Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 744 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#241

Post by gkfasdfasdf »

DamnInteresting wrote: post #229

I established DamnInteresting.com in 2005, a place where myself and handful of others produce original long-form non-fiction in article and podcast form. Despite plenty of traffic, it didn't reach the break-even point for several years, because I despise advertisements and I refused to add them to my site. I funded the project in other ways, such as donations, publishing a book, licensing content, etc. Nowadays it st…

Just want to say thank you. I wish more sites on the internet put out quality content like yours!

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#242

Post by kkaranth »

DamnInteresting wrote: post #229

I established DamnInteresting.com in 2005, a place where myself and handful of others produce original long-form non-fiction in article and podcast form. Despite plenty of traffic, it didn't reach the break-even point for several years, because I despise advertisements and I refused to add them to my site. I funded the project in other ways, such as donations, publishing a book, licensing content, etc. Nowadays it st…

This looks neat. I'll be sure to read a few articles from here.

Why the curated section though? I think it distracts to have links to articles from NYTime or Wired on the side.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#243

Post by MarceColl »

singingwolfboy wrote: post #237
MarceColl wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of things do you help people with?

Usually dealing with stress, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Sometimes helping people change habits: work out more, lose weight, etc.

I'm going through some really tough times and I'm very interested in things that can help me change my behavior. How would you describe what hypnosis does to a person to help them overcome these things?

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#244

Post by pkd »

netman21 wrote: post #198
denormalfloat wrote: post #72

Invest in an S&P 500 ETF. This is probably the lowest effort side project you can have which still makes money. Also, if you learn about the stock market, it makes you more confident in how your savings looks, how your retirement will look, how to manage money, etc.

I am put off by ETF performance thanks to my results last year. I had a SEP IRA for my business with $1,000 in it and a traditional IRA with $6,000. I bought a pharmaceutical ETF with the SEP IRA. After a year it lost about 5%. Meanwhile the trad IRA grew to $10,500 investing in companies I know.

That's because you bought an industry-specific ETF. So any imbalance in that industry would noticeably affect your holdings in the short period. General advice is to buy diversified ETFs (like the S&P 500 as the OP said) and hold them for long periods of time. It's a very different strategy from buying and selling individual stocks over a short term.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#245

Post by tyingq »

holoduke wrote: post #230
grecy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. A friend buys and restores old Porsche 911s. He will pay anything for custom made parts that are rare as hens teeth. As an example there is a housing around the main cooling fan that seems to be titanium or aluminum or something very exotic. [1] A company does sell a replacement, which he paid a fortune for, which had garbage tolerances and we spent weeks modifying it until it fit more or less well enough. I su…

I am into older Maserati's. Own a couple of them. I do a lot of manufacturing myself. 3d printing, cncing. The problem is that whenever I design a replacement panel, wishbones or various other stuff and try to sell them commercialy I will get sued by the original Maserati company. On a low scale it's fine, but you will never get a living out of it. The only parts which are in a gray area are rims, exhausts, filters,…

Interesting. I suppose you could stick with manufacturers that either don't care, or are long defunct.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#246

Post by youshy »

puranjay wrote: post #33

I'm an amateur musician. I have a website where I review music gear, especially MIDI keyboards (have a bunch of them). It brings in a steady $1k+/month almost completely passively through Amazon affiliate commissions

Something I've been looking to do myself! AFAIK the rate is around 6%? Willing to share the website - would be mega interested in reading!

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#247

Post by rossenberg79 »

chmullig wrote: post #6
rossenberg79 wrote: post #3

I woodwork at a local makershop, I started out making random things for my home and when I no longer had ideas for other stuff I wanted I’d make things and give them away for free to friends. Eventually other people wanted to know if I can make them custom pieces so I began doing it for money, mostly to cover cost of materials and a bit of time for labor. Not making big money from it but it’s fulfilling work and good…

I've been enjoying some minor woodworking as a purely hobby. I agree, it's great fun, and I think there is some common idea along with building software. Wondering what you've found to be a reasonable amount of income vs work for sale? I'm not really interested in making money, but covering costs and feeling satisfaction would be good.

I give a fixed cost so materials cost x 2 is usually a good starting point for a minimum price, then add on if you think it's going to be very labor intensive.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#248

Post by telesilla »

memset wrote: post #7

I make and sell staff paper notebooks for musicians: https://www.themusiciansnotebook.com/ I'm an avid saxophone player and am taking evening classes in theory, so I made this to solve a problem that I myself had. Nothing else like it on the market! Every part of this notebook is automatically generated with a bunch of python scripts: the cover design, the interior, the line placement, the margins. The program basica…

Please find a way to ship these to Europe! It would become my new notebook of choice in a heartbeat but I run through them like (insert some kind of simile here). I would also happily share this with all my musician friends.

Re: Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?

#249

Post by MrFoof »

SegFaultCDumped wrote: post #95
MrFoof wrote: post #84

I buy cars, repair them and recondition them to my level of satisfaction, and send them back out the door, typically targeting 55-65 year olds. I focus mostly on entry level luxury crossovers around 7 to 10 years old, though starting to also do hybrids since there’s more profit in it since everyone is seemingly allergic to batteries and pack replacement/rebuilds. Parts are cheap, I listen to music or a podcast, I do…

Can you make YouTube videos about it? I watch Chris Fix all the time, not for educational purpose (I don't own a car), but because they are so freaking satisfying to watch. Seeing things go from 'meh' to 'wow.'

I think the unfortunate reality of ChrisFix is to make videos at that level of quality... takes real time and effort -- plus a vehicle that merits actual work he's not done a video on yet. Hence he only puts out one or two a month, but they're of an extraordinarily high quality, which is evident in his sub numbers and view count.

I've considered making videos, but the reality at the moment is there's not yet the time to do it to my level of quality. At least not yet.

Post reply on HN