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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?

#132
post #124
post #25

Building and selling macOS apps is a pretty good niche to be in right now. I escaped my stressful corporate job 1 year ago and I’ve been living comfortably since then from app revenue only. I’m making between $3.5k and $9k per month with https://lunar.fyi/ and the smaller apps I create at https://lowtechguys.com/ It’s not much for some parts of the world. But I’m well enough from this that I even took the time to bui…

Grila doesn't seem to be available on the US mac app store?

It’s still awaiting approval from App Store reviewers, I just launched it today.

You can still use the trial build from the website until then.

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

#133
post #10

learn sales, it fixes everything.

I remember doing this.

There is a problem.

Operate the sales.

I remember having the fullstack design and operations of the tech side of the product but the sales and support side of the product (conversion, adoption, tech support, tickets) required the same muscle volume than the tech side did.

So you can double your knowledge rasonably fast but you cannot double your attention and dedicated time.

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

#136
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for following up. One q: I suck at building landing pages. Do you have any tips here? I have some ok-ish copy already distinct from the App Store page, but I hate finagling HTML.

For simple one-page presentation websites, try https://carrd.co In my experience, knowing CSS is 90% of making a pretty and informative page. HTML is mostly just h1 for title, h2 for subtitle, div for groups and p for copy text. I don’t like writing neither HTML nor CSS so my websites are written in Plim with Tailwind classes for styling. Here’s a snippet that defines the icon on the https://lowtechguys.com/clop page…

Thanks! I'll give it another shot; by the time I get around to working on marketing web stuff in my day (after work + parenting) I am pretty tired so I never give it a fair shot. Will check out carrd.io.

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

#137
post #40

Programming can support almost any other domain. A programmer paired with another expert can create a lot of value. These days I'm a webmaster. I don't get paid to write software, but writing software helps me get paid. I help people with German bureaucracy, and occasionally, being able to create software helps me do my job better. I can build little calculators and widgets that support my content, for example. If I…

"A programmer paired with another expert"

This is the key phrase here. I might tweak it to say "subject matter expert", but that is just semantics.

I help my friend customize and automate his trading research and strategies with my python and automation skills.

We are experimenting with openBB, and I'm learning about trading, finance, and other industries. He gets to do things that a Bloomberg cant or wont do. This is a win-win.

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

#138
post #12
post #11

Coding pairs well and elevates many other side-hustles, I think. Nearly every job can benefits from automation, and if it can't, then the logical thinking that coding requires will improve it in some way. I paired coding with fiction writing and made a scifi podcast, which now represents 10% of my monthly income after two years! I wrote up my experience and advice here, if you're interested in the details https://www…

More recently (March of this year) I also started to teach what I can about coding on my YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/c/NoBoilerplate ) Which has seen enormous positive feedback - and youtube ads are very fair (50/50 split between you and Google), and you don't have to chase the money, it's all handled for you! Another 10% of my monthly income comes from YT, I'd guess. The key with a youtube channel is t…

Your channel is awesome! I enjoy your style very much. Thanks for inspiring and sharing your thoughts!

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

#139
post #128

> The thought of returning to corporate working kind of disgusts me. daily meetings, middle management bs, politics, bureaucracy... im sure your familiar with the typical complaints. Have you considered working in a company that isn't like that? Things to look for: * Ownership: The owner should be the person running the business. * Size: Fewer than 20 employees. Ideally two or three; consider being the first. * Reven…

I've worked in small (less than 20 employees) companies and although there were no grooming / standup / retro meetings (i.e. all the bullshit agile stuff I can't stand), it was replaced with other bullshit like having to answer the phone and deal with passive aggressive customers, zero benefits other than salary (no 401k etc), an owner who said things like "microsoft can build excel, why can't we build ", no project/…

Who downvoted this? Reveal yourself! A small business owner no doubt who the truth hurt.

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

#140
post #29

Being good at making other people money is actually a skill you can monetise. That’s basically what B2B software is: making money for other people. It’s the very definition of value creation. So focus on how you can make money for other people, then scale that up in a way that allows you to charge less than the value created but more than the cost to produce. Also don’t try to think of an idea, just start talking to…

Any insight on the reaching out to business owners part?

Not getting anywhere with cold emails

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