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Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

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Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#11

Post by chasd00 »

My work came up with a bonus structure around a certain set of industry certifications. I looked at all the certifications available and worked out a strategy to max the bonus each year. It comes out to about $2.5k/month.

So my side hustle is studying and taking tests. Over the last 5 years or so of taking tests + investing I’ve built a nice chunk of change set aside to help pay for college for my two boys (age 14 and 16).

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#14

Post by VoidWhisperer »

jacob_rezi wrote: post #4

https://socialmediascheduler.ai/ Just crossed $1.45K/mo!

Generally the reason you have a links section in the footer is for them to be actual links, not text. I wouldn't trust this product as far as I could throw it given how many issues the site seems to have

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#16

Post by skc »

unified101 wrote: post #2

The world is changed - given the low cost of reverse engineering and implementation, it would be product suicide to openly call out a money making product. I don't expect too many actual >500$ moneymaking projects to be listed. Would love to be proven wrong.

Precisely what has effectively killed off the "building in public" trend that was all the rage just a two years ago.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#17

Post by Digish »

unified101 wrote: post #2

The world is changed - given the low cost of reverse engineering and implementation, it would be product suicide to openly call out a money making product. I don't expect too many actual >500$ moneymaking projects to be listed. Would love to be proven wrong.

I also feel the same all the masterclass about making money using x,y,z is either showing things in past which no longer work or very steep upfront cost/efforts.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#18

Post by abrookewood »

chasd00 wrote: post #11

My work came up with a bonus structure around a certain set of industry certifications. I looked at all the certifications available and worked out a strategy to max the bonus each year. It comes out to about $2.5k/month. So my side hustle is studying and taking tests. Over the last 5 years or so of taking tests + investing I’ve built a nice chunk of change set aside to help pay for college for my two boys (age 14 an…

That's clever and entertaining. Have you actually enjoyed any of them?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

#19

Post by agotterer »

A friend and I host a monthly dinner club for people interested in exploring ethnic cuisine on Long Island. We work with one restaurant each month to create an 8-12+ course all inclusive price fixe menu. The food is usually served family style (the ambitious ones individually plate everything) and is authentic to the region we are hosting. We typically host the dinners on a Tues and Wed when the restaurants in our region aren’t too busy and could use business.

We started this in 2023 with 13 of our friends as guests. Since then the group has grown to over 1,200 members and well beyond our circle of friends. August was our 52 second restaurant. In 2025 we served 1,099 guests and generated $126k in revenue.

https://www.deadchefssociety.com/

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