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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?

#101

Post by j_s »

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.

This technique also works for Wordpress plugins, and just about any other paid category with reviews.

You can go into wordpress.org, just take a look at the download numbers and it will tell you flat out like whether somebody’s downloads are increasing overtime or are they decreasing, when the last updates were, all that kind of information. And you can get a sense from that information alone as to whether or not it would be possible to put another plugin that offers similar functionality

http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-249-f... (search "12:54")

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

#102

Post by shubhamjain »

patio11 wrote: post #98

What are some simple things I can build by myself? You're already successful at selling enterprise services to at least one company in management and backend data processing. Have you considered selling management and backend data processing advise, perhaps delivered in the form of a PDF or series of videos? This is stupendously valuable to tech companies if you meaningfully improve on what they have already and woul…

> If you prefer knocking together a site to sell your own books, it is essentially an hour to get the minimum thing to charge money and ~2 days to get something which could plausibly be the kernel of an ongoing business.

But what about traffic? How do you get eyeballs to your book-selling microsite? Do you reach out to people who might be interested? Do you post on forums? Do you use paid advertising? I can guess it's a combination of various methods but the problem I have seen popping up often, at least with me, is reaching a meaningful conclusion.

If your landing page fails to gain meaningful traffic, what do you need to tweak? Your book pitch, the idea, or the marketing technique?

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

#103

Post by j_s »

nurettin wrote: post #57
e12e wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, I've thought about doing something similar - I'm sure others have too. Still not so many people doing it that your niche will dissappear. Would be interesting if you would plug your app(s) though. Might boost your sales too :-)

It is a highly localized radio player. Reduced data usage seems to be highly demanded by customers and other app owners tell users it's impossible. But I know nothing is impossible :-) I am currently experimenting with a streaming proxy that will channel data with 60-70% reduced quality (for customers who aren't audiophiles).

My apologies if you're already aware of this: there are cheap VPS providers with unlimited bandwidth, perfect for these "streaming middleman" type of audio/video applications.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13798023

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

#104

Post by j_s »

jjude wrote: post #3

Start to teach. Create a course in udemy on what you know (data processing or management). If creating a video course overwhelms you, create a text based course. I'm using softcover to do that. You can check here: https://www.jjude.com/softcover-in-docker/ Creating a course can get you the momentum. You can start there and branch out to other things.

This is a great idea to gain experience building an audience, something tremendously valuable as you continue to build additional products.

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

#105

Post by reacweb »

Build something that helps you in your everyday job. This can increase your motivation to improve it and keep working on it regularly. When it starts being useful, try to find another user to get feedback and increase feature. Before considering putting it in the wild, try to find a couple of hackers to anticipate potential security issues ;-)

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

#107

Post by icoder »

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…

I want to add that in my experience, it is not so much about 'time' as an objective thing. Instead, especially for dev work, I would argue it's more about 'energy' (or 'focus', 'attention', 'willpower').

Or maybe you need both and the latter is more my limiting factor at the moment.

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

#108

Post by umut »

joeyspn wrote: post #95

Start looking for people that complements your skills! I've just created a "HN Side Project Partner Search" google stylesheet for people seeking team mates or help building their side projects: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fDNE2O862oLmlojAPDXd... IMO building a team (2 or 3) is the best way to go... Hopefully you'll find the idea useful (ideally this should be a website but I'm testing the waters with a si…

So recursive :)

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

#109

Post by j_s »

Where should I start? [...] where to start?

Building an audience + market validation before building a sideproject are the top starting priority for "a side project that makes money".

Start by building an audience (this can be as simple as interacting with professionals on Twitter and/or their own blogs, or even contributing here on HN!). I won't be able to determine what people want without asking people, and I will save a lot of wasted time by building something that I can guarantee people already want to pay for! For example: I intend to walk around my neighborhood with a survey to gauge interest in localized "technology disaster prevention" (aka initial setup of PC & phone backups with verification and increasingly annoying reminders) as a service. The first sideproject is the hardest because initially the audience is smallest but then can be re-used.

I hesitated to post this because most developers have an "if you build it, they will come" mentality (and a tendency to focus on technology/implementation details that they enjoy) that even I personally have a hard time overcoming myself. However, if the criteria is making money, building an audience is the right first step. Once the bare-minimum MVP functions, marketing makes all the difference on the "that makes money" part (see my list of random books to buy elsewhere in this thread)... and there is no point over-engineering something I can't convince anyone to use!

I realize I'm going out on a limb a bit to say that market validation before each sideproject comes second... I know of one example of someone who has built an audience while publicly initiating sideprojects without thorough market validation (focusing on technology instead -- note that this determination is 100% my own armchair quarterbacking with the benefit of hindsight); this person's projects appear to be faltering because of poor market fit. However, it hasn't stopped many from buying into this person's brand / other projects, and that audience is now following the next project even though initially it appears to be trending toward the same mistake!

PS. As mentioned elsewhere I could shortcut market validation by tracking down commercial products (already being paid for) that are getting a lot of visibility and addressing issues raised in bad reviews; however even when going this route I will still benefit greatly by having an audience to market the replacement.

Edit: switched to first person to preach to myself to get off my butt and start doing something!

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

#110

Post by joe563323 »

danielsamuels wrote: post #79

I built Rocket League Replays[1], a website which analyses the replay files generated from matches played in Rocket League. I took my inspiration from GGTracker[2] which is essentially the same thing, but for StarCraft 2. I was looking through the replay files and noticed that there was some human readable content in them, so I wrote a parser[3] and built the site around it. Eventually I started a Patreon which allow…

Tell us more about your skills before starting the project and after starting the project. Were you basically a front end or back end guy before starting the project. What technolgies did you choose and why. How long did it take to complete. How many hours did you invest. Did you invest time consistently in smaller chunks or large chunks at one shot.
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