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Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

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171–180 of 252 posts

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

#171
post #76

I made ~$4000 last month by arbitraging crypto currencies on 3 markets. I use a bot to do the work for me, but I monitor it very closely and I spend a lot of optimizing the old code. I don't have much money on the exchanges because I don't trust them but I could make much more if I wanted to risk more.

How are you dealing with the liquidity problem though? Are you just leaving the coins in your wallet(s) or are you actually cashing out regularly (i.e. selling the coins for $)?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

#173
post #152
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you get to that size of nest egg through investing?

At this point, of the 300k, about 225k is from contributions (savings) and 75k is from gains. The bigger the account gets though, the bigger a percentage the gains will be as the account grows faster than my annual income does.

Nice, that's awesome you were able to save so much. What expenses did you cut to be able to save like that? What are your non-negotiable expenses?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

#174
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an amateur voice actor and felt like I knew my audience pretty well.

And how did you market it initially? Did you market it to voice artists or clients? How?

I had about 10 years worth of voice acting contacts that I reached out to.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 3rd party providers are underrated when it comes to building side income streams.

I think it's the easiest way. Creating your own app or service from scratch, marketing it, and retaining users long-term is nearly impossible (seems like). All of those problems are solved by integrating with a 3rd party.. Granted, that has it's own risks and limitations, but seems worth it for small side projects.

Exactly. Just wondering are there any other third party platforms you are excited about? Recently I was checking - https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/

but can't find how revenue works on there.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

#176
post #20

Nearing $1500/mo on ads and affiliate links, been running since 2009, did not monetize until 2015: https://worldoftea.org/

Nice! I have a similar but much younger / smaller site for comic books. I would love to hear what you did to pay your early contributors, as right now it's just me, and I think that's the next step. I have no issue finding writers, but I'm not sure what I should pay them, how I should structure that relationship, or if there's any legal stuff I should look out for.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

#177
post #6

I screen scrape camping reservations and send out notifications when a campsite becomes available. http://reserve.wanderinglabs.com/ Currently working on integrating the new CA reserve website. It is a shit show.

Interesting premium payment options. Can you share a rough breakdown of what people have paid? Do you think if you made the low end $5/$15 it would change revenue much?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

#178

My domain name and social media handle search tool has been humming along nicely for 5+ years now and produces a modest amount of profit each month. https://namevine.com/ It makes money from domain name registrations it refers via affiliate links. I've been playing with the idea of adding "pro" features for a couple of years now but I worry anything that detracts from its simplicity may hurt sales.

I'm a fan of namevine. I use it when I'm brainstorming projects or figuring out names. As for a pro feature - I think that notification when something becomes available or a domain/account marketplace might be useful.

Thanks, I'm glad you like it and use it. If you've got a moment, I have a few Qs that would help me understand what you're describing here.

What would be an example of the notification you're thinking of here? Like domains matching a keyword? Or a specific one?

The idea of a marketplace definitely does make sense. Were you thinking as a buyer or seller?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

#179

My domain name and social media handle search tool has been humming along nicely for 5+ years now and produces a modest amount of profit each month. https://namevine.com/ It makes money from domain name registrations it refers via affiliate links. I've been playing with the idea of adding "pro" features for a couple of years now but I worry anything that detracts from its simplicity may hurt sales.

Just a note on twitter - it looks like there is a false positive for the availability of 'wood' There isn't an (obvious) account with that name, but twitter doesn't let me register it. I don't know if it is a blocked keyword or private or what.

Yeah the false positives are such a pain.

I've been maintaining a manual list (thanks for the @wood addition) but otherwise haven't really figured out a way to definitively sort through these.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2017 – Show and tell

#180
post #32

I make over 700$ per month through patreon for my open source work, primarily https://github.com/ory/hydra . Hydra started as a side project for a work-for-hire project. After getting bashed by people for it being trash (it was, mostly due to bad dependencies but also due to bad architecture), I rewrote it (and the libraries enabling it) and now it's one of the go-to services for getting an OAuth2 server up and runni…

So why don't you have a public profile on Patreon? I mean I can't see how much you make on your Patreon page.
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