Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#101

Post by thakobyan » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

I was in a similar situation as you except I have a full-time job. I started https://cronhub.io a year ago and it's currently a profitable side-business.

You don't need to focus on the idea too much. I think it's important but seeing other companies solving the same problem should not discourage you to come up with your own solution.

Take a look at these products for inspiration (https://www.indiehackers.com/products) and some of them solve a similar problem but they still co-exist.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#102

Post by ElijahLynn » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

gketuma wrote: post #73

weaksauce wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you do in that 5 weeks to make it profitable?

http://arthur-osx.com/

Just to clarify since you are responding like you authored the original post. Are you also the `johnnyrockit` account and just signed in under `gketuma`?

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#103

Post by ElijahLynn » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

gketuma wrote: post #71

RickS wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the extent you're willing to comment, I'd be interested in knowing about your criteria for selecting such a project. - was the domain related to your expertise, or in a niche that was new to you? - what made this project stand out from others / appear to have potential? - was codebase quality a factor in purchase? - do you inherit things other than software from the seller? EG customers, marketing channels, analyt…

http://arthur-osx.com/

Just to clarify since you are responding like you authored the original post. Are you also the `johnnyrockit` account and just signed in under `gketuma`?

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#104

Post by guytv » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

Varcht wrote: post #5

sigfubar wrote: post #3

If you ever find yourself thinking "If only there were a product that solves my problem XYZ? I'd pay money for that!", then you already know what to build. If you haven't had such thoughts yet, I'm sure others around you could make suggestions. You'll make even more money by building for a niche market that has been overlooked or underserved by technology companies. The more specific the market, the better, as these…

Don't forget to do some research to see if it already exists, often it does.

If it does not exist, most probably there's no market for it.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#105

Post by ElijahLynn » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

gketuma wrote: post #72

CodeCube wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bah, go ahead and link! you've demonstrated good will already by withholding the link ... but now I (and I'm sure we) are curious about it, if you're willing to share :)

http://arthur-osx.com/

Just to clarify since you are responding like you authored the original post. Are you also the `johnnyrockit` account and just signed in under `gketuma`?

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#106

Post by albertgoeswoof » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:46 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #62

halfjoking wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are probably a bunch on ProductHunt. For example https://remove.bg got a lot of upvotes - it probably uses this on the backend: https://github.com/tensorflow/models/tree/master/research/de...

So who would pay for that? I can’t imagine there’s much demand for an app to remove image backgrounds?

they’re selling API access, so someone who needs to do this en masse, eg if you had an app that needs avatars with a clear face pic, dating apps, etc. Perhaps researchers looking to analyse facial features who want to skip this step, law enforcement looking to clean up a bunch of selfies, media/tv companies building copy for ads, a photoshop plugin builder etc.

Building your own deep learning model is expensive and resource intensive, if it’s a solved problem it’s a great thing to outsource.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#107

Post by digitalnomd » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:52 PM UTC

I've found that the best problems to solve are the ones you're most interested in. What do you wish existed? What do you wish were better? Don't worry about making money at first. Just find something that you're passionate about creating.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#108

Post by ElijahLynn » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

ElijahLynn wrote: post #98

What is the name of the book/project that someone made to show one how to create a profitable side business without hiring anyone, AND who published their monthly income and list of projects? The guy who mentioned hiring a server guy every now and then. The beginning of the book was free to read and garbled the letters as you moved along.

Ah I remember now, it is the guy (Pieter Levels) who built Nomad List which started from a spreadsheet and probably more well known by the HN community, https://remoteok.io/ (and https://remoteok.io/open).

His recommendation is to build like 20 apps, not just one. And to do it all yourself, with little extra help.

The book is https://makebook.io. Sales data here https://makebook.io/open.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#109

Post by bbx » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

thakobyan wrote: post #101

I was in a similar situation as you except I have a full-time job. I started https://cronhub.io a year ago and it's currently a profitable side-business. You don't need to focus on the idea too much. I think it's important but seeing other companies solving the same problem should not discourage you to come up with your own solution. Take a look at these products for inspiration ( https://www.indiehackers.com/product…

Thanks for using Bulma ;-)

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#110

Post by mrskitch » Thu, Feb 14, 2019, 10:57 PM UTC

I, honestly, picked a library that I was passionate about (puppeteer) and sorted by either most commented or most reacted. This plus the fact that I was having hosting issues with Headless Chrome. browserless.io came quickly after.