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Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

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Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#91
post #10
post #5

No one wants to advertise their money making niche ideas, especially if they are easy to copy.

Ideas are not worth much. Only execution matters.

I love this terrible sentence. But no (unfortunately). The idea is everything. A great idea and terrible team usually succeeds. An amazing team and terrible idea almost always fails.

VCs can only control the team. That is why they push this idea really hard.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#92
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty cool! How about turning this into a service where other people can lease their own GPU hardware? Either through your website or by offering it as a sort of turnkey solution.

Already exists: https://vast.ai/

Yes if it already exists lets certainly not make it

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#93
I’m a full time developer but own a gym. By accident! I went to take over a building as office space that was a liquidated gym. Signed the lease and the day before we moved in the owner called and said we can’t remove the equipment as it was all put in before the stairs. I asked a lot of questions about why the gym didn’t work, had already seen the equipment in there and did some negotiating on purchasing the kit, knowing I could still convert an area to offices. The gyms main failure was due to the cost of staff. So I fully automated everything, door access, lights, aircon, TVs etc etc. Built a membership system. Making it a fully automated unmanned gym! We then recruited a freelance personal trainer who does all the inductions in return for advertising and doing PT in our facility with no charge. 2 years in and it’s making £4,000 profit a month with minimal costs. Now looking to buy the building. Gym: https://180fitness.co.uk Me: https://roybarber.com

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#94

I’m a full time developer but own a gym. By accident! I went to take over a building as office space that was a liquidated gym. Signed the lease and the day before we moved in the owner called and said we can’t remove the equipment as it was all put in before the stairs. I asked a lot of questions about why the gym didn’t work, had already seen the equipment in there and did some negotiating on purchasing the kit, kn…

Congrats. I generally understand that you made lemons from lemonade. But am confused about the machines problem. Was it a misunderstanding by the owner, who thought you wanted to run a gym? Was he trying to scam you? Does that mean you can't bring equipement into the building also? So you can never, say, replace an outdated treadmill with a newer treadmill?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#96

https://www.traccar.org/ It's an open source GPS tracking solution. We make money on SaaS, support and customisation services. Some of it basically passive income from subscriptions, some is new development.

This is pretty cool. Extra liquid nitro cool because you’ve found a way to make a living from open source.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#97
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideas are not worth much. Only execution matters.

I love this terrible sentence. But no (unfortunately). The idea is everything. A great idea and terrible team usually succeeds. An amazing team and terrible idea almost always fails. VCs can only control the team. That is why they push this idea really hard.

They idea is not worth much in the sense that if you thought of it, there is a 98% chance someone else has thought of it before you, and 95% chance a few others are already doing it. The remaining few percents on both cases determine that the idea is not worth much. Great ideas with done badly can succeed, but those successes are usually short term and fade away, in particular when someone else copies the idea and does it better. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Really. Not that hard to come up with them. Coming through with one to a launch and running a business with it - that's the hard part.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#98
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideas are not worth much. Only execution matters.

That's not true, witness many deals for movie plots, where people simply pitch an idea and outline, and collect, sometimes big, money. Of course the movie does actually have to be made, and well, to succeed, but the idea for it is valuable in itself, so long as it is actually an original and interesting idea. A cynic might suggest that VCs spread the "ideas are worthless" meme for their own benefit. Or perhaps they o…

Films are not startups. A film is a sum of it's parts in a very even way. A good film must have a good story AND good acting and good cinematography, and good music. When the balance is broken the film suffers in some regards. When that balance is too broken it flops. Also, a film has a life shelf of a month give or take (in Cinema). Businesses hope to last (just a bit) longer.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#99

Built WooRender to allow easy access to GPU compute. Basically leasing my deep learning server with 10x 1080ti cards for $100/day. https://woorender.com

Wow this is very cool. Can you share how much you're making?

Launched two weeks ago and had 5 days rented out so far. There is demand for this but a lot of capital expenditure. The server itself is $20k+ and then you have hosting. I am using a DC in bay area and it is $1200/month for server. So I can't say this is a business, more like an experiment right now.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#100
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this terrible sentence. But no (unfortunately). The idea is everything. A great idea and terrible team usually succeeds. An amazing team and terrible idea almost always fails. VCs can only control the team. That is why they push this idea really hard.

They idea is not worth much in the sense that if you thought of it, there is a 98% chance someone else has thought of it before you, and 95% chance a few others are already doing it. The remaining few percents on both cases determine that the idea is not worth much. Great ideas with done badly can succeed, but those successes are usually short term and fade away, in particular when someone else copies the idea and do…

"Ideas are a dime a dozen. Really. "

Really? Pitch me one.

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