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

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

#631

Post by sersi »

ronyfadel wrote: post #7

I make Mac utilities at https://fadel.io/ and iOS apps ( https://podbuddy.app/ ). I’m at $4k/month and revenue is growing. I do iOS consulting as well, but I’m inching closer to going indie full time.

Just bought mission control plus (As soon as I read the description, my first reaction was "Take my money", I wouldn't have minded paying 15-20 usd for that but to be fair, 8.99 meant that I just bought blindly instead of doing the free trial). Experience buying on your site is not great:

1. After entering my credit card details, I'm redirected back to your site without any message (I did receive a confirmation email a few minutes later)

2. It's a nitpick, but there's nothing I dislike more than forcing me to convert to my local currency. First the exchange rate is much worse than what my credit card charges, second I lose out on miles.

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

#632

Post by DantesKite »

holoduke wrote: post #579

Have various sport result apps. Generating roughly 100k dollars a month. No team. Conpletely solo. Started in the very first days of apps. Even had Java apps on windows mobile back in the days. Now only iOS and Android. I also have a non apps company with +25 employees now. Couldn't have started that without the other business

Do you have one for MMA as well?

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

#633

Post by thegypsyking »

deanmoriarty wrote: post #511

After reading all this, I admit I feel kind of silly for working so hard (50-60h a week on average) to earn my Silicon Valley FAANG comp. I am wondering how much survivorship bias is at play here, some ideas look relatively simple compared to the amount they bring in. Or maybe one really has to take the leap of faith and trust that there is demand for virtually anything? Maybe it’s not so simple, my partner opened a…

You are much luckier and more of a “survivor” than any of them I feel. I also work at Faang, but only graduated college last year and only make 200k a year, barely. I will never reach your income at a job with where the stock market is at now, and how much the competition increased, you rode the wave all the way to the top of the corporate slaves pyramid.

So I’ll quit next year to start something because otherwise I’ll never become anywhere near rich with my income.

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

#634

Post by nlh »

Kaze404 wrote: post #591
_3u10 wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not pay someone to develop your side project? More importantly if you want to put survivorship bias on your side, never develop anything until you have a working sales funnel. Put $1000 aside a month on a design and site for your idea, followed by a marketing person w/ a budget. The screen following getting their card should be a page letting them know you aren’t onbaording new customers, their card hasn’t been c…

> The screen following getting their card should be a page letting them know you aren’t onbaording new customers, their card hasn’t been charged and you’ll let them know when you’re taking on more customers (eg. The product is built) If a website did this to me they'd also be getting a very angry e-mail and zero recommendations from me.

Yup agreed 100%. I see this often as a suggestion for testing your project hypothesis and I think it’s a terrible idea. Starting your relationship with a customer by misrepresenting your state of development is bad advice.

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

#635

Post by nlh »

_3u10 wrote: post #518
deanmoriarty wrote: post #511

After reading all this, I admit I feel kind of silly for working so hard (50-60h a week on average) to earn my Silicon Valley FAANG comp. I am wondering how much survivorship bias is at play here, some ideas look relatively simple compared to the amount they bring in. Or maybe one really has to take the leap of faith and trust that there is demand for virtually anything? Maybe it’s not so simple, my partner opened a…

Why not pay someone to develop your side project? More importantly if you want to put survivorship bias on your side, never develop anything until you have a working sales funnel. Put $1000 aside a month on a design and site for your idea, followed by a marketing person w/ a budget. The screen following getting their card should be a page letting them know you aren’t onbaording new customers, their card hasn’t been c…

For me at least, the answer is that my side projects are about more than money (though they are about money too!). Developing things myself is the primary goal - it’s deeply satisfying to build your own project from the bottom up without having to write specs, argue about design trade offs, do code reviews, etc. The fun is just being able to build without the social overhead. As soon as you have people working for you, that whole equation changes.

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

#636

Post by zapstar »

zapstar wrote: post #107

For me, https://unitprice.org and https://okaycup.com — These track prices on Amazon for certain sets of products and finds the best price per unit, which isn’t always the largest quantity item. Revenue is all from affiliate links. Edit: Oh, you said $500, not $5. Oops!

Update: I made $6 yesterday because someone bought 1,200 bouncy balls.

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

#637

Post by kleyu »

jdluk87 wrote: post #601

I have one, we got to YC top 10% applicant but didn't get in this batch. Hopefully in the next batch: Travi helps users access information about activities, must go places, and things to do from trusted local residents, and provides automatic scheduling of selected activities in an itinerary format. Yes! I know, we could have picked something non travel related since we launched in the middle of COVID but we have bee…

This is awesome. Any plans for Android app?

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

#638

Post by deanmoriarty »

thegypsyking wrote: post #633
deanmoriarty wrote: post #511

After reading all this, I admit I feel kind of silly for working so hard (50-60h a week on average) to earn my Silicon Valley FAANG comp. I am wondering how much survivorship bias is at play here, some ideas look relatively simple compared to the amount they bring in. Or maybe one really has to take the leap of faith and trust that there is demand for virtually anything? Maybe it’s not so simple, my partner opened a…

You are much luckier and more of a “survivor” than any of them I feel. I also work at Faang, but only graduated college last year and only make 200k a year, barely. I will never reach your income at a job with where the stock market is at now, and how much the competition increased, you rode the wave all the way to the top of the corporate slaves pyramid. So I’ll quit next year to start something because otherwise I’…

I am not entirely sure your premises are correct, but it certainly boils down to personal opinions so no point in debating.

Just for fun, I went back to my 1040 tax statements for the first three years of my career, about a decade ago: $35k, $65k, $89k.

The fact that you are starting with $200k is fabulous and not to be taken for granted imho. If you are able to put the majority of your after tax savings in the market, compounding over a decade might surprise you even if we are at an all time high.

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

#639

Post by MikeTV »

I've been filling a tiny gap in Microsoft tooling with https://www.versionsql.com/

It's something that seemed small and simple to implement, but has filled a not-insignificant portion of nights and weekends for over six years now. Then covid came around and dried up most of my consulting income, so I figured why not really prioritize it and see how far it can go? Still small, but growing nicely now.

Also reluctantly abandoned the flawed "build it and they will come" mentality and started splitting time evenly between development and marketing. This has probably contributed more to the project's recent growth than several thousand hours of dev time. Take heed, o ye ambitious developer-founders! :-) Recommended resources: Product-Led Growth, Developer Marketing Does Not Exist, 80/20 Sales and Marketing, BusinessOfSoftware.org talk videos, Microconf talk videos (on YouTube).

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

#640

Post by nlh »

pigcat wrote: post #113

I run an e-commerce store as a side-hustle: https://drinkyourdailywater.com/ We sell glass water jugs targeted at desk workers, to help remind you to drink enough water. I created it because I wasn't drinking enough water. Running paid ads has been very hit or miss, and I don't have a knack for the marketing. But word-of-mouth has been good for us and we get the odd corporate sale here or there.

This is awesome. Great idea, great execution, and great story. You scratched your own itch and turned it into a business. Thanks for sharing the project and background.
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