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Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

#71

Post by fdw »

fadys wrote: post #54

I built https://hnrecommends.com a little while ago. It's the start of a curated list of Hacker News recommendations. I'm adding recommendations and products daily. It's made a few dollars from affiliate links so far.

Thanks, that looks quite interesting. I have already found a book I might like.

> I'm adding recommendations and products daily. Do you add the recommendations manually or do you use a crawler/API to copy the comment? How automatic is it?

Finally, I have two suggestions: You're only selling to people in the US. Maybe you could also add links to other Amazon domains (or use a service like geni.us)?

And how about linking back to the comment thread? Sometimes, a comment only makes sense in its context, and I couldn't find a link back.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

#72

Post by tstegart »

I built https://basicbands.com/ a fashion blog about watch straps. Its not very much work. Brands send me photography and I post it, or go to websites and request it and people send pictures to me to post. When I have time I write an article, but now most of the obvious articles have been written (how to replace your watch strap, etc), so I don't do that as much.

It's an affiliate income model, and it makes me enough to buy groceries and have a few nights out a month. It's much more fun than I expected it to be though. Turns out there are a lot of custom leather workers out there doing watch straps as a hobby and they produce AMAZING work, just incredible. Stingray leather, horween, lizard, I had no idea this stuff existed before I started. They are also a lot of fun to contact and hear their stories, so now I send them interview questions by email and post those. All in all I'm very happy with it. I got my inspiration from this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/juststart/

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

#73

Post by alanlamm »

fadys wrote: post #54

I built https://hnrecommends.com a little while ago. It's the start of a curated list of Hacker News recommendations. I'm adding recommendations and products daily. It's made a few dollars from affiliate links so far.

Criticism and downvotes u have received aside, I like the idea! consolidating the recommendations adds value. This is smthg I would use.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

#74

Post by anoncoward111 »

thrower123 wrote: post #47

Real estate. The downstairs apartment gets me a cool $1700 a month for almost no work. If you're going to buy a first house, it's worth it to go for a multifamily; up to four units you can still get in under FHA, you just have to live in one for a couple of years.

Until they stop paying rent and trash the place and squat and sue you for any imperfection such as accidental loss of heat in the apartment, while simultaneously not letting the boiler repairman in the house.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

#75

Post by bluntfang »

max76 wrote: post #37
enraged_camel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound very passive to me.

Authoring a book is very passive income. Passive income is defined as high upfront work and very low maintenance work. Other than possible marketing tasks the author's job is done once the book is published and collects money on every sale.

I wouldn't include "high upfront work" as part of the definition. It could be close to no work and still generate income.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

#76

Post by dana321 »

greysteil wrote: post #14

I built https://dependabot.com to be passive, but ended up going full time on it (the startup I was working on feel through). Generates $9k/month passively, but I put my full-time energy into growing it (adding new languages / improving support for existing ones).

That is awesome, well done.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

#78

Post by thrower123 »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #74
thrower123 wrote: post #47

Real estate. The downstairs apartment gets me a cool $1700 a month for almost no work. If you're going to buy a first house, it's worth it to go for a multifamily; up to four units you can still get in under FHA, you just have to live in one for a couple of years.

Until they stop paying rent and trash the place and squat and sue you for any imperfection such as accidental loss of heat in the apartment, while simultaneously not letting the boiler repairman in the house.

Well, it helps if you put a little effort into renovating the place, so that it attracts a different type of clientele and prices out the riffraff.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

#79

Post by fadys »

fdw wrote: post #71
fadys wrote: post #54

I built https://hnrecommends.com a little while ago. It's the start of a curated list of Hacker News recommendations. I'm adding recommendations and products daily. It's made a few dollars from affiliate links so far.

Thanks, that looks quite interesting. I have already found a book I might like. > I'm adding recommendations and products daily. Do you add the recommendations manually or do you use a crawler/API to copy the comment? How automatic is it? Finally, I have two suggestions: You're only selling to people in the US. Maybe you could also add links to other Amazon domains (or use a service like geni.us)? And how about linki…

I do it all manually, but I use the API to get the actual comment text. I have been collecting recommendations for years. This is my way of organizing and sharing them.

Amazon has a service called OneLink that supposedly routes users to the Amazon store that's closest to their country (presumably, from their IP address). I'm using it (a simple script tag) but I don't know how reliable it is.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018?

#80

Post by anoncoward111 »

thrower123 wrote: post #78
anoncoward111 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until they stop paying rent and trash the place and squat and sue you for any imperfection such as accidental loss of heat in the apartment, while simultaneously not letting the boiler repairman in the house.

Well, it helps if you put a little effort into renovating the place, so that it attracts a different type of clientele and prices out the riffraff.

Agree, but unpredictable things do happen either way and more importantly, you need to have immense operating capital and cash flow to bring in the top of the market.

I for one could probably only afford to be a landlord of a 250-400k property here in NY, not a 700k one!

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