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Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
201–210 of 235 posts
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#202My most recent iPhone App, Peek-A-Boo Boo Bear. Apps are the essence of passive income. I made it once and now I get paid for it. The app plays peek-a-boo and a few other things.
http://itunes.apple.com/app/peek-a-boo-boo-bear/id501788281?...
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#203Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you disclose how much one can make on airbnb? I have a 2 bedroom apartment and sometimes, when I leave on vacation, I would like to rent it out.
Depends on your location. Do an airbnb search in your area to get an idea. I just made up a price for mine, and when I was getting tons of requests for it, raised the prices to slow them to a manageable rate. Living in SF doesn't hurt.
In SF you could easily rent out a spare room in a 2br apartment for $65-120 per night depending on the quality. I typically do 10 days a month at $100 per night. Sometimes I hire a cleaner, and buy some wine/snacks/breakfast for guests but it's been very easy and I love doing it. Disclaimer: I work for Airbnb.
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Folks, This is long, so I apologize in advance, bare with me. A 401k is NOT a safe investment. People constantly mistake prior history to future events yet there is no causality here. In fact, with QE3 in the wild, the value of your employer matched dollar continues to degrade. http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/2012... The question I ask myself is "What will my dollars be worth at the age of ret…
You reached the correct conclusions empirically, but you could have saved a lot of time and effort by having the philosophy that would lead you to them. Or more specifically, an understanding of economics. I don't mean this to sound smug, or anything like that, I'm just saying that I went thru the same process you did- only I did it in 1998! and then because I didn't believe it, again in 2001. By 2001 I knew there wo…
Thanks for the great suggestions Nirvana! I was only seventeen in 1998, so I was kind of hung up on teen spirit, girls, and rock'n roll.
> Or more specifically, an understanding of economics.
You are very correct. I had no frickin clue about economics. I kinda feel like you have to have the experience and wisdom to judge books. I didn't have that at the time. I needed to fill that gap in. So although it may appear I wasted a lot of time, I feel that I have a really solid grasp on many things that were mysteries to me before. And I can't really put a price on what that is personally worth to me.
> I went the options-spreads on canadian junior mining companies route, and I got out of the market in the summer of 2007 when I felt the crash was imminent. (I was a year early, but for that kind of deal you don't worry about not nailing the absolute top!)
Heh, that is awesome! Nicely done.
One of the things my data has also brought me is friendship. Usually from people many many years my senior. One of them who has really helped me in life and I consider a mentor, also pulled this exact same thing. Getting out in 2007. I was always impressed by that.
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you could argue that at $25 it's still cheaper than a wedding planner That's exactly my point, when your competition isn't even anywhere in the neighborhood, you might as well raise your prices. A bride-to-be isn't going to see a $25 wedding DJ app as being expensive; she's going to see it as being 1/10th of what an actual wedding DJ would cause. You said people are only willing to pay for wedding-related services…
Just test it, create three different apps and see which one makes the most money (you could skin them differently or perhaps you might just need to have a different icon).. of course there are other issues such as a reduction in virality (if you depend on it) however you will be in a much better position to estimate once you actually know how much people are willing to pay.
Is there any use of iTunes affiliates in the app? Like you have a 'beautiful wedding songs' chart & then you profit from any songs they download because of your app?
It would also be good to have paid for content - like pre-chosen track listings, affiliate sales would be high for this too!
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
You reached the correct conclusions empirically, but you could have saved a lot of time and effort by having the philosophy that would lead you to them. Or more specifically, an understanding of economics. I don't mean this to sound smug, or anything like that, I'm just saying that I went thru the same process you did- only I did it in 1998! and then because I didn't believe it, again in 2001. By 2001 I knew there wo…
Thanks for the great suggestions Nirvana! I was only seventeen in 1998, so I was kind of hung up on teen spirit, girls, and rock'n roll. > Or more specifically, an understanding of economics. You are very correct. I had no frickin clue about economics. I kinda feel like you have to have the experience and wisdom to judge books. I didn't have that at the time. I needed to fill that gap in. So although it may appear I…
I didn't mean to imply you wasted any time- you exhibit the one trait that I find exceedingly valuable: the ability to think for yourself. This is way too rare. And so I wanted to help you with some things that you might find useful. (I'd also recommend Atlas Shrugged, there's a reason it's a popular book, and if it's wrong, there's no harm in reading it, right?)
Economics in One Lesson is so cogent that it will, I think, let you absorb a great deal. And then the Creature from Jekyll Island, which is really a history book that reads like a thriller, will let you see how the departure from economics has had an effect on the country-- an effect the most recent version of which you correctly identified. (Which was impressive, frankly, can't tell you how many times people argued with me about house prices between 1998-2007. Sadly, going back to them in 2008-2010 and saying "See, I was telling you this!" didn't earn any kudos for my having called it correctly... I think their worldview is plastic and easily gets remapped by TV news.)
Anyway, the departure from economics is for very sound reasons-- it profits the people who are peddling the bad stuff. But that also means we can profit from it too.
Anyway, I just wanted to give you the books I thought would be most effective for you. I read a lot of investment books when I needed to learn how to invest (Vick's books on Warren Buffett I found particularly interesting-- now I calculate what my return will be before I make the investment. People assume that buying stocks is really risky, but the reality is risk is quantifiable. I can buy a stock and know that I will be able to sell it for a specific price at a specific time-- you can calculate this!)
Anyway, good luck! I admire your datamining-- there's a lot of opportunity for you out there if you keep that up.
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
A word of caution: unless you have the personal skills to deal with tenants, do not make the mistake of thinking that real estate is passive income. Like any earning occupation, landlording takes attention to detail, the ability not to procrastinate, and people skills. Unlike most occupations, landlording will bring you into contact with some of the worst people the planet has to offer, under what has to be the worst…
Best prospect for a landlord I think is to set up establishment in a neighborhood near a good school and only rent to students or recent grads working in the area.
Students are usually the ones most likely to trash the place.
No, I don't have citations, but I have been a landlord and know many others who are/have.
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#209I make (well, past-tense at the moment) almost $2k/month on a vBulletin play-by-post gaming forum I started back in 2007. One single adsense banner below the navbar. I actually burned out within 6 months of trying to bootstrap the fledgling forum with fake activity, clever backlinks, and entertaining the trickle of registrants. Burned out enough to take a a break for a while. Came back months later and it was a bustl…
I'd just like to point out that this is a classic "Overnight"... well, after 6 months of crazy hard work "success" story.
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Best prospect for a landlord I think is to set up establishment in a neighborhood near a good school and only rent to students or recent grads working in the area.
Students are usually the ones most likely to trash the place. No, I don't have citations, but I have been a landlord and know many others who are/have.
Engineering students then.