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Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

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11–20 of 49 posts

Re: Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

#11

I'm a designer-turned-developer and created a nice-looking solitaire card game website: https://online-solitaire.com/ . It's making me around $1500 a month. My approach was to find a nice of apps that where already popular and then see if I could make it better.

I looked at the site and there doesn't seem to be ads. How much does it cost to host?

Re: Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

#12

I'm a designer-turned-developer and created a nice-looking solitaire card game website: https://online-solitaire.com/ . It's making me around $1500 a month. My approach was to find a nice of apps that where already popular and then see if I could make it better.

nice work, well done, fun to play, is your revenue all just from your sidebar ads?

Re: Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

#13

I'm a designer-turned-developer and created a nice-looking solitaire card game website: https://online-solitaire.com/ . It's making me around $1500 a month. My approach was to find a nice of apps that where already popular and then see if I could make it better.

I looked at the site and there doesn't seem to be ads. How much does it cost to host?

Sorry for the confusion. Forgot to mention they only appear after a while. After you've played 5 games (if I remember correctly) they'll start to appear.

I think I spend about $60 a month hosting it. My biggest expense right now is Moz which is $100/month.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

#14
post #12

I'm a designer-turned-developer and created a nice-looking solitaire card game website: https://online-solitaire.com/ . It's making me around $1500 a month. My approach was to find a nice of apps that where already popular and then see if I could make it better.

nice work, well done, fun to play, is your revenue all just from your sidebar ads?

Yup... if you have any ideas for other potential revenue streams, let me know :-).

Re: Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

#15

I'm a designer-turned-developer and created a nice-looking solitaire card game website: https://online-solitaire.com/ . It's making me around $1500 a month. My approach was to find a nice of apps that where already popular and then see if I could make it better.

cool! I opened it just to check it out and ended playing my first solitaire game in (probably) a decade.

Haha... I hope you enjoyed it. Hit me up at contact@online-solitaire.com if you have any suggestions or feedback for the site :-).

Re: Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

#16

I'm a designer-turned-developer and created a nice-looking solitaire card game website: https://online-solitaire.com/ . It's making me around $1500 a month. My approach was to find a nice of apps that where already popular and then see if I could make it better.

Any tips on becoming a developer turned designer? I'd be interested in that.

That's a tough one. One suggestion would be "don't". Most companies want either one or the other. I'm not a brilliant developer or a brilliant designer, which makes it hard for me to find my role in bigger companies.

On the other hand I can make things like https://online-solitaire.com/ and https://habitualapp.io/ as a one-man operation.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

#17

I'm a designer-turned-developer and created a nice-looking solitaire card game website: https://online-solitaire.com/ . It's making me around $1500 a month. My approach was to find a nice of apps that where already popular and then see if I could make it better.

How is it earning money? I don't see any ads or premium versions for sale.

Sorry for the confusion. They appear after about 5 games. It's just normal sidebar ads.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

#18

I'm a designer-turned-developer and created a nice-looking solitaire card game website: https://online-solitaire.com/ . It's making me around $1500 a month. My approach was to find a nice of apps that where already popular and then see if I could make it better.

It's a beautiful game, but I wonder what part of the game is monetized? Thanks!

Thanks a lot :-). Hit me up at contact@online-solitaire.com if you have any suggestions or feedback for the site.

After 5 games or so, ads will start to appear. Just normal sidebar ads. I've made it so people won't be blasted with ads the very first time they enter the site, so they'll get the "optimal" experience to start with.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas on creating passive income streams

#19

I'm a designer-turned-developer and created a nice-looking solitaire card game website: https://online-solitaire.com/ . It's making me around $1500 a month. My approach was to find a nice of apps that where already popular and then see if I could make it better.

Any tips on becoming a developer turned designer? I'd be interested in that.

Just realized that my first answer might not be the most helpful :-P. If you're still interested in becoming better at design, it's all about learning-by-doing. Much like development.

I spend a lot of time on https://dribbble.com/ when I initially started designing and that's often where I go to find inspiration these days as well.

Besides that, I'd suggest to doing as many design-related projects as possible. They don't have to be big. They just need to force you to go through the process of going from thought to an actual design. A lot of people practice design by re-designing already existing apps.

The tool of the trade nowadays, when it comes to websites and apps at least, is https://www.sketch.com/, which I can highly recommend.

Hope that helped a bit more.

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