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Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#151

Post by Aromasin »

godmode2019 wrote: post #117
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #99

I've had quite a few: 1. Selling domain names. This was when I was in college and somehow traded my way into mid-high five-figure domain names. I turned over $100k in profits in a year, and then 2008 happened and all markets collapsed. 2. Starting a D2C brand. Shipping is automated via a third-party provider. Sourcing is easy since I have a very reliable supplier. All marketing is through word of mouth. I get around…

How did you sell them? I have a bunch of domain names but never figured out a way to sell them.

https://sedo.com/us/ is the largest listing site I know of, if you want to sell at a fixed price.

https://uk.auctions.godaddy.com/ is the largest auction site. If you're looking for a quick sell, this is the place.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#152

Post by yurishimo »

kebsup wrote: post #87

I make around 200-300 USD per month through https://gifmemes.io . Basically zero maintenance, but I'll add user generated templates one of these days. Will be nice to "automated" content generation in addition to "automated" income generation.

Just wanted to reply that I love your site. Every 6 months or so, I forget what it's called but the demo of Jack Sparrow and the rotoscoped chase sequence always brings me back! I'll scour HN for a while hope I remember.

After my most recent forgotten event, I did bookmark it and now I have this comment. Hopefully I can remember now. :)

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#153

Post by ozfive »

powvans wrote: post #63

When I was in college I sold discarded text books on half.com. This isn’t my best income stream, but in many ways it was my favorite. After the Spring 2000 semester, I noticed that the bookstores had junk book bins. Students would dump into the bins any books that the bookstore would not buy back. Anyone was welcome to rummage through the bin and if they found something interesting they could keep it. The bookstores…

Wow, what a scrappy story! Thank you for sharing and happy that you got rid of the remaining books to marry your wife!

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#154

Post by nonethewiser »

twodave wrote: post #132

Software consulting. You’d be surprised how many little businesses out there have a need for custom software. I make about $60-70k/year in my spare time (maybe 10 hours/week) doing everything from adding features to legacy products, building brand new applications and even simply conducting technical interviews. It’s also pretty nice to work on something besides the usual thing at work, experiment with new/different…

That is awesome. Although I'm surprised you can just pickup a new client, bang out a new feature, and finalize everything in 10hrs. Seems like there would be a lot of overhead getting started and whiping your hands of it.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#156

Post by nonethewiser »

to1y wrote: post #120
giaour wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. The amount of overhead involved in any side hustle is just too high compared to getting stuff done as an employee. even volunteering as anything but unskilled labor is a hassle.

There's no overheads as a employee but too many in solo endeavours? Did you get that the right way around?

No extra overhead as an employee.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#157

Post by Tijdreiziger »

lawkwok wrote: post #123
giegs wrote: post #118

Built a hobby informational web app back in 2005 related to a collectible item I was interested in. It basically tells you if your X is considered common or rare (potentially valuable). Determining that is nuanced and people don't want to figure stuff out on their own, so my web app became popular. At this point it has earned over $400k USD lifetime with 75% of that being in the last two years. 100% Adsense. The audi…

May I know the name of the phone size comparing app? That sounds very interesting!

PhoneArena has a good one: https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#158

Post by mrichman »

itake wrote: post #137
twodave wrote: post #132

Software consulting. You’d be surprised how many little businesses out there have a need for custom software. I make about $60-70k/year in my spare time (maybe 10 hours/week) doing everything from adding features to legacy products, building brand new applications and even simply conducting technical interviews. It’s also pretty nice to work on something besides the usual thing at work, experiment with new/different…

+1. JW what rate do you charge and whats your stack? I do about $60k/yr at 8-10hrs per week at $130/hr. Not sure if I am under charging. If you bill more than me, any advice on how to find bigger clients?

Why on earth do you bill by the hour? You should be doing fixed fee based on value.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#160

Post by Mushhh »

jldugger wrote: post #116
Mushhh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We sell products which are related to all things mushrooms. There’s equipment, supplies you name it. Our grow kits are for growing shiitake, lion’s mane, king oyster or just about any gourmet mushroom which is legal to grow. Our microscopy spores are a product which are strictly sold for microscopy use. We love mushrooms and all things about them. But illegality is a red line, whether immoral or not.

I think we can see why the payment processors stepped back now.

We spent a long time analysing the terms and conditions and we couldn’t find anything that applied to our business. Asking directly where we broke terms was no hope, because none of which they cited applied to us either.

We wouldn’t go back to card payments if we could. We save a fortune by paying 0% processing fees, have more control and are protected by a regulated UK bank instead of companies like Stripe or PayPal. We are very lucky!

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