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Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

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421–430 of 866 posts

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#422

I don't know if I can even call it a side-project any more. I stopped working professionally 3 years ago. Bought an e-commerce business that was making ~$2k/mo profit and ran it on the side while I had my DevOps job. That project has now turned into ~$30k/mo profit, and I've bought two more e-com businesses that average ~$10k/mo between the two - these are early and I expect them to scale up once I smooth out a few b…

what are you using for e-com software? woocommerce/home-grown or something else? also what is your review of the software side of it?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This literally made me say "WTF?!" when I went to the page. I think you're burying the lede here. It's only $29 inc worldwide shipping ! WTAF, that's awesome. I'll be ordering one as soon as Christmas is out of the way. Any plans to add an EU or UK distribution point? I'm prepared to wait the 2-3 weeks for free UK shipping tbh, but if you're adding more local distribution early next year I'd hold on.

>It's only $29 inc worldwide shipping Oh yeah, thanks for pointing that out. The one time I'm not in a shilly mood (Christmas and all) and the post actually gets interaction. Murphy's Law! >Any plans to add an EU or UK distribution point? Sorta kinda maybe. I did have one, but a whole lot of VAT compliance bullshit caught up with me. In most countries, GST/VAT is handled automatically by large eCommerce platforms (if…

Have you had a look at the EU One Stop Shop scheme for VAT? (It's only been introduced with the VAT overhaul this summer)

https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/vat-e-com...

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#424

I bought a coffee farm in Colombia. Annualized it makes around $800 / month and growing. Should double to $1600 / month next year as we’ve doubled our production. It’s barely profitable, but is profitable nonetheless. The more we plant the more profitable it will get, and we’ll be planting 10,000 more trees soon!

I can not find it now, but I recall reading a post from the (former?) founder/owner of a coffee company. His goal was to have an ethically justifiable supply chain, free from slavery and human exploitation. Or at least less of it. His conclusion was that this is impossible and became very disillusioned that due to various reasons he would not be able to not be part of the problem.

I found this when searching but I’m pretty sure I’m thinking of someone else. https://www.javarepublic.com/no-ethics-coffee/

Apologies for the vagueness, but do you have any thoughts on that?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#425
I make $10,000 a month on a side business I started in July, less than six months ago.

I partnered with the guy who helped me build a fence to start a landscaping company. He was making $23 / hour prior to working with me.

I provide all the capital equipment (diesel truck, 14' dump trailer, Kubota tractor), and I do the marketing, recruiting, accounring, legal, management. He handles all bids and actual jobs.

It currently takes me less than an hour a week to do my work as I have delegated a lot to employees in my other company. Starting up was full time for a month.

I split all profits 50-50 with my partner.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#426

I work in a large corporate/enterprise company doing marketing/tech work. Started dabbling in freelance consulting/paid interviews and found I can easily get in the $500-$1,000/hr range. So, been doing a few sessions a month and earning a couple thousand in extra cash. Not bad and met some interesting folks/companies in the process!

What do you mean "paid interviews"? I do a lot of interviews for the companies I work for and this intrigues me.

Some folk decided that whiteboard interviews are broken, and the more enlightened way is to pay candidates to work on more representative tasks that take longer, and pay them for their time. GP is exploiting one of the failure modes by treating these interviews as paying gigs.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#427
post #10

I have an android app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.algeo.alge... ). It brings in right around $500 a month. It is fun to develop, especially that I can dabble into frontend and UI design which is quite far away from what I'm doing daily. Interestingly, it used to bring in much more but the heydays of apps are over.

I love Algeo! I've been using it for years. Well worth the money. Neat to bump into you on HN!

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#428

I don't know if I can even call it a side-project any more. I stopped working professionally 3 years ago. Bought an e-commerce business that was making ~$2k/mo profit and ran it on the side while I had my DevOps job. That project has now turned into ~$30k/mo profit, and I've bought two more e-com businesses that average ~$10k/mo between the two - these are early and I expect them to scale up once I smooth out a few b…

Hi,this sounds amazing. If you have to to post, do you have any advice how what level design f competence is required to analyse a business like these before buying? Also how did you find the businesses.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#429

I make $10,000 a month on a side business I started in July, less than six months ago. I partnered with the guy who helped me build a fence to start a landscaping company. He was making $23 / hour prior to working with me. I provide all the capital equipment (diesel truck, 14' dump trailer, Kubota tractor), and I do the marketing, recruiting, accounring, legal, management. He handles all bids and actual jobs. It curr…

Great comment, thank you!

I've been thinking about a similar approach.

> I partnered with the guy who helped me build a fence to start a landscaping company.

How did you identify him as a reliable candidate for a business partner? Would love to hear more. Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#430
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice thats a lot of profit! Is there a “catch”? Are you getting super cheap electricity. Whats the depreciation like on the gear per day?

The catch is you need to be safe: - Where is the heat going? Are you exhausting it out the window? Are you going to burn your house down? - How are you distributing power? Are you using a PDU and a 240V 30A breaker or are you maxing out several 15A 120V lines? - Is the humidity dropping rapidly to dangerous levels, risking shock? Are you going to fry that brand new $10,000 ASIC miner because you dried out the air too…

Thanks. This is actually what has put me off doing it. I don’t want an unsafe thing in my house! Also its the type of engineering problem i hate most - one where you meed to monitor 24/7 and all sorts of things can give you down time, but you cant really make it perfect because that would be too expensive.
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