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Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

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141–150 of 186 posts

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#141

Mkelley – Drop shipping has been mentioned a few time, and I wanted to give you my thoughts on the business model. I've had a lot of success with drop shipping eCommerce and have been doing it full-time for more than 4 years. Robryan is right to some extent - it can be harder than it looks - but with some dedication and a good niche, it's a great way to create online income. A few tips from my own experience: - Picki…

That's very interesting. Congrats on your success. I've been interested in understanding the whole dropshipping process, so I'd like a copy, if you don't mind (email in profile). Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#142
What is she good at? What are her interests? What would she like to spend 24/7 doing?

We wrote up a post last month - http://sparknlaunch.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/step-1-where-to...

Essentially if you want to go down the path of a real business (ie one that generates $1k per month) you really need to be pursuing something you believe in and are willing to commit 110% towards.

While all these online ventures being suggested here are noble and probably relevant. You have to ask the basic questions first.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#143
post #76
post #49

QA, testing web sites in late development and logging bugs. Most developers hate doing this, & PM's are not good at anything. I usually pay $40/hr for this, however it only takes a few hours, and that rate means the bug report is reported in a way that it's easy to read and recreate without having to have a conversation about it.

I'd love to get into doing this on the side, but 99% of QA jobs I've seen require solid knowledge of programming. Is this not the case?

I had a p/t QA job testing games for IBM and other local ISVs. I was a highschool student at the time and the only requirement was knowing how to use a computer and writing detailed descriptions of what happened and what you did to cause it.

I can't imagine how programming has anything to do with assurance (the A in QA). Though I have seen job descriptions confuse QA with analytics and analytics definitely requires programming expertise. I usually chalk this up to HR not knowing what the hell they are talking about.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when I am an old man, I hope my family make more of an effort than to plan for strangers to call me. That's a really rude statement. Also, you have no reason to think the parent commenter's father enjoys games, or even to think that an aged person with health problems is interested in puzzles over human interaction.

I stand by it, I dont think it is rude. I think it highlights the focus we as technology advocates hold that technology can solve society based problems. Turn back the dial 50 years, we held our elders in far higher respect than we do today. That said, I want to show you an example of something a bit more meaningful with skype and the older generation. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17870178 Clearly this is not f…

It's beyond rude. Saying something like that without knowing anything about the people involved, their relationship or what they do for each other is extremely nasty.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#145
post #27

just a wild, very wild and untested, idea. a mini-niche "mechanical turk" iphone(andorid) app. i.e.: if your wife is called "gloria" the app is called "Ask Gloria" * user types in an question/request. * gloria (the real gloria) response. the app is free(? or 0.99) with a 1 question package. an additional question pack (of 5 questions) costs 10(?)$ the selling point is that not an anonymous person or siri-AI answers y…

Vodafone in Australia (not sure about everywhere else) once had a similar service which they pitched as being able to find the answer to anything. I only used it once or twice, often while trying to prove something in a bar. Pretty handy service however I think you'd want to be able to call in your question as there might be a bit of forwards and backs in trying to work out exactly what you're trying to get the answe…

There were quite a few of these globally, but Google on mobile killed them I think.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#148

A younger, stupider me would have suggested writing for one of the freelancer sites. However, that seems to put her on a collision course with lots of not-so-savvy-but-they-don't-need-to-be folks who would be thrilled to make 1/4 of her reserve price. Ignoring credentials for a moment, does your wife have any skill which is commercially valuable? Can she develop one? Many knowledge-worker things can get delivered ove…

> she doesn't have the best formal education credentials

Tiger Moms are sort of snobs about formal education, so they may not want to hire her.

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#149
post #27

just a wild, very wild and untested, idea. a mini-niche "mechanical turk" iphone(andorid) app. i.e.: if your wife is called "gloria" the app is called "Ask Gloria" * user types in an question/request. * gloria (the real gloria) response. the app is free(? or 0.99) with a 1 question package. an additional question pack (of 5 questions) costs 10(?)$ the selling point is that not an anonymous person or siri-AI answers y…

How about the niche "ask a mom"? This way new moms or parents in general can ask her about tips (i.e. Tips for traveling with a baby?). If it sticks, she can grow the network of possible moms to ask (which would "require" some kind of blog about parenthood etc).

Re: Ask HN: My wife needs something to do from home to make money...

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when I am an old man, I hope my family make more of an effort than to plan for strangers to call me. That's a really rude statement. Also, you have no reason to think the parent commenter's father enjoys games, or even to think that an aged person with health problems is interested in puzzles over human interaction.

I stand by it, I dont think it is rude. I think it highlights the focus we as technology advocates hold that technology can solve society based problems. Turn back the dial 50 years, we held our elders in far higher respect than we do today. That said, I want to show you an example of something a bit more meaningful with skype and the older generation. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17870178 Clearly this is not f…

Congratulations - you're an Internet know it all.
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