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Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

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Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

#11

Post by choxi »

This might not be the kind of answer you're looking for, but the best way to truly passively increase your wealth is to take care of your personal finances (e.g. pay off your student loans, pay off your credit card balance, invest in a lifecycle fund, see if your employer offers a 401(k))

I personally really liked the book I Will Teach You To Be Rich -- it has a poor name but it's dense with incredibly practical advice particularly for people coming right out of college suddenly making an income.

Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

#12

Post by patio11 »

Halloweenbingocards.net will probably hit about $6k this October (BCC will hit maybe $10k). Not bad for $250 paid in like 2009 or so.

I did a course on lifecycle emails for SaaS businesses recently. That did pretty well - a few hundred sales.

Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

#13

Post by mcantor »

I sell posters of a vim cheat sheet I designed (see my profile for link). I ship my inventory to a 3rd-party fulfillment provider who plugs in to Shopify with a custom app, so all I have to do is re-print when the inventory runs out and handle the occasional customer service problem. Digital downloads are a total freebie.

Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

#14

Post by ww520 »

bdunn wrote: post #6

Planscope ( https://planscope.io ) - predictable, more-growth-than-churn SaaS revenue Compared to my book, which fizzles out when I'm not actively marketing it, building a B2B subscription product is the best, most turnkey income source I've ever had.

It looks great. How do you market your webapp?

Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

#15

Post by bdunn »

ww520 wrote: post #14
bdunn wrote: post #6

Planscope ( https://planscope.io ) - predictable, more-growth-than-churn SaaS revenue Compared to my book, which fizzles out when I'm not actively marketing it, building a B2B subscription product is the best, most turnkey income source I've ever had.

It looks great. How do you market your webapp?

Content marketing mostly, and over delivering awesome, awesome support that gets customers to refer others.

You can also do really well by just optimizing the hell out of the visitors/expired trials you already have. SO MUCH EASIER than attracting more eyeballs.

Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

#17

Post by w1ntermute »

patio11 wrote: post #12

Halloweenbingocards.net will probably hit about $6k this October (BCC will hit maybe $10k). Not bad for $250 paid in like 2009 or so. I did a course on lifecycle emails for SaaS businesses recently. That did pretty well - a few hundred sales.

> I did a course on lifecycle emails for SaaS businesses recently. That did pretty well - a few hundred sales.

A more professional-looking video on training.kalzumeus.com would've probably helped your conversion rate quite a bit. And avoiding the use of your internet handle on the site would've kept it from sounding cheesy to those outside the HN community.

Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

#18

Post by apike »

Two years ago, when we started Steamclock, we spent our first two months building a niche iPhone app. We've done point releases but not added much, yet today it pays our rent. http://www.steamclocksw.com/weddingdj/

We haven't done any serious research or marketing for it. We simply focused down and built the highest quality app we could build, and it worked.

Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

#19

Post by shmageggy »

bdunn wrote: post #15
ww520 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks great. How do you market your webapp?

Content marketing mostly, and over delivering awesome, awesome support that gets customers to refer others. You can also do really well by just optimizing the hell out of the visitors/expired trials you already have. SO MUCH EASIER than attracting more eyeballs.

Doesn't all of the above take this out of the realm of "passive"? Or are you able to magically get all of that done in such a short time that you consider it negligible?

Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

#20

Post by pan69 »

bdunn wrote: post #6

Planscope ( https://planscope.io ) - predictable, more-growth-than-churn SaaS revenue Compared to my book, which fizzles out when I'm not actively marketing it, building a B2B subscription product is the best, most turnkey income source I've ever had.

Looks great. But is this passive income? It looks like you've invested a lot to get this off the ground, correct? How much time do you spend on this, let's say per week?
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