Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#91

Post by Phlarp » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:04 PM UTC

xoail wrote: post #48

Few years ago I wrote a solution manual to one of my text books (half of it was part of the assignments). I sell it on Amazon for $30 for pdf download. Been making around $200/month.

How much time did you put into this upfront? Seems like the most "passive" item in the entire thread so far. Can I ask what book this is for? whats the lifespan of a solutions manual like this? Have you been selling it for several years or does it obsolete itself in sync with the aggressive textbook versioning schedules?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#92

Post by chisness » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:04 PM UTC

kbelbina wrote: post #5

I generate around $2,500/mo. I operate a company which mines poker data and have a couple of partners, plus some large server / tech / support costs. No-one is full time on the business any more as after Black Friday there isn't a lot of $ in poker: http://hhsmithy.com/

what are some of your main competitors? i know tableratings was big in the past but then got blocked out by pokerstars (and apparently now ftp as well).

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#93

Post by victorf » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:04 PM UTC

vldx wrote: post #31

It might sound kind of obscene here on HN, but I'm making about 3500 euros per month, semi-passive from adult related site/community. It's subscription based and the content is user submitted (that's why it's semi-passive). Some moderation is necessary, as well basic user support, but overall - not so much hustle.

I've been curious because I was thinking of doing something that would host content; is it a legal nightmare if someone uploads illegal material? Is it common?

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#94

Post by romanovic » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

mansigandhi wrote: post #43

ape4 wrote: post #33

It seems the big winner is Apple and Google. They passively collect 30% on the apps we spend months making.

Nothing about what Apple and Google provide for developers/App Store is "passive".

I suppose Apple devotes a lot of manpower and is very "active" in excluding all developers and applications outside of its walled garden.

Google is much different in that you have the option to publish on alternate app markets, or self-publish your own apps, of which Google gets a cut of $0. This lack of control over their own app marketplace is probably the cause of Google's flagging stock price and Android's failure to effectively compete with iOS in the mobile market.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#95

Post by yumraj » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

My wife just posted an eBook - Startup Financing, Equity & Tax, which might be of interest to some folks here. Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/startup-financing-equity-ta...

There is no sale data yet, but would be happy to share in the next thread.

Also, if anyone has any pointers on how to market an eBook, would love to hear.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#96

Post by ghc » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:06 PM UTC

I generate about $900/month of semi-passive income from http://algorithmic.ly, but the initial setup cost is high. In the future I want it to be the goto-company for adding generalized algorithms to apps, products and services (provided as a service), but while I validate the market there's a huge initial setup cost (about 10 hrs), spent on data modeling, cluster deployment and secure key generation.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#97

Post by epoxyhockey » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:06 PM UTC

jamesgagan wrote: post #54

Ologn wrote: post #50

Between $1450 and $1650 a month from ads on Android apps. One app does about $1100 a month, another does $325 and the rest collectively maybe $150.

Do you think ads are a better way to make money than charging for the app?

I am also wondering about this. I have an app selling at $0.99 and make a couple hundred per month in sales. It's hard for me to project how much ad revenue I could make, especially since I don't know how many additional people would use it if it were free.

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#98

Post by jey » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:08 PM UTC

simonswords82 wrote: post #73

jey wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently "SME" means "Small & Medium Enterprises".

Ah yes, you guys refer to it as SMB I believe?

No, I don't use either of those terms often enough to have an acronym for it.

(FWIW, apparently "SMB" means "Small-to-Medium Business".)

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#99

Post by nish1500 » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:08 PM UTC

nish1500 wrote: post #66

23andwalnut wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds great. What kind of plugins? Where do you sell them?

;) http://codecanyon.net/user/nCrafts

Until now, I didn't do anything for visibility. Making good stuff will suffice :)

Re: Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

#100

Post by spencerfry » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:08 PM UTC

https://www.uncover.com has been up and running for about four months now. We're bootstrapped and doing a bit over $5,000/month in recurring revenue. I wrote a three-month recap on our progress last month: http://spencerfry.com/what-i-ve-learned-since-releasing-unco...