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

281–290 of 744 posts

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

#281

Post by jv22222 »

gottebp wrote: post #32

Breville coffee grinders are impossible to get internal parts for. I designed a 3D printed upgrade for the main wear-part in their BCG800XL and BCG600SIL Grinders. The storefront is through ShapeWays[1] and I use iFixit[2],[3] to drive the traffic. It passively makes enough to cover my own coffee needs forever. I spend about 20 minutes per month fielding questions. This all happened because my grinder failed and I co…

This is my favorite side project that I've ever heard of. It's so cool how you stumbled into it and there's a lot of scope for other products too!

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

#282

Post by jawns »

I write nonfiction books.

I used to be a magazine/newspaper editor. About eight years ago, I made a career change and became a full-time programmer. But I wanted to continue to write. So I wrote a book proposal, found an agent who loved it, found some publishers who were interested, and went with a publisher who offered a two-book deal.

My first book, "Experimenting With Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid" (http://www.experimentingwithbabies.com) ended up selling pretty well.

My second book, "Correlated: Surprising Connections Between Seemingly Unrelated Things," (http://www.correlated.org) did not do nearly as well. In fact, it bombed pretty hard. I assumed my book writing career was over.

But because of the strength of "Experimenting With Babies," I ended up getting two more book deals, each of which follow a similar format.

"Experiments for Newlyweds: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform With Your Spouse" (https://newlywed.science) came out earlier this month. I'm really proud of it. You should give it to any engaged couples you know.

And "Experimenting on Kids: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Children Ages 2-5" will hit bookstores in May 2020.

If you factor in advances, royalties, foreign rights, and other secondary deals, the amount I've made from my books is about what I make in a year as a programmer. So it's a nice chunk of change, but also a decent amount of work.

Advice to anyone else who's considering writing a book:

* You can do well with self-publishing if you're really good at marketing your own stuff, already have a strong platform, and don't need to depend on an advance. If any of those things aren't true, you're probably better trying to get a book deal with a traditional publisher.

* Writing the book is often not the hardest part. Selling the book is often the hardest part. If you just want to write, but you don't want to sell, this might not be the side project for you.

* If you have a literary agent, you typically pay 15 percent commission. And boy is it worth it.

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

#283

Post by Insanity »

grecy wrote: post #94

I've written a couple of books that sell on Amazon and Apple iBooks - it takes zero minutes per month work for me, but brings a nice little side income. I won't get rich, but it's nice to have the money come in for doing nothing after I hit the "publish" button. Even the printed books cost nothing. I'm about to hit publish on a photo coffee-table book from my three years around Africa, and I'll write an Africa guide…

Really cool idea! What tools do you use to write the books? And how long did it take for you to write one?

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

#284

Post by gottebp »

grogenaut wrote: post #279
gottebp wrote: post #32

Breville coffee grinders are impossible to get internal parts for. I designed a 3D printed upgrade for the main wear-part in their BCG800XL and BCG600SIL Grinders. The storefront is through ShapeWays[1] and I use iFixit[2],[3] to drive the traffic. It passively makes enough to cover my own coffee needs forever. I spend about 20 minutes per month fielding questions. This all happened because my grinder failed and I co…

are you concerned about the low amounts of ground nylon that your customers (or really the original customers) were ingesting if this part does wear down over time?

PA2200 Nylon is not water soluble so any particles would stay with the discarded grounds. It’s pretty harmless stuff anyway. Breville’s version wears fast but the ShapeWays one has held up really well. Check out the two year wear study on the ShapeWays shop page; I am really happy with how minimal it is.

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

#285

Post by gniv »

gottebp wrote: post #32

Breville coffee grinders are impossible to get internal parts for. I designed a 3D printed upgrade for the main wear-part in their BCG800XL and BCG600SIL Grinders. The storefront is through ShapeWays[1] and I use iFixit[2],[3] to drive the traffic. It passively makes enough to cover my own coffee needs forever. I spend about 20 minutes per month fielding questions. This all happened because my grinder failed and I co…

Hmm. So my rearview camera in my car just died and a bit of research revealed it's a common problem with this car model. Maybe I should try to fix it.

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

#286

Post by dyarosla »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #113
gottebp wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to if time permits. There is a huge untapped market here. The difficulty is in locating the parts that are both unavailable and 3D printable. I keep it in the back of my head as I repair other items. So much expensive stuff ends up in a landfill over a tiny part. I could see someday having a github project for replacement parts, each one iterating and getting better an better -- far beyond the original.

> parts that are both unavailable Depends on your pricing and margins. There's a huge number of parts that are available but ridiculously priced, often coming out an order of magnitude in excess of what seems reasonable. Take for instance a kettle scale filter. OK you probably can't 3d print these, but for something so simple they're insanely priced - £5-£15 for a bit of plastic. A whole kettle with filter costs typi…

After material costs, time, shipping, advertising, & customer support, how much margin do you think there is to make on a part that already sells at £5-15 (ESP in an environment where spending £15-30 to get a new one is an accepted norm already)?

This is def not viable from my view- at least not for parts that are this cheap already.

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

#287

Post by tcmb »

ynac wrote: post #109

* Act as a standby for dish pits at the local restaurants - filling in only when someone doesn't show since I don't want to take what could be a lifeline job for someone AND having a standby like me means they can keep their job instead of just being a no-show * Write articles for other people - usually on topics I really don't have a lot of knowledge or feeling about to start. * Mow lawns - I'm allergic to grass. Bu…

> Write articles for other people

That sounds interesting. What kind of people, and how do they find you? Where are the articles published? How much time do you usually have for writing them (days, weeks, months?) Do they get published under your name or the buyer's name?

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

#288

Post by gulleyd »

grecy wrote: post #258
gulleyd wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually like to hear a little more about why the tolerances were poor. Were the major diameters the issue here? I could see a lot of adjustment happening on a car-to-car basis to get concentricity between the alternator fan and the shroud just right. I have very little experience with Porsches, but am a coordinate metrologist for a major aerospace parts manufacturer. I don't see something like this being a h…

You're right, it was a cast part that had been machined, and (from memory) the machining was not precise enough to locate the alternator (and thus the fan) in the exact center. It kind of seemed liked a backyard job, but the price was anything but. I think from memory the inside of the circle (which was cast) was not perfectly round. From memory the original Porsche part was titanium, and this replacement was aluminu…

It doesn't surprise me in the least that circularity on the casting would be messed up, you would just think that the person on the mill would have the presence of mind to take a look at it before sending it off to the end-user. We reject castings pretty regularly, and that ID could be turned true without a great deal of difficulty provided the deviation in roundness didn't exceed something like 1/2 material thickness.

What doesn't sit right with me is the fact that for a small run, the price of even an aluminum casting would absolutely motivate me to get it right the first time. At the level of volume that the guy would have to be operating at, I would be test-fitting every part to a car before sending it out the door.

I feel like the relative scarcity of air-cooled 911s coupled with the difficulty of machining the part correctly as a third party is why the part itself is so hard to come by. If a person were motivated, though, there is definitely another way to make a suitable replacement more cheaply and easily with a modified design. That's provided someone is okay with not having a completely factory 911.

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

#289

Post by grogenaut »

MrFoof wrote: post #249
SegFaultCDumped wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are a few mechanics who stream on twitch... however that does require some level of interaction and distraction which may just be annoying to you, but doesn't require the post processing. However it's a decent sales pitch and if you do enjoy interactive with people and networking it can be pretty good.

I'd love to see your shop or even just time lapses. I really enjoy watching cnc and hand builds on youtube. It's very helpful to watch these to see what's really involved in say pulling the front end off of a mini-cooper.

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

#290

Post by imglorp »

grecy wrote: post #94

I've written a couple of books that sell on Amazon and Apple iBooks - it takes zero minutes per month work for me, but brings a nice little side income. I won't get rich, but it's nice to have the money come in for doing nothing after I hit the "publish" button. Even the printed books cost nothing. I'm about to hit publish on a photo coffee-table book from my three years around Africa, and I'll write an Africa guide…

Any hints about publishing a coffee table photo book? I have a photo journalism project in mind.
Post reply on HN