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Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

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Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#171

Post by krt_gigahertz »

jaclaz wrote: post #17
dewey wrote: post #5

I know this is usually not the best strategy for coming up with side projects but for me it's just always about solving my own problem. The downside is that I'm solving the problems mostly fellow nerds have that they usually want to solve themselve instead of paying someone to do it for them. What I'm trying to do more actively now is to always keep my eyes open at my day job and try to spot problems that are solved…

Not at all a critic of your idea/tool, but I am surprised (this probably shows how old I am getting) that there can be (many) people willing to spend 10 $/month for a weekly report of twitter bookmarks. Maybe people working in the media or that however somehow monetize their twitter use?

We're working on https://tweetsmash.com that aims to streamline consuming high-signal information from Twitter. It can help you setting up weekly/daily email digests from bookmarks. Furthermore, it can also help fine-control what tweets gets into a digest. Like you can have separate digest for Business, or Development, or just Recent bookmarks.

Our main goal is to streamline curation and consumption process. Apart from bookmarks digest, it can also connect to third party apps part of creative workflow. Right now, we have one-for Notion to auto-sync bookmarks and for Zotero to auto-sync research papers when research scholar bookmark a tweet with a journal/research paper in it.

Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#172

Post by greatNespresso »

marvinblum wrote: post #32

I was looking for an embedded analytics solution for my website in Golang. I couldn't find one so I built one myself, which I later turned into a product. We've been called "copycats" many times, but we actually didn't look at the market :D Except for Google Analytics, which I didn't want to use because it would have required a cookie banner. Sometimes it's just better to build something that already exists, but in a…

Really cool !! Small note though, under GDPR, fingerprinting requires consent, so you would still need a banner.

Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#173

Post by xps »

I like solving problems that I encounter, with the assumption that others may have similar issues. When I moved to Bulgaria, I wanted to learn Bulgarian online, but I couldn't find any good resources for it (since it's a relatively niche language). So, I built my own learning platform [0]. I created an MVP and ran a few Facebook ads, and it was quickly confirmed that many other people were interested in a resource like mine.

Currently, I'm exploring opportunities in the video editing space, based on pain points I experience with existing software.

[0]: https://www.bulgaro.io

Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#174

Post by me_bx »

rozenmd wrote: post #62

I run OnlineOrNot ( https://onlineornot.com ), I spend roughly two hours per workday building features, marketing, or doing customer support. For me, it started by working for a company that was incapable of keeping their graphql service online, so I built an uptime monitoring service for graphql, and eventually generalised it to work for all APIs and web apps. How did I do it? Just consistent effort over a long time…

Feedback (off-topic for this thread):

In your website's pricing page, the word "scales" is strike-through in "Pricing that scales with your business", this doesn't seem to be intentional...

The word probably meant to be underlined, and the corresponding tailwind CSS class is missing.

Tested in Firefox and Chrome, on linux and android devices.

Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#175

Post by nowherebeen »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #86
warent wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole comment comes across as "you either got it, or you don't. it's something you're born with." Not sure if that was your intent but I just want to make it crystal clear that that's completely untrue. Building good businesses and identifying profitable ideas is a skill that can be learned. > Good business ideas jump out at you screaming Explaining this would be a good place to start. We shouldn't conflate our…

Honestly, with all skills there are people who naturally "get it" and those that naturally don't. Doesn't matter if it's programming, sports or entrepreneurship. The reason I left a discouraging comment is that, unlike the other examples, people in certain communities (including here!) have a weird tendency where they feel they must become a successful entrepreneur or they've failed in life. This is especially bad be…

I wonder if your argument could be made for Facebook vs Metaverse. One made it easier to connect with others, the other is a desperate move to save the business.

Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#176

Post by [deleted] »

holgersindbaek wrote: post #106

I've created an online solitaire platform ( https://online-solitaire.com/ ) that's earning me $10k/m now. It started as a side-project 5 years ago, but I've recently gone full time on it. It actually started as a Mac app 10 years ago and I choose to create a solitaire game because I had made a string of side-project that I didn't earn any money on, so I wanted to see if I could find a project that would actually gene…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#177

Post by is_true »

primax wrote: post #163
is_true wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting problem if you solve it you can probably avoid getting sued to bankruptcy

Why would they be sued? Scraping is legal

His clients are scraping, he isn't.

Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#178

Post by ilyailford »

throwbmw wrote: post #144
ilyailford wrote: post #135

I run Maker Stations ( https://makerstations.io ) — the newsletter about workspace tours from creators and makers. Launched in 2021. We’re currently at about 12k monthly sessions and $200 MRR (not much, I know). I love WFH and having my own private space where I can concentrate. Offices are fun in their way, but I always struggled to focus in a noisy, open environment. Ironically, I’d normally listen to white noise w…

What a coincidence. I was trying to remember your site but couldn't. Searching HN didn't help either. So I made an account and posted an Ask HN. Now a few more searches on your site to look for the post I half- read last time. Nice effort. Keep it up.

You’re welcome, Internet stranger!

Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#179

Post by holgersindbaek »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #169
holgersindbaek wrote: post #106

I've created an online solitaire platform ( https://online-solitaire.com/ ) that's earning me $10k/m now. It started as a side-project 5 years ago, but I've recently gone full time on it. It actually started as a Mac app 10 years ago and I choose to create a solitaire game because I had made a string of side-project that I didn't earn any money on, so I wanted to see if I could find a project that would actually gene…

I'm impressed by the programming. It's very smooth and responsive. Good Job! Thanks for sharing the info.

Thanks . Shout-out to Greensock for making an awesome animation library. I've recently used their FLIP plugin (https://greensock.com/docs/v3/Plugins/Flip/) to make a version of 2048: https://2048-online.io/.

Re: Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?

#180

Post by coreymaass »

withinboredom wrote: post #160
holgersindbaek wrote: post #106

I've created an online solitaire platform ( https://online-solitaire.com/ ) that's earning me $10k/m now. It started as a side-project 5 years ago, but I've recently gone full time on it. It actually started as a Mac app 10 years ago and I choose to create a solitaire game because I had made a string of side-project that I didn't earn any money on, so I wanted to see if I could find a project that would actually gene…

You can also do something similar with WordPress plugins.

I built a WordPress plugin and sold it after a few years. I'm currently promoting another. Th answer the original question "how did you come up with the idea?" - I find blue ocean apps that I like and rebuild them, customized for WordPress. My first plugin with a kanban board inspired by Trello. My current plugin is Social Link Pages ( https://sociallinkpages.com ), inspired by Lintree, Carrd, etc.
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