101–110 of 180 posts
Here is a problem that I would pay a subscription for a great solution to: Cron as a service. Sometimes when you set up a simple codestack on Heroku or Parse or similar, it would be great to be able to specify a web hook that should be called repeatedly just to run maintenance code, summarize scores, clean up logs etc. If you have root access you can set up cron but this is not always the case, and I think it would b…
How's your maths? Here's something I'd pay quite a lot for: intelligent inventory optimisation in an easy to use SaaS format. Quite mathematically intensive to do well, so most SMEs don't have the skills, but directly saves money so has a clear value proposition. Some pointers for an MVP I think might be sensible: Model stock arrival and product ordering as Poisson point process with probability based on recent data…
I hate to be the cynic (lies), but there's no such thing as a "passive income". The moment you put your service online you'll have active maintenance and support, even if you don't charge for it. The other problem is that if you solve a problem well, it's actually extremely hard to avoid the business scaling. Once the revenue goes past 1k/month, it'll carry on going, and few people can bring themselves to remove purc…
See: apps that are 2-3+ years old, still collecting $$$ without updates.
Passive income isn't. Lots of little projects may look like passive income but almost all of them (not saying it can't be done but I just have not seen any) have some kind of overhead. It may be better to search for something that can be started small but that you can eventually scale.
When people say they want "passive income", I take it to mean "I want to start a tiny business and then neglect it and hope it dies slowly".
Once a product is good enough for people to start signing up for and using, it often doesn't require much more development work. As long as people can find it, more people will sign up than cancel in any given month.
"Passive" is a really good way to describe the experience of owning one of these little businesses, once you've dialed things in so that the support workload is measured in hours/month and you're firing up the IDE maybe twice in a heavy month.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When people say they want "passive income", I take it to mean "I want to start a tiny business and then neglect it and hope it dies slowly".
I take it to mean "I want to start a small business with a fixed up-front investment and eternal steady income". I don't think they hope it dies slowly, it is just that it will die slowly.
To find problems, do searches on google, yahoo answers, and twitter. Look at the bureau of labor job outlook handbook online and see which parts of each job could be eased with software, or whether online marketplaces could be created (taxi drivers -> uber, hotel desk clerks -> airbnb). Also, each section of craigslist is potentially a online marketplace.
Grab data and build recommendation systems. Movie, music, book, stock/currency prediction, photo, video, blog, vacation, sentiment, patents, similar people (from facebook/twitter/blogs).
Programmatically generate data visualizations and put them on youtube, slap ads on.
Build control systems for drones to automate transportation/photography/surveillance/games. Look at the academic research and commercialize it. Drones that can play catch games, deliver orders to tables, do photography for functions/weddings, do surveillance of perimeters of offices/homes.
I've also been thinking of the exact same thing myself, something which will generate enough profit to pay off bills, buy something nice and invest a little in growing the idea. Recently I've been working on https://www.emlipo.com which was scrutinized by HN for essentially being "little code nobody would pay for". So I've not really wanted to work on that now. Still, there will be something out there I'm sure. By th…
Some options: 1) Do you have freelancing or other experience which has exposed you to multiple people with similar problems? For example, have you implemented the same "$()#% authentication system for a web application 20 times? Package up that one little piece of the puzzle into a scalable way to teach people to do it without needing to have you or someone similarly skilled on their team. Common form factors include…
Here is a problem that I would pay a subscription for a great solution to: Cron as a service. Sometimes when you set up a simple codestack on Heroku or Parse or similar, it would be great to be able to specify a web hook that should be called repeatedly just to run maintenance code, summarize scores, clean up logs etc. If you have root access you can set up cron but this is not always the case, and I think it would b…
> Reliability is key, your service needs to never ever fail. Then that sounds like it need a serious full time commitment. The OP seems to be looking for a specific category of ideas that require minimal maintenance, rather than any ideas.
Some options: 1) Do you have freelancing or other experience which has exposed you to multiple people with similar problems? For example, have you implemented the same "$()#% authentication system for a web application 20 times? Package up that one little piece of the puzzle into a scalable way to teach people to do it without needing to have you or someone similarly skilled on their team. Common form factors include…
(If you're a HNer, respond to the signup email and I'll give you an extra discount once it comes out.)
