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Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#41

Post by gervwyk »

aaviator42 wrote: post #3

On the same topic: does anyone have an API concept that they wish existed and that they'd be willing to pay for?

not an api but, Internally we’re just looking for a native text to speach app that auto records all meetings and call a webhook with the transcript. not the notes! for some reason all most rmeetings apps gives you only notes and seldomly a webhook or similar. also not interested in zapier etc.

After two weeks off looking for a solution, we’re going to vibe code something basic and use deepgram. If we just skipped the shopping around, the solution would be live already..

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#43

Post by gervwyk »

slig wrote: post #29
ttcbj wrote: post #27

Wasn’t there a post on HN about someone who made a lot of money with an API that told you the geolocation of an IP address quickly? Maybe 5 years ago?

ipinfo.io, I believe.

Any idea how a company like this would go about building a user base? Would love any sources of how to learn to market something like this.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#44

Post by mtlynch »

Not making a living, but I make about $200/mo from an API that parses recipe ingredients like "2 cups finely chopped onions" into structured JSON.[0]

I put it in maintenance mode in 2019, so it's about 99% passive income, as I spend only about an hour or two on maintenance per year.

I'm surprised all my clients haven't switched to LLMs, but maybe I still outdo LLMs on price/accuracy since it's so niche.

I'd like to sell it to someone who wants to do something with it, but it would probably take me 30-40 hours to package everything up to hand off to someone, so I consider just the opportunity cost there to be around $5-10k, and I don't think anyone wants to pay $10k for an API that makes $200/mo.

What I wish I knew: don't use RapidAPI. They charge 20%, they have a terrible interface, and they let customers run up huge charges and walk away without paying anything. I wish I'd just rolled my own simple thing with Paddle.

[0] https://zestfuldata.com/

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#45

Post by __turbobrew__ »

ambicapter wrote: post #22
Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #8

I know of a guy, but his scenario was quite unique. I was working for an energy company who shall remain nameless, but who's internal IT was a tangle of external consultants milking the place for millions, and ineffective/underserved full time staff who couldn't run a query on a database without a change control committee of consultants milking them for yet more cash. Anyway, this guy was the go to guy for gas custom…

Sounds like extortion with extra steps? Maybe there’s a more charitable way to tell the story.

It sounds like the employee is actually getting what they are worth. Lots of huge organizations require a single key person in order to function, and most of the time those key people are not compensated accordingly.

The company could have called the bluff and passed on the consulting services.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#48

Post by thuanao »

gervwyk wrote: post #41
aaviator42 wrote: post #3

On the same topic: does anyone have an API concept that they wish existed and that they'd be willing to pay for?

not an api but, Internally we’re just looking for a native text to speach app that auto records all meetings and call a webhook with the transcript. not the notes! for some reason all most rmeetings apps gives you only notes and seldomly a webhook or similar. also not interested in zapier etc. After two weeks off looking for a solution, we’re going to vibe code something basic and use deepgram. If we just skipped the…

Recall.ai is exactly this. Using them at my current company and it works well. It even supports live transcription.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#49

Post by justsomehnguy »

ambicapter wrote: post #22
Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #8

I know of a guy, but his scenario was quite unique. I was working for an energy company who shall remain nameless, but who's internal IT was a tangle of external consultants milking the place for millions, and ineffective/underserved full time staff who couldn't run a query on a database without a change control committee of consultants milking them for yet more cash. Anyway, this guy was the go to guy for gas custom…

Sounds like extortion with extra steps? Maybe there’s a more charitable way to tell the story.

>> resigned as a full time employee, waited until the panic had set in properly

The company couldn't even function without that person. Calling that an extortion is quite a leap.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone making a living from a paid API?

#50

Post by yesbabyyes »

alfons_foobar wrote: post #17
la_fayette wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For customer projects I am happily using paid "text to speech" APIs from several vendors. Privately, I would like to use an API, which gets my Lego bricks inventory and returns all sets which I could build. Further it should show me sets, which I almost can build and show me missing pieces. Also e.g. it should show me sets with slight color differences, e.g. I have bricks in yellow but originally it requires orange.…

That's a funny idea :) I think the first one should be very much doable, but I am not sure how I would build the "almost complete" and the "similar colors" features.

I guess calculating the Levenshtein distance between the sets would work somehow?

Edit: scratch that, just intersect the set of available pieces with each set. If there are fewer than n--or m%--missing pieces, suggest those.

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