem obvious now, I thought it was amazing when I first read it: https://www.fastcompany.com/3021229/chaim-pikarski-the-amazo...

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#68

Post by fiftyacorn »

gsylvie wrote: post #36

Here's what I did: at work I needed something. (A git commit graph). But the one I found was #1. buggy, and #2. too expensive. It wasn't my money, but I just couldn't allow my company to pay that much. So I made my own, and fixed the bug: http://bit-booster.com/best.html And then I realized I needed a rebase button on the pull-request screen... and so it continues to evolve. Here's the thing: I've always known I'm a…

Its a nice product - the curves remind me of the london underground map

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#69

Post by builditand »

theparanoid wrote: post #27
xapata wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, with a good idea, the rest is just "a simple matter of implementation."

Look at YCombinator startups, most fail to come up with a product that people will actually pay money for.

This proves that bad ideas exist, not that the idea is the most important or difficult part.

Re: Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start?

#70

Post by annnnd »

gsylvie wrote: post #36

Here's what I did: at work I needed something. (A git commit graph). But the one I found was #1. buggy, and #2. too expensive. It wasn't my money, but I just couldn't allow my company to pay that much. So I made my own, and fixed the bug: http://bit-booster.com/best.html And then I realized I needed a rebase button on the pull-request screen... and so it continues to evolve. Here's the thing: I've always known I'm a…

I am probably missing something obvious, but... how did you make those $7000? Donations? Nice btw.
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