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

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

#321

Post by joshdance »

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.'

Hadn't heard of Chris Fix before. Here is a link to his channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/PaintballOO7/featured

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

#322

Post by blhack »

pmorici wrote: post #173
0x00000000 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that illegal everywhere in the US without a dealer license?

No, there is no law anywhere in the US prohibiting you from selling a used car in a private transaction.

Not true. There is a limit to the number of times you can sell a car per year before you get a dealers license.

(I have several companies in this space)

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

#323

Post by HenryBemis »

heywire wrote: post #291
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…

I use a super cheap hand grinder I bought off amazon (the stainless steel one that there are 100 different variations of on amazon). There is a plastic part that breaks after about 6 months of usage. Someone modeled and uploaded a replacement piece to Thingiverse. The grinder is cheap enough that it is disposable, but since it is so easy to print a replacement piece with my $179 3D printer, I haven’t needed to throw…

Who you mind sharing what printer make and model you are using?

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

#326

Post by ironSkillet »

pryelluw wrote: post #31

I do business strategy for startups through topographical business maps. It's the best strategy tool out there and helps avoid costly mistakes. It also aides in acquiring funding.

Do you mean "topological" business maps?

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

#327

Post by robocat »

wycy wrote: post #303
MrFoof wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bread and butter is the Lexus RX, Acura MDX, Honda CR-V and Toyota Highlander. There is zero issue putting them out the door, because the demand is insane. I've also started with Toyota Priuses because there's high-demand, most mechanics are allergic to batteries, and people dump them for cheap over any battery pack issue. Though I've worked on a ton of stuff, the above is where there's A) enough people owning the ab…

If you were to start selling BMWs/Audis/Mercs, you might also find your reputation suffering if/when things go wrong shortly after purchase. You're probably better off sticking to reselling the more reliable brands.

Every reliable source for lifetime cost of maintenance I have ever seen shows Toyota is the cheapest, that most other Japanese brands are close behind, and European brands are way more expensive e.g.

https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/the-most-and-least-expe...

That certainly matches what I've seen happen with my friend's cars: Toyotas just keep going and are cheap to fix, Euro cars have something bust earlier in their lifetime and usually outrageously costly to repair.

I am from NZ and as a country we keep driving second hand cars until they are uneconomic to fix, and maybe half of the cars imported from overseas are second hand Japanese cars. We don't have a lot of American cars but my own limited experience with them is that they are as unreliable and costly as the European cars.

You can find some individual models within other brands that are reliable, however if you are buying a car that is 5 to 10 years old, you can't yet know if the model you are getting is a good one, so buying by brand actually makes sense. Quote from article about maintenance costs: "Toyota completely avoids the the most expensive models list" which helps averages (although I think they used median costs in that article).

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

#328

Post by okusa »

tolk460 wrote: post #130

Firefighter/medic and wildland fire contractor. I pull in about 15% of my base tech salary doing a few hours of work a week and one wildland fire deployment per year. It's a hobby that turned into a side profession and feels great to help people. The increased risk of cancer is a big downside. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/firefighters/health.html

I've just moved to the US. Any details about how to get involved in this? What are the base requirements to work as a medic for this kind of work, would MIRA qualify?

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

#329

Post by grogenaut »

MrFoof wrote: post #305
grogenaut wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It would be impossible to hit my target level of quality live, without heavy investment in the environment, lightning, video equipment, and honestly the help of someone when filming. If I can't hit my own targets, I just don't do something. The videos would also be too long. Part of why ChrisFix is so well known is he has high-quality, edited, to-the-point content that packs everything into a concise high-quality vid…

Sure, I'm not going trying tell you what to do. You're the content creator, you need to do what you feel works or you won't make good content.

They're 2 different things, eg there's a huge difference between say ChrisFX and a twitch stream for a mechanic, though they're both basically build logs at the end of the day.

Twitch is definitely more the low overhead mass content version of content. Similar to the Howard Stern Show, or Car Talk, as opposed to The Grand Tour. Thousands of hours of contents as opposed to hundreds, or 10s.

I was just pointing out there's a market for the mass quantity content.

It's actually one of the things I DONT like about the produced car rebuild shows, they often edit out stuff just to make it entertaining to everyone, where I'm wanting to watch just to see the whole thing and the techniques. Much more like slow tv. I'm totally happy to skip through parts I don't care about.

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