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Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

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Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#141

Post by Sealy »

kal00ma wrote: post #76
Sealy wrote: post #25

I made a lot of passive income by coding trading bots for bitcoin. Its a steep learning curve but if you are willing to learn, it can be very profitable. Like you, I can code confidently so during my morning commute I would read books about trading and economics. In the evening I would play with bits of code interfacing with broker API's. Within 3 months I had a working bot that automatically traded away as I slept a…

Would your algorithm still be profitable today, with so many people running bots on mtgox?

Yes it would. I don't run them anymore though as I decided to concentrate on bitcoin ventures that would help the bitcoin economy grow! (Disclaimer: I hold a fair amount of bitcoin.)

And don't be put off by the hundreds of bots on MtGox, most of them are harmless and from 12 year old script kiddies placing hundreds of tiny ~0.01 btc orders for fun.

Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#142

Post by Sealy »

kseistrup wrote: post #41
CPAhem wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did your bitcoin bots trade?

Bitcoin and another currency (presumably dollars, as BTCUSD has the highest liquidity). Buy when bitcoin exchange rate is low'ish, sell when it's high'ish, reap the margin.

Yes thats correct. And yes, in a sentence you've described a simple but profitable strategy, one of many :).

Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#143

Post by jzcoder »

Does anyone have experience with what they call "app tender" sites like http://appcity.org/ ?

I've heard one anecdote about a guy who knows a guy who bought a very simple iOS app for 10K, did some marketing on FB and made like 20K within a month.

I'm more interested in any experience from the developer perspective selling apps on a marketplace like this. I've also heard the new iOS makes this easier to do.

Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#144

Post by flyinRyan »

adventured wrote: post #63
WalterBright wrote: post #49

Cut your spending so you have a few hundred extra per month. Invest it in SPY (an index stock for the S&P 500). Over time, you'll build up passive income. One reasonable way to cut spending is to sell your car if you have financed it, and buy a car you can afford to pay cash for. Financing is a huge drain on your cash.

This isn't a good strategy. First of all the timing factor alone can hammer your principle (particularly with stocks sitting at all time highs). If you have a skill that is valuable, you're far better off leveraging into that, for the returns are massive by comparison to the puny returns in stock indices. If you can earn just 10% every year in stocks, you're a wizard that should be working on Wall Street earning mill…

>It's radically easier to invest $100 into hosting ($10 or $20 / month at digital ocean), build a service, and make $1,000 a month (a huge return on the invested capital) - than to earn a mere 10% per year in stocks.

But the stocks can happen with no effort from my side. Just invest in some fund and let it ride. Building a service that will make $1k/mo isn't "racially easier", it would take many hours of work to accomplish which means I can't be using that valuable time for something else more interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#145

Post by wikwocket »

Tichy wrote: post #85
patio11 wrote: post #71

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…

"you are looking for a MS Excel spreadsheet which has ever been mailed by Bob to Cindy" That's how I (unenthusiastically) described my job as a Java developer in the first decade of the 21st century. Not sure if by now all Excel sheets have been "consolidated". In any case mobile apps seem to be the current wave.

Given the number of business in the world, the amount of documents and spreadsheets needed to run a business, and the percentage of people who know enough to be dangerous in Excel, I'm certain these scenarios are created at a far greater rate than they are solved with programming.

In other words, you will run out of inefficient business processes to help refactor sometime significantly after the heat death of the universe.

Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#146

Post by jacknews »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #29

When you have some ideas, before you start, spend the first couple hours reading "The Lean Startup" [1] by Eric Ries. This book will give you a measuring stick to see if these ideas work. [1] http://www.amazon.ca/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuo...

The problem is most people don't know what they want even when it slaps them in the face. Lean startup is just a search algorithm, finding what people say they want, it doesn't create or educate markets. That's where the real progress is.

Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#147

Post by mechanical_fish »

Tichy wrote: post #85
patio11 wrote: post #71

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…

"you are looking for a MS Excel spreadsheet which has ever been mailed by Bob to Cindy" That's how I (unenthusiastically) described my job as a Java developer in the first decade of the 21st century. Not sure if by now all Excel sheets have been "consolidated". In any case mobile apps seem to be the current wave.

Not sure if by now all Excel sheets have been "consolidated".

Pardon me while I wipe tears from my eyes.

Not only are there plenty of spreadsheets still wandering about, but I wouldn't be surprised if many decade-old Java applications have reverted to spreadsheets, formally or under the table. ("Officially we have this website, but since the website guy left the company John actually tracks the definitive list of receivables in this Excel doc we keep on this shared drive; it crashes less often and it makes it easier for us to hand-build the new-format reports that have been required since 2010.")

Spreadsheets are actually great: Far more flexible and useful in the hands of "non-programmers" than any other software I've seen. I can't imagine spreadsheet-based prototypes vanishing from the earth anytime soon, though in the places I work for there is a noticeable tendency for the things to migrate from Excel into Google Docs.

Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#148

Post by rmc »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #147
Tichy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you are looking for a MS Excel spreadsheet which has ever been mailed by Bob to Cindy" That's how I (unenthusiastically) described my job as a Java developer in the first decade of the 21st century. Not sure if by now all Excel sheets have been "consolidated". In any case mobile apps seem to be the current wave.

Not sure if by now all Excel sheets have been "consolidated". Pardon me while I wipe tears from my eyes. Not only are there plenty of spreadsheets still wandering about, but I wouldn't be surprised if many decade-old Java applications have reverted to spreadsheets, formally or under the table. ("Officially we have this website, but since the website guy left the company John actually tracks the definitive list of rec…

in the places I work for there is a noticeable tendency for the things to migrate from Excel into Google Docs

That's basically Spreadsheets in the Cloud. They are upgrading to modern cloud-based software ☺

Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#149

Post by skarmklart »

thenomad wrote: post #116
skarmklart wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shameless plug: I'm compiling methods for finding those SaaS patterns: http://howtofindsaasideas.com/ (If you're a HNer, respond to the signup email and I'll give you an extra discount once it comes out.)

Given your market, it may be of interest to know that anyone with a NoScript plugin who goes to your site (on FF, anyway) sees a blank page until they enable Javascript. That's likely to cost you a few sales - particularly since you're in the "make money online" space, people tend to be a little hesitant to enable foreign code. I've signed up, btw.

Thanks for the heads up and I'll see if I can get it fixed.

I'm using Launchrock.com btw.

Re: Ask HN: Passive income ideas?

#150

Post by gab008 »

Another thing you could try is building dashboards for firms/companies that are plug-able into major databases (Excel also as a "bonus", there are many using Excel as database...).

Most will require your board to hook into their ERP system, which is run by a database. The idea it's not new but existing solutions are over-complicated or expensive.

Build a few templates and run them in browser (HTML 5, Java Scrip, CSS, database connector, and a scripting language), get them to look good/attractive (I know it's not easy, but hey... it's not that difficult either).

I believe most companies will be happy to just invest in a LCD screen, an Android device and your labor - to have the boards displayed on the factory floor or at reception (they can also run presentation slides).

As a bonus you can manage the systems remotely - for servicing after installation or changes, if required (another source of income).

I know that this is not a really "passive" income idea, but if you get passionate about it, I think that it has the potential of turning out nice. I have build one of this boards for my work place, and I am thinking of putting this into action.

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