41–50 of 123 posts
Followed the link to the Miss Excel story, it's pretty wild overall, but this just stood out to me: > whenever I run a sale, it’s usually $297 typically, but when you cut it in half, it looks nice at $149 When asked why her courses were priced at a 'weird' number like 297. That's just wild coming from someone who self-reportedly makes up to 6 figures a day teaching people how to use software for basic arithmetic. Fre…
I've been wrecking my brain how to make $10 on anything online for a good part of the past 10 years with a couple of failed startups and even more side projects that went nowhere. I envy anyone who can do this and I think it is truly an immeasurable amount of effort to make any kind of side income let alone something that replaces your salary. But I think articles like this one advertise it like it's something you ca…
It's definitely possible to grow it to a replacement salary (I know several full time YouTubers now) but it does require a certain amount of luck and a huge amount of effort. Not really different from any other endeavour...
I've been wrecking my brain how to make $10 on anything online for a good part of the past 10 years with a couple of failed startups and even more side projects that went nowhere. I envy anyone who can do this and I think it is truly an immeasurable amount of effort to make any kind of side income let alone something that replaces your salary. But I think articles like this one advertise it like it's something you ca…
The classic YC advice is "make something people want." This video dives into how that looks in practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C27RVio2rOs The guiding principle is simple, but in practice it can be hard and complex.
Make something cheaper, its also a good starting point for a lot of "inventive" startups (Spacex is spacex, cause they are cheaper than others). However you don't have to be inventive, just do similar/same thing but cheaper.
I've been wrecking my brain how to make $10 on anything online for a good part of the past 10 years with a couple of failed startups and even more side projects that went nowhere. I envy anyone who can do this and I think it is truly an immeasurable amount of effort to make any kind of side income let alone something that replaces your salary. But I think articles like this one advertise it like it's something you ca…
I used to be able to (late 1990s/early 2000s) make a living on a mixture of niche websites, affiliate marketing, CPC arbitrage, and similar; but it just started drying up as more people gravitated to social media platforms, and unless you can skill up on social media marketing while getting lucky with their algorithms, you probably won't get far.
I decided to just move on because I never really liked the platforms and wanted stable employment for a while, but even now that I would be willing to risk the unpredictable income, it's nigh on impossible to get anything rolling. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've been wrecking my brain how to make $10 on anything online for a good part of the past 10 years with a couple of failed startups and even more side projects that went nowhere. I envy anyone who can do this and I think it is truly an immeasurable amount of effort to make any kind of side income let alone something that replaces your salary. But I think articles like this one advertise it like it's something you ca…
I started a YouTube channel during lockdown ( https://www.youtube.com/c/atomic14 please like, subscribe etc...) and now get $100+ per month advertising revenue. It's definitely possible to grow it to a replacement salary (I know several full time YouTubers now) but it does require a certain amount of luck and a huge amount of effort. Not really different from any other endeavour...
Essentially that economy is all about being perceived as an expert and manipulating naive/unsuspecting people with marketing tactics without ever actually providing any value. The entire focus of that community seems to be on MRR rather than products or solutions.
They make posts on HN, Indiehackers, Reddit, etc. trying to sell themselves as sympathetic by using the guise of "sharing their story" but they're actually just finding more customers. Btw, I don't mean that sharing your project on HN is sleazy, of course not. But it's quite obvious when you're lying with a blog post for example, and actually using the mirage of a real discussion to point eyes at your money makers.
That said, I think there's a subset of those people who do provide real value and don't play the MRR game. Instead they treat it more like a hobby (or craft) and just build shit while being practical about income. IMO, that's something to try to emulate. Stop worrying about "how do I make $1000 per month in passive income?", and instead build something useful or fun without pressuring yourself (or others, for that matter). Be practical, not hopeful and needy.
Some examples I can think of right now, though some of them are actually not making any money AFAIK:
- A cool library of playlists for programming sessions, run by Datassette: https://musicforprogramming.net
- Fabien Sanglard's awesome books explaining classic game engines: https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/
- Custom Thinkpads that look retro but are beefy bois, by XY Tech: https://www.xyte.ch/mods/x210-x2100/
- Cheap, no non-sense email service, made by a solo dev: https://purelymail.com/
- Nice repository of tips and info for software engineering teams, made by a burnt out team leader: https://principles.dev/
- The original AdBlock, which I believe was made by 1 or 2 devs and just had a donation box when it first started: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock-%E2%80%94-...
- Had to add this classic from the Diablo 2 days, BoBaFeTT's trainer: https://www.geocities.ws/free_bobafett/main.htm
All of these projects have one interesting thing in common: there's no pretense. They had an idea for some tool or service and decided that they could provide it. I'm sure that most of these projects grew out of stuff they were tinkering with anyway and probably weren't things where they spent too much time obsessing over market fit.
IMO worrying about social media audiences, email lists, profit, market fit, exposure, pricing, etc. is a sign that you should be looking for VC funding rather than building a product. Those things can work as well, but you have to be someone who's trying to build an empire of sorts rather than provide immediate value.
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It’s also a lot of luck. A friend of a friend made some trashy weekend website in php years ago which calculates profits from options trades. He somehow makes 6 figures from advertising on the site. Apparently he tried doing a big rewrite a couple years ago to fix the UX and whatnot, but his income dropped to 1/3rd of what it was after the change. Probably people spent less time on the site. So he put it back how it…
Did he advertise the site or optimize SEO or just put it up and then it just got traffic?
Building an audience remains a difficult business task. It would be inspiring to hear success stories of products which launched with no following or prior audience.
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> I've been wrecking my brain how to make $10 on anything online If you are really serious about $10 (and not some other larger number), here are some tips: * Pick a topic you know really well (programming, cooking, sea diving, whatever) * Make an infographic (get started on the topic of your choice, some specific and useful practical tip, etc) - picking a template from free tier Canva will go a long way in producing…
I've been doing that for the last 12 months and tbh, it does not work unless you already had an audience before. Highly likely I am the worst social marketer on the planet. But in terms of RoI your advice doesn't work for 99% of the population.
How close is your approach to what they described, and did you actually make That would make it a lot less enticing :)
Just a word of caution from someone who paid a ton of money to a lot of the people mentioned in the article in the last 2 years and was part of more than a few of these communities. Note these are my observations and opinions. - Read any testimonials these people out with a dollop of salt. Success rates seem to be around 1-2%(if you are lucky) with most of the others leaving or barely getting by. Easier to make way m…
> - There is a TON of luck. A million people put in the same hard work but do not make it. But most of these people spin it as hard work. The “Excel Girl” also spins it as manifesting. You can see more of that at r/lawofattraction, or you might be familiar with The Secret (2006).