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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?

#181

Post by simonebrunozzi »

A little side project of mine is a chrome extension to be able to read (or write) summaries of articles on Hacker News.

It is in alpha stage right now, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts about it: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mnmn/kepcdifhbfjep...

Screenshot of how it looks like: https://github.com/simonebrunozzi/MNMN/blob/master/screensho...

(note: the "+" button is only available for users that are "editors". If you try it out, your user doesn't have that enabled by default).

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

#182

Post by averageweather »

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 true. I started side projects so many times without staying consistent and it created this self fulfilling prophecy of "I'm not good enough at coding, I can't build a real web app". Then for http://www.averageweather.io I finally decided to just keep working at it every day. After a few months I was comfortable with python, Django, js, heroku, and postgres to the point where I felt I could build anything I wanted if I just put in the time.

Then something like http://www.thealccalc.com took me like an hour since it is far less complex.

So ya, just keep at it, google for answers to your questions and just keep learning.

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

#183

Post by skdotdan »

dpark wrote: post #180
skdotdan wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Maybe the way I didn't write it didn't imply it, but I actually meant that you always had to make very clear that the product doesn't exist yet. You are selling the concept of something you are or you will be working on. If after a week you have managed to do only 1 sell, then return the money, say your product didn't receive enough interest, and try something else. However, if you manage to do 1 sell, you wi…

> I actually meant that you always had to make very clear that the product doesn't exist yet. That wasn't clear to me. It looked like you were proposing the sale of a nonexistent product. If you're openly and clearly stating that it's basically a preorder, then sure, that's fine. That sounds like a tough sale, though.

I was proposing the sale of a nonexistent product, but making clear that it doesn't (already) exist and telling properly how it will look like. Also, this product should be feasible to do in, say, less than a month.

So, it's kind of a preorder, but a cancellable (by the seller, obviously by the customer too) one.

It's a very tough sale, but precisely for that is a way of discarding business/side projects ideas in a massive way. If you can sell it before it exists, it means that there are people VERY interested in such a product, so you are on the way to success.

Disclaimer: it's very easy to speak and very difficult to put in practice, and I have never tried.

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

#184

Post by chad_strategic »

Before you do anything, I would recommend that you clear state a goal. Do you want to learn a new language? Do you want $100 a month in revenue. Do you want learn a little SEO?

Recently, I started on project for the sole purpose of learning more about nodejs and then in the second phase angular 2.

So a few months later I have a process that extracts data from amazon api and looks for price decreases in products. I learned quite a bit about nodejs and even about mysql database structures. So it was a good learning exercise.

Although I have accomplished my objective, I want to make money. This is the problem... Now I have learned what I needed, unfortunately I have learn more about seo, twitter api and facebook api to get users to visit my 200k webpages and make some money. So the side work winds up becoming a challenge and sometimes a burden, to continue to figure out how to reach your goal.

But when you reach your goal of $100 a month, then you will want more... So basically it never ends.

http://www.bestoftheinternets.com/Deals

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

#185

Post by simonbarker87 »

OJFord wrote: post #171
simonbarker87 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, yep. Straight up electric heaters are very popular in some places (eg: Scandinavia, New Zealand), some kind of forced air heating or ventilation either on a room by room basis or from a central heat source (essentially air con that can heat and cool) or under floor heating (either electric or water based). New technologies such as Passivhaus, ground source and air source heat pumps are also changing the he…

Central heating seems seriously overdue some innovation. Radiator's​ are so ugly, but what can you do? I've never known anyone have underfloor heating upstairs, though I'm not sure if there are technical reasons preventing that. It astounds me that new developments still get white steel atrocities strapped to the walls, among other things like white plastic UX-disaster thermostats.

Agreed but the UK (assuming you are UK based) made such a hash of forced air the first time around that it's unlikely to ever see much uptake.

You can do electric underfloor upstairs but water is a no go upstairs unless you are concreting. The best balance is water based underfloor downstairs, underfloor electric in upstairs bathrooms + a heated towel rail (water or electric) and then water filled radiators upstairs that either run off a traditional boiler or an air source heat pump. You could use a ground source heat pump but, depending on how far north one is this can land up freezing the ground and creating a kind of localised permafrost unless you run the system backward in the summer. You could also use solr thermal if happy with balck panels on the roof.

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

#186

Post by simonbarker87 »

maxerickson wrote: post #174
sjburt wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most buildings in the US use warm air. This means the same ducts can be used for both heating and cooling. There will be a central gas (or less frequently, oil) furnace or a heat pump. I think that switch occurred in the 1950s. Older homes might have steam heat, or sometimes electric baseboard heaters.

Hot water is also pretty common. I guess more so in areas where cooling is less needed.

Yeah although it tends to be the cast iron radiator style rather than the steel panel type that is ubiquitous in the UK. I think the US market for steel panel radiators is something like 50,000 units a year compared to the UK's 2-3 million panels annually.

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

#187

Post by simonbarker87 »

katamaritaco wrote: post #178
simonbarker87 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to the person who highlighted a typo on taptimer.com and sent in the contact form about it - no email address supplied so I'm thanking them here.

Found another one: Gestures Galour -> Galore

Thanks, I should probably be embarrassed but it's great they've been found so ...

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

#188

Post by shanecleveland »

Try to look at what you do at your day-job from an outsider's perspective. What are some little things that to you seem trivial and obvious, but to an outsider would seem complex and foreign. There's opportunities there to package your knowledge into a tool or resource.

Example: i

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

#189

Post by dreem »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #141
simonbarker87 wrote: post #130

My side projects always come from personal needs, in each case I built it to solve my own problem before turning it in to a full product (summaries below). If you are going in with the sole intention of making money then make sure you know that there is a need for what you want to make and that you can get your project in front of people. You don't need to use the latest and greatest tech, in fact, I would urge you d…

Thanks to the person who highlighted a typo on taptimer.com and sent in the contact form about it - no email address supplied so I'm thanking them here.

The stock controller app states "Running our of component stock" which is probably supposed to be "Running out of component stock" in the component monitoring section.

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

#190

Post by billmalarky »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #130

My side projects always come from personal needs, in each case I built it to solve my own problem before turning it in to a full product (summaries below). If you are going in with the sole intention of making money then make sure you know that there is a need for what you want to make and that you can get your project in front of people. You don't need to use the latest and greatest tech, in fact, I would urge you d…

you look mad friendly dude! http://www.stockcontrollerapp.com/img/simon.png
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