Ask HN: Income on the Side? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#21

Post by caffeine » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 11:03 AM UTC

Grad school. They pay your rent for a few years, and you just kind of do whatever you'd be doing anyway. It's great.

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#22

Post by jim_lawless » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 11:15 AM UTC

I sell a few command-line utilities for Windows ( MailSend, MailGrab, CMD2EXE, and ScreenKap ).

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#23

Post by akamaka » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 11:54 AM UTC

Freelance sysadmin and web development work brings in a bit of money. I've never gone out and looked for this type of work, but I've gotten to know a handful of good clients over the years.

I do the work more because I like them than for the money, and I'd still help them out if I was rich enough not to work, but getting work from them has really helped when money is tight.

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#24

Post by akamaka » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 11:58 AM UTC

mburnett wrote: post #18

Freelance web dev. Might be easier if I had a programmer to team up with, could get better sized projects and focus on what I do best.

Lots of web programmers here you could team up with.

If you mention what city you're in, you might find someone who's interested in working with you.

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#25

Post by ilitirit » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 12:19 PM UTC

I just finished my first bit of private consultation work. Basically I told the guy I'd do a website prototype free of charge, and if he's happy I'd continue with the "real" work. He was so happy with the prototype has wanted to use it in his production environment. After that he needed a few changes and enhancements and I think he's getting ready to demo it to his business partners as I type this.

Post-mortem:

No matter how simple the task seems it's usually more work than you anticipate.

Stick to the requirements. I spent about 40% of my time implementing nice-to-haves that noone would probably use anyway.

Proper documentation is paramount

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#26

Post by ssanders82 » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 1:30 PM UTC

jim_lawless wrote: post #22

I sell a few command-line utilities for Windows ( MailSend, MailGrab, CMD2EXE, and ScreenKap ).

How do you promote these?

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#27

Post by ssanders82 » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 1:31 PM UTC

mburnett wrote: post #18

Freelance web dev. Might be easier if I had a programmer to team up with, could get better sized projects and focus on what I do best.

What language? What do you do best?

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#28

Post by pclark » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 2:19 PM UTC

timwiseman wrote: post #6

I write articles about SQL Server. The pay is minimal but the practice writing and solidifying what I think I know is far more valuable to me than the income.

who do you write for?

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#29

Post by rodyancy » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 4:16 PM UTC

I write contacts for businesses, file trademarks and copyrights, and an occasional probate. Unfortunately, the law degree doesn't help the day to day start-up too much.

Re: Ask HN: Income on the Side?

#30

Post by nibrahim » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 5:53 PM UTC

Freelance web development (not much) and corporate training (might sometimes make more than my day job). This is in India where service companies abound and they have high training budgets.