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Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

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Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

#81

Post by alin23 »

p3opl3 wrote: post #71
alin23 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lunar, my best selling app, is outside the App Store. But I had to do 2 to 4 months more work to replicate what App Store is doing. See my more detailed comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33621601

How do you do marketing? I built this www.anxispace.com .. and I literally cannot do marketing to save my life!

Sharing the link on the appropriate platforms is my best working version of marketing. Word of mouth takes over after this. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33621814

I tried paid ads on all major platforms, but unless you have money to sink in, you’ll mostly just lose money and annoy a few people.

Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

#82

Post by meowtastic »

paolomaffei wrote: post #75
Brajeshwar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously hope you are not kidding with me. Back-of-envelop, napkin-calculation, and my 8-ball wizardy data would say that there are 9 non-technical founders looking for every capable technical founder. Anyway, there are lots of communities, cohort-based, hybrid-style, and what-not options these days to find someone or a few. You can start with https://www.startupschool.org and/or https://www.beondeck.com

the problem is how to identify capable non-technical founders. I suspect the ratio of capable non-technical and technical founders is nearer 0.1-0.5:1 any thoughts on how to identify the unicorns?

I'd say 0.1:1 from personal experience. Often you see founders who want to build facebook-but-better type of stuff from day 1. My advice is to avoid first-time tech founders, it's very hard to coach them into adopting the lean startup mindset until they feel the pain.

Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

#83

Post by rahul_nyc »

AI space is heating up with the release of Stable Diffusion models and OpenAI.

If you are interested you can start playing with these tech and make things useful for people.

I'm just getting started on this and released the MVP version of Picasa AI[1] and I'm excited about it.

I wanted to build something for a long time and I always postponed it for better time. With the AI trends I feel now is the correct time to jump in.

[1] - https://PicasaAI.com

Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

#84

Post by Brajeshwar »

paolomaffei wrote: post #75
Brajeshwar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously hope you are not kidding with me. Back-of-envelop, napkin-calculation, and my 8-ball wizardy data would say that there are 9 non-technical founders looking for every capable technical founder. Anyway, there are lots of communities, cohort-based, hybrid-style, and what-not options these days to find someone or a few. You can start with https://www.startupschool.org and/or https://www.beondeck.com

the problem is how to identify capable non-technical founders. I suspect the ratio of capable non-technical and technical founders is nearer 0.1-0.5:1 any thoughts on how to identify the unicorns?

This can be a blog post, hell, may be even a book on its own.

For quick starters, look for someone who tinkered, cobbled, hacked, juggard[1] his/her way through an MVP with no-code, low-code, dump-code, Figma-ed, etc. Better yet, s/he had tried selling that idea, napkin-diagrams, to customers. Avoid anyone that smooth talks with nothing to show for (MVP/Customers/Prospects).

While talking (do this for as long as you are comfortable moving ahead), watch out if s/he can articulate and build an idea maze[2] of what his/her current thoughts are.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad

2. https://cdixon.org/2013/08/04/the-idea-maze

Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

#85

Post by grepLeigh »

paolomaffei wrote: post #75
Brajeshwar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously hope you are not kidding with me. Back-of-envelop, napkin-calculation, and my 8-ball wizardy data would say that there are 9 non-technical founders looking for every capable technical founder. Anyway, there are lots of communities, cohort-based, hybrid-style, and what-not options these days to find someone or a few. You can start with https://www.startupschool.org and/or https://www.beondeck.com

the problem is how to identify capable non-technical founders. I suspect the ratio of capable non-technical and technical founders is nearer 0.1-0.5:1 any thoughts on how to identify the unicorns?

Look for people who have revenue and traction, not just an idea. Some of the best non-technical Founders I've worked with:

- Built a business trip packing / iterinerary recommendation system, using just Google Sheets plugins

- Built a video transcription + recutting service in Bubble.

Each of these made five-six figures of revenue with the MVP. The Founders couldn't code, but they used every tool at their disposal to get enough $$$ to find someone who can code. True grit!

Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

#86

Post by labarilem »

specproc wrote: post #24

Non-profits are very different to corporate environments. Not without their own issues and bullshit, and less well-paid, but considerably more easy going and potentialy a lot more fun. Some people like the idea of doing something meaningful, I've been in the sector too long to care about that. What I do find is that the sort of problems you're facing are far more interesting. For example, I spend all day trying to fi…

Can you recommend some non-profit job boards?

Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

#87

Post by bitcoinmoney »

jimz wrote: post #21

For the most part, if you can make money for other people, you can use that skill set for yourself. Also, if you're somewhere where it's legal or at least accessible, it's not actually 100% true that at a casino the house always wins. It will take a little bit of effort to get started and you do need a small bit of infrastructure (but a cheap VPS or a SoC would actually do, depending on what you focus on), but it's n…

I know Kelly criterion and some bankroll management. Where do I start? Wouldn’t you be banned from bookies if you’re a winning bettor? Or at least get limited? And which bookies to use?

Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

#88

Post by anony23 »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #87
jimz wrote: post #21

For the most part, if you can make money for other people, you can use that skill set for yourself. Also, if you're somewhere where it's legal or at least accessible, it's not actually 100% true that at a casino the house always wins. It will take a little bit of effort to get started and you do need a small bit of infrastructure (but a cheap VPS or a SoC would actually do, depending on what you focus on), but it's n…

I know Kelly criterion and some bankroll management. Where do I start? Wouldn’t you be banned from bookies if you’re a winning bettor? Or at least get limited? And which bookies to use?

You will get limited and bankroll management is a nightmare.

Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?

#89

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #87
jimz wrote: post #21

For the most part, if you can make money for other people, you can use that skill set for yourself. Also, if you're somewhere where it's legal or at least accessible, it's not actually 100% true that at a casino the house always wins. It will take a little bit of effort to get started and you do need a small bit of infrastructure (but a cheap VPS or a SoC would actually do, depending on what you focus on), but it's n…

I know Kelly criterion and some bankroll management. Where do I start? Wouldn’t you be banned from bookies if you’re a winning bettor? Or at least get limited? And which bookies to use?

This is my experience. They restrict or ban your account if you win too much in a short amount of time.

A retired friend does sports betting as a hobby and is quite good at it, but has been banned from two big name bookies for nothing more than a brief winning streak. No software or analysis, just a sports enthusiast.

I totally understand the mentality of folks who sell picks. Especially with all the KYC regulations these days it can be a real slog to keep an account live.

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