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Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

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Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#91

Post by iambateman »

whynaut wrote: post #64
iambateman wrote: post #61

I built MoneyHabitsHQ.com for simplified personal finance. The hardest thing about it is that talking about budgeting is really personal. People are more than willing to talk about their process but things get awkward when it gets specific. I can’t screenshare with someone to onboard them because that would involve seeing every bank account they have. Im curious if anyone has thoughts on how to solve that problem?

could you create dummy accounts with fake amounts, and onboard them through your screen?

Possibly. One of the weird effects of budgeting is that fake numbers make peoples eyes glaze over crazy fast.

But this may be the only way.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#92

Post by iambateman »

foobazzy wrote: post #72
iambateman wrote: post #61

I built MoneyHabitsHQ.com for simplified personal finance. The hardest thing about it is that talking about budgeting is really personal. People are more than willing to talk about their process but things get awkward when it gets specific. I can’t screenshare with someone to onboard them because that would involve seeing every bank account they have. Im curious if anyone has thoughts on how to solve that problem?

Hi! Absolutely loved the idea. Here's a tangential quirk though. Your `/book/introduction` page could use a little css change for the nav sidebar (zoom out on your screen to see what I mean) I think removing this css will help left-[max(0px,calc(50%-45rem))]

Oooh thanks for catching that!

Will do!

My 13” MacBook doesn’t make it easy to test at wide screen widths =D

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#93

Post by DeathArrow »

fusspawn wrote: post #44

I funded life over the pandemic selling bots for MMO's. Made way more than I expected. Enough it became a full time job for a while. Died down a little after people started returning to work after Covid. But still makes a decent passive income.

Nice. What MMO did you target and what languages / frameworks did you use?

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#94

Post by perlin »

I run the infrastructure (k8s+helm on GCP) for a PoS validator of a top 50 crypto project. My client is a big whale who bonded ~$15.6M at the projects all-time high. It’s about 1-2 hours of work per month and my 10% cut of the rewards nets me anywhere from $4k-$40k/mo. depending on the price. Given the fact that crypto is in the gutter now I haven’t been selling any to USD, but it’s a nice way to stack an asset with high upside potential while doing very little work.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#95

Post by DarrenDev »

Editing add in for Word for creative writers.

https://www.smart-edit.com/Home/Buy/

It sells around 20+ copies a month, usually to published or self-published authors of fiction. It's been selling at that level for about 8 years now. 1 in 3 sales is for the Pro version, which constantly surprises me.

I haven't updated it in a couple of years. The last substantial work was back in 2018. It never gets mentioned on writing websites anymore, but sales still trickle in.

I've moved on to other things, but it's nice to see those emails come in during the month.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#96

Post by exceltrading »

dsiegel2275 wrote: post #20
exceltrading wrote: post #13

I sell an excel add-in that integrates with some popular trading software. It makes life easier for traders. It has a couple thousand users paying around $10 a month. That's about as specific as I want to get. It required a little domain specific knowledge to create, and a recognized name among trading forums to initially market. Otherwise it's super simple and I'm continually surprised that there are no real competi…

That is the exact niche type of side project that I dream about. Though, with "a couple thousand users paying around $10 a month" that is hardly a side project anymore, given the annual revenue north of $200K.

I was quite lucky. It will help fund an early retirement.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#97

Post by sokoloff »

exceltrading wrote: post #85
giarc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried this with Google Sheets add-ons. It can be hard since there is no built in payment method so I end up using lots of API calls to Stripe to check for current subscription status. However, you have to get the user to subscribe on one site and install the add-on on another.

Yes, about half my code and effort is handling stuff that an "app store" usually would.

Things like this put the "a 30% cut is outrageous!" into a different perspective for me.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#98

Post by DeathArrow »

jonathan-adly wrote: post #54

I built https://joyful.gifts a couple of years ago. Nice lunch money and was a good technical challenge. I did it to be able to call myself a full-stack software dev. Basically, get over my imposter syndrome.

But that seems to need human input, at least to buy and send the gift. Or did you manage to automate that?

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#99

Post by msoh »

I made Accelerator Keys, a little Mac app that gives people Alt key shortcuts in Office software on Macs.

Most people have never encountered the problem, so it’s hard to talk about this in general company.

But it’s solving a pain point for a few hundred finance/consulting folks with Macs, or tech startups buying Macs for their finance/strategy teams.

Haven’t worked on this as much since kids came, but I’d love to figure out better ways to get this in front of people who need it.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#100

Post by foobazzy »

iambateman wrote: post #92
foobazzy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! Absolutely loved the idea. Here's a tangential quirk though. Your `/book/introduction` page could use a little css change for the nav sidebar (zoom out on your screen to see what I mean) I think removing this css will help left-[max(0px,calc(50%-45rem))]

Oooh thanks for catching that! Will do! My 13” MacBook doesn’t make it easy to test at wide screen widths =D

Hah! Had the same problem a few years ago when I was working on the MacBook Air and the tester had an MBP.

You have to "Zoom Out" (Ctrl + -) on the page for testing on wider screens. For testing smaller screens, zoom in.

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