Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#101

Post by chipocabra » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 12:29 PM UTC

fooandbarify wrote: post #26

astrofinch wrote: post #14

In case anyone is reading this thread and becoming pessimistic about their chances of achieving passive income, I'd like to note that there is a clear sampling bias: folks that have found profitable niches are less likely to share their projects for fear of attracting competition. I suspect that choosing a good niche is pretty important when it comes to passive-income type projects. It looks like the most profitable…

My most profitable side project actually plays in an extremely competitive space but I usually stay quiet about it because it's boring, extremely uncool, and borders on sleazy. Anyways, I wrote it in a weekend and it makes me about $400/month.

Boring AND sleazy. Now I'm intrigued.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#102

Post by shareme » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 12:32 PM UTC

edawerd wrote: post #37

As my Android apps started becoming more popular, I started seeing piracy of my apps skyrocket. At the time, Google didn't have their application licensing system in place, so I built my own. With the licensing system in place for my apps, I was also free to distribute and sell my application binary on my own, without fear of it being pirated. After seeing piracy drop dramatically and talking with other Android devel…

Looks like a useful too in android dev arsenal with Amazon Appstore launching..is there some type of blog post, etc as I would like to do some type of post for ChicagoAndroid.com which I am a member of..

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#103

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 12:46 PM UTC

fooandbarify wrote: post #26

astrofinch wrote: post #14

In case anyone is reading this thread and becoming pessimistic about their chances of achieving passive income, I'd like to note that there is a clear sampling bias: folks that have found profitable niches are less likely to share their projects for fear of attracting competition. I suspect that choosing a good niche is pretty important when it comes to passive-income type projects. It looks like the most profitable…

My most profitable side project actually plays in an extremely competitive space but I usually stay quiet about it because it's boring, extremely uncool, and borders on sleazy. Anyways, I wrote it in a weekend and it makes me about $400/month.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#104

Post by feelin_tired » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 12:49 PM UTC

joelg87 wrote: post #64

My most recent venture started out as a side project and is now becoming my main focus. It is a simple Twitter App which makes it easy to share more on Twitter whilst annoying your followers less (by helping you to avoid tweeting 5 links in a row within minutes). It took 7 weeks for me to take it from idea to launching the MVP (during most of the build period I had people using the service). I had my first paying cus…

Hey great to hear MVP works I was beginning to doubt the model :-)

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#105

Post by yahelc » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 1:00 PM UTC

While I was unemployed, I did conversions of sites to WordPress themes. I was fast enough at it that I could devote most of my time to other endeavors. Since I didn't do content creation for my domain, SEO was out of the question, so all my traffic came through AdWords. With well targeted keywords, my CPA was ~$20, and the average client took 5-10 hours of work, since they'd often want content migrations, too. It took a week until I made my first dollar, and for the few months I did it, I brought in ~$700 a week, while never taking up more 20-25 hours a week, while also doing more committed, serious freelance jobs. I dropped it, though, when I got a full time job, though I'd probably pick it up again if I found easy to work with subcontractors.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#106

Post by ovi256 » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 1:04 PM UTC

chipocabra wrote: post #101

fooandbarify wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My most profitable side project actually plays in an extremely competitive space but I usually stay quiet about it because it's boring, extremely uncool, and borders on sleazy. Anyways, I wrote it in a weekend and it makes me about $400/month.

Boring AND sleazy. Now I'm intrigued.

It's stripping for blind people.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#107

Post by thekevan » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 1:06 PM UTC

phirephly wrote: post #44

SeoxyS wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but I don't think $25/mo is worth cheapening my blog by plastering tasteless ads on it. I'd have to be pulling significant income from it before I would even consider putting ads on my blog.

http://kennethfinnegan.blogspot.com/ Text ads, top banner and bottom of right bar. $300 a year; as a college student, yeah, that's worth it.

I reloaded your blog after disabling adblock and barely noticed the ad. I don't blame you for keeping it there.

Why don't you have any ads on your C Programming Tips site? I'd be interested in the number of hits that gets compared to your blog.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#108

Post by Zecc » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 1:10 PM UTC

perlgeek wrote: post #80

allenbrunson wrote: post #53

i wrote an iOS card game that makes me about 300 bucks a month. i do almost no maintenance on it anymore. it would probably do a whole lot better if it had any kind of marketing behind it, but it's not really in my nature.

> it would probably do a whole lot better if it had any kind of marketing behind it, but it's not really in my nature. I've read quite some remarks like that here and in other places, and I've said it about some pages of mine too. Maybe it would be a good idea to build a marketplace where developers and marketing people can get together, and share the additional profit that the additional marketing generates. If anyb…

> Maybe it would be a good idea to build a marketplace where > developers and marketing people can get together, and share > the additional profit that the additional marketing generates.

Sounds like something someone could pick up as a side-project and maybe even earn some passive income. :)

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#109

Post by barnsweetman » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 1:10 PM UTC

http://www.StatusCrap.com http://www.TodaysBigDouche.com http://www.Whack-a-Deal.com

Status Crap took about a year to make some income (currently gets about 250,000 page views a month and growing between 10-40% each month). I've been trying to launch side projects since I was 17 though haha!

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#110

Post by thenduks » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 1:19 PM UTC

I'd been working on a bug tracker as a side project for almost a year (strictly as an off-hours hobby type thing) but as I got closer to an (awesome :)) working product we decided to turn it into the real thing. Thus my 'day job' employer (now co-founders of the new company) were the first customer. In fact, we've been quietly sitting on it for a while, maybe it's time to post an Ask HN...