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

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241–250 of 448 posts

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

#241
I built a web-based game that integrated into a popular MMO. The game was free to play but I monetized through an affiliate agreement with the MMO company.

Eventually they realized they could just copy the game and run it inside the MMO itself, so they terminated the partnership. At the end it was grossing 20k/month, but it literally consumed every moment of my free time so in some ways it was a relief to shut it down.

This was early in my career so I learned an incredible amount about scaling, catching, etc. that I was able to leverage at future jobs.

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

#242

I actually have a few: 1) Board member (advisor really) of a crypto/blockchain company. They pay me $5k per month to basically answer questions and help solve certain issues that might arise. There's also regular meetings but all in I spend 4 hours per week max. 2) Small contractor jobs. I was a contractor and home builder in a previous life. These days, I do side jobs both for the extra income and as a way to relax…

You sound like a person of renaissance

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

#243
post #178

Left my job in 2014. Tried a few things that didn't succeed before selling programming ebooks came to my rescue (2018). From the danger of draining out my savings completely, I'm now earning more than double my needs (which isn't really that much for my modest lifestyle, living alone in a developing nation - $150/month). What's more, my ebooks are all free to read online. Only PDF/EPUB are sold, and I've always given…

Is this a side hustle or your main source of income?

$150/month seems less even for a developing nation (I might be wrong though)

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

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's right around 30-35 hours per week. Not to toot my own horn but I am very good at what I do, which is software & data engineering. Most importantly, both are jobs that have a large and talented support system of fellow engineers, scrum masters, product owners, and management. In fact, that's precisely why I took these two. My previous jobs were extremely stressful and left me no time for anything outside of…

I'm sorry but I still don't get it. I've never had a job where being very good at it left a lot of free time during which to be very good at another job. It just left free time to move more things along more quickly or improving things. Like, I think mechanically I understand what you're saying; I think you're saying that each week or couple weeks or month or whatever, you commit to projects sized to fill about 50% o…

Without getting too specific - company A pays me to fulfill contracts we bid on within government entities. There's a ridiculously ludicrous amount of red-tape that translates into down-time for someone like me. I do one of three things: software dev, data engineering, or ML modelling. Only one of those three domains because the way this company works, everything is compartmentalized so there are specific folks for specific tasks. I'm a senior/lead so I do my part and pass it to the next fella. Company B is more end-to-end full stack dev work. I just happen to know this domain very very well, along with the libraries, tech stack, and business goals involved in it which translates into rapid development on my part supported by mid and junior level engineers.

Also, having been burned by companies in the past, I no longer make it a priority to "go the extra mile", I do exactly what is expected of me to do and generally no more or less. Although, I am a stickler for documentation so I do write up a lot of our code-base, architecture, and other things.

The last couple of companies I worked for were fairly bad in terms of quality of life so I've moved around a bit until I found jobs that were a good fit for me. The last two years especially have been somewhat of a blessing because engineers are in high demand and I played it to my advantage.

I'm employed full-time at both companies, both know that I am doubly employed and have no issue with it as they are more concerned about project/task completion rate rather than hours on the clock. Which I would argue is how it should be at most companies. Additionally, I work from home.

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

#245
Back in my studies a class mate asked to help him with coding assignment. I did and got 10 units of local money. Then another friend asked the same. The word started to spread, prices increased and algorithmic coding assignments become my source of income. After couple of years I have had all more than a half of assignments solved which were given by lecturers from 1st to 3rd years of studies. If anybody contacted me, there was a high chance I have already solved exactly that problem and simply needed just copy the code and collect money. It was a good life since I really enjoyed solving those tasks.

That was a shady thing - I literally helped to cheat the system. But these were times in our market.

Despite that this "job" lasted for couple of years only, the best income was that it pushed my coding experience years ahead compared to my peers. I was way more better than most of them. At least at coding :-)

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

#247
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…

If you are actually generating that much on adsense I think you'd likely make 20-30% more if you moved your ads to a high quality agency like adthrive or mediavine (those 2 are the only ones I'd firmly recommend over adsense). I'm sure you'd be approved by at least one of them based on the description of your site.

I used to use adsense on all my side sites too and just focus on the content and UX, but once you reach a certain volume (which you are well above), you are leaving a lot of money on the table not investing the effort into improving your ad monetization.

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

#248
post #178

Left my job in 2014. Tried a few things that didn't succeed before selling programming ebooks came to my rescue (2018). From the danger of draining out my savings completely, I'm now earning more than double my needs (which isn't really that much for my modest lifestyle, living alone in a developing nation - $150/month). What's more, my ebooks are all free to read online. Only PDF/EPUB are sold, and I've always given…

Is this a side hustle or your main source of income? $150/month seems less even for a developing nation (I might be wrong though)

150$ from "thin air" every month is nice addition in developing nation. Not something what would change the lifestyle but something what you can easily spend on things you like - books, courses, etc.

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

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit confused - this doesn't look like a quick tool built to solve one issue - this links to what appears to be a whole company with many sophisticated products. You did this all yourself?

This used to be the way. Now it takes a whole team to put a textbox on a Web app.

Exactly. You’ll need an entirely remote design team (to reduce costs ofc) to make sure it’s mobile.

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

#250
post #183
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck holding the bag when your client changes/misunderstands requirements.

You just set milestones every couple weeks of effort and invoice at the end of each one, and withhold delivery of the finished product until full payment is received… if a client doesn’t want to pay or is too difficult, fire the client and move on. And don’t give clients net30 terms or something ridiculous if you’re a solo contractor. Invoice due on receipt.

If you have the full scope / visibility and large enough margins but if you don"t.

The milestones become another form of hourly/daily/weekly plus you have the added responsibility of meeting goals or you do not get paid. Hourly provides pay for time spent.

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