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

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311–320 of 744 posts

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

#313
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…

I recently ordered a part for my daughters dresser drawer - the Kenlin Rite-TrackII, and paid $12 for four including shipping. 6 to 7 years ago I paid $68 for a single part. To my surprise when I opened my recent plastic mailer envelope, I discovered it was a 3D printed piece. Any idea how one can 3d scan a part for exact copy?

There are a few services including Autodesk ReCap which you can give a number of high quality photos and a 3D model will be produced which you can then scale appropriately in your CAD software

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

#314
post #206
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually really really want to do this! It's a chicken and egg thing: do I try to get this 1 product profitable, and then use those profits to invest in new product lines? Or do I try to do multiple versions of the product at first (which comes at higher cost, since I'd start with a small production first?) Also need to figure out how to ship to Europe more cheaply, since right now I'm sending everything from my li…

Maybe printing in Europe might already help? – See www.wir-machen-druck.de, probably the most inexpensive German printery (try Google Translator). I can imagine using Amazon and its FBA service might be an option here – not sure if that's something you'd like to consider.

if you're looking for printing services in germany: https://www.druckpreis.de/

and it appears they have at least some info for some other european countries :-)

disclaimer: not affiliated with them, though i did some work for them a few years ago

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

#315

I started creating apps when the first store was opened. It makes almost 10 m times more than my normal job (team lead, developer). Still I have no desire to quit my day job. If I manage to keep this going for another 5 years I will reach a point where I have enough money to live my life without any financial issues.

Care to share apps?

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

#317
post #126
post #58

Attempting to make money making side projects and instead just expensing servers and subcontractors and getting the tax refund from everything my employer withheld by April

You aren’t really making money here. Just getting the money you made back.

Obviously? Thats why it says “and instead just” after “attempting to make money”?

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

#318

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…

Wow! Thank you! I've been reading DI for years and years!

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

#319
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about it like this. The logical conclusion of people acting like you did is that credit card issuers increase interest rates to make up for their losses. That makes life worse for everyone but the people exploiting the loophole. You’re no different from the people who exaggerate their losses to insurance companies in order to claim extra insurance money. Because of them, premiums have gone up. You might see you…

Thanks for the reply. There is a clear difference between claiming extra insurance money and what I'm doing: lying to get more insurance money is fraud, while what I'm doing is exactly what the service is intended for (sending money to others for free). But using your framework of, "if everyone did this, how would this affect the business and others using the business," then I (and many others) are doing a lot of oth…

You may be following the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law.

The cashback was created as an incentive, you found a way to exploit the business model for personal gain in ways that can have an impact on others ability to enjoy the system while having a material impact on the provider of the service. Most in your position will say "but I am only a small piece of the cog" however, if a small minority starts to think the same way, it can have a real impact on a variety of things, including trust between parties.

Everyone tries to rationalize their actions, whether it is or becomes socially acceptable is another matter.

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

#320
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clever. Do you have the intention to make more replacement parts for other products?

The hard part is finding appliances that need fixing. This is super easy if you happen to own a lot do things that break. If not, it becomes quite boring and tedious to scout out things that are breaking for other people, that you have no personal motivation to fix, to get the broken appliance and then figure out the 3d model for the bad part.

Depending on the long-term economics, it might be worthwhile to work as a repair technician for some time and gather repairs.
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