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?

#191

Post by pilom » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:33 PM UTC

tachibana wrote: post #57

I am a data point for the worst-case example. I don't have a hot application or a popular website, and most of my money is earned the old-fashioned way. My passive income from my investments in government bonds is enough to cover mortgage, basic living expenses for my family, and two family trips a year. Source of money for investments: - savings from many years of working and diligently saving - some real estate inv…

I'd like to put some math with this because this is the path I took too. 4 years ago I was offered a job with a startup and a job with a government contractor at the same time. The contractor was offering 15k/year more and I took that offer and saved all 15k of it every year (index fund investing). 4 years in, with reinvesting dividends, my passive income from the money is around 400/month. Very happy I made the choice I did.

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

#192

Post by snori74 » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:34 PM UTC

My Linux server tutorial course site http://GREP101.com brings in $700 on a good month and $100 on a bad one. Simply a reflection of the fact that I don't have the necessary things in place to drive consistant traffic to the site - when traffic comes then I get good conversion and a full course, but if not, not.

I keep it going mainly because the feedback is very encouraging, (people really do get a buzz out of learning this stuff!). It requires only a small bit of work each week to keep ticking over, but honestly it doesn't make enough to justify that if money was the only issue.

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

#193

Post by jsleuth » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

Been earning a couple hundred per year with a time-tracking/report-generating site for therapists-in-training. I think one of the big downfalls of the concept was that I chose too small of a niche to serve (marriage and family therapists in training in the US). The most tangible benefit from building the service was the coding knowledge gained which serves my freelance work very well. http://www.therapyhourstracker.com/

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

#194

Post by gesman » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

nish1500 wrote: post #58

21, drop-out, profit ~ $7k a month, working part-time, and no partner. Up from $31/month last December. Comes from sale of plugins. Not recurring, but stable.

Wow this is really cool!

I considering putting mine in there too: http://memberwing.com/

CodeCanyon seems like a really growing marketplace.

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

#195

Post by redblacktree » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

asciimo wrote: post #30

I mine about .0015 BTC a day, a figure that has been declining consistently and rapidly.

Time to pony up the cash for your very own ASIC!

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

#196

Post by Nord20 » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:36 PM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #161

xpose2000 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well done... those numbers are impressive to reach. How many other people do you work with or are you solo?

It's just me, working from home or wherever I feel like bringing a laptop for the day.

This is meant in the best possible way: I hate you. My hate is constructed entirely of jealousy.

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

#197

Post by maxprogram » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:36 PM UTC

PanMan wrote: post #178

maxprogram wrote: post #104

~$1000 a month. Designed, edited and published a book of Warren Buffett's letters to shareholders (see http://amzn.com/1595910778 ). An opportunity I stumbled into. But I suppose "get publication rights from Warren Buffett" isn't a repeatable business model :)

Interesting! I saw the book a few weeks ago and wondered who put it together. I assume the letters are public? How did you get the extra material? And do you share any income with Buffet? (That would feel strange, but would also make sense)

Most of the letters are freely available on Berkshire's website. The "extra material" includes a few early letters not on the web (got these from Buffett so the collection would be complete), and charts/tables/indexes that I put together myself.

The income is not shared with Buffett, but any income I receive is "return on capital" from me taking inventory risk. So I do have to invest some of my $$$ to buy the book inventory, and as it's sold to Amazon I make (great) return on that money. But the profit per book is actually pretty low compared to other published books -- I could be charging much more for the book, but it was part of our "agreement" that I make the total price of the book as cheap as possible. (Which I think is accomplished with Amazon's price of $19-25 for a 700 page textbook-size book.)

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

#198

Post by tankbot » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:38 PM UTC

jdlshore wrote: post #188

I gross just under $10K per month from http://www.letscodejavascript.com , a subscription-based JavaScript screencast for professional developers [1]. It's a full-time job: I put out two new episodes every week, plus a "special" every month that takes quite a bit more effort. That leaves me with about half my time for developing the business. I'm bootstrapping this, so it's just me. I don't plan to hire any employees…

Your demo video is stuttering and unwatchable. I'm guessing it's getting hammered from this post.

The site looks really nice, and appears to have really great content. Signup achieved.

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

#199

Post by maxprogram » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:39 PM UTC

BMarkmann wrote: post #145

maxprogram wrote: post #104

~$1000 a month. Designed, edited and published a book of Warren Buffett's letters to shareholders (see http://amzn.com/1595910778 ). An opportunity I stumbled into. But I suppose "get publication rights from Warren Buffett" isn't a repeatable business model :)

Not repeatable in that specific case, but have you thought about doing the same thing for other high-profile figures (either in finance or elsewhere)? You might be able to leverage your experience and success to get them to agree to a similar sort of thing...

I have thought of this but haven't really pursued anything yet. I also have permission from Buffett to publish his early partnership/hedge fund letters from the '60s, so will probably be doing that in the next year.

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

#200

Post by olofsj » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:39 PM UTC

A small single-page info-site I made in a day or two some time ago started picking up traffic and now makes around $500/month from adsense ads. Quite nice for the work put into it, but of course if you take into account all my sites and apps that made nothing it's not much for the total effort. But now that it's getting traffic I have some ideas for building it out into a larger site, but I haven't found the time yet.