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Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

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Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#11

Post by dpcan »

I don't think many people are going to share their idea unless they are sure it's not something that can be hacked together in a week.

It would be interesting to also see people simply saying "I do" and maybe the "space" it's in?

That too would be encouraging I think.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#12

Post by marianattestad »

http://omgenomics.com/circa Circa is an easy-to-use tool for building circos plots with genomics data. I built the visualization piece (and most of the UI) with D3.js and made it into a desktop app with Electron. Initially sold it for $25 per user (one-time cost), which made about $750 a month. Then some professors told me it was way too cheap, so I increased the price to $100. Since then, it has made about $1,500 every month for the last year. This week I started to add some new features and will soon make some more demo videos to see if I can increase that number. :) I think it has worked this well so far because building circos plots is a well-known painful problem in the genomics field. And it was one that I had experienced myself during my PhD work. I was surprised at how many academics actually are willing to pay for software, but still unsure how big that market actually is and how much of it I am already covering. The nice thing about a tiny niche like this is that when you Google "circos", Circa's tutorial and demo videos show up on the first page.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#13

Post by osrec »

harel wrote: post #10
farseer wrote: post #5

No one wants to advertise their money making niche ideas, especially if they are easy to copy.

Ideas are not worth much. Only execution matters.

This is very true. I happily discuss my ideas publicly for feedback. Helps with failing faster. Execution and luck are more important than the idea itself. In fact, I would say most ideas aren't really worth much (some are, but those are one in a million).

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#14

Post by dpcan »

harel wrote: post #10
farseer wrote: post #5

No one wants to advertise their money making niche ideas, especially if they are easy to copy.

Ideas are not worth much. Only execution matters.

Well, sometimes. But a lot of industries suffer from too many people poorly executing ideas. Makes it even harder for the "good guys" to catch a break, acquire, and keep customers.

Some examples are SEO, entertainment, and mobile games.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#16

Post by ryanwaggoner »

harel wrote: post #10
farseer wrote: post #5

No one wants to advertise their money making niche ideas, especially if they are easy to copy.

Ideas are not worth much. Only execution matters.

A list of validated-but-under-exploited ideas definitely has a lot of value.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#19

Post by howlett »

harel wrote: post #7
aabajian wrote: post #4

wwww.cronote.com Simple website for sending reminders. It didn't make any money for 4 years until I added commonly-requested features (templates, recurring reminders, and variables for recipient names). Now I have about 60 paying customers and it makes about $600 per month after all expenses paid. It's been running essentially autonomously for the past five months. The iOS app is still difficult to use. I'm slowly re…

Chrome has issues with your certificate...

It's because there are 4 "w" in the link - try https://www.cronote.com/

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500+/month on side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

#20

Post by petra »

aabajian wrote: post #4

wwww.cronote.com Simple website for sending reminders. It didn't make any money for 4 years until I added commonly-requested features (templates, recurring reminders, and variables for recipient names). Now I have about 60 paying customers and it makes about $600 per month after all expenses paid. It's been running essentially autonomously for the past five months. The iOS app is still difficult to use. I'm slowly re…

How did you get to that place in Google? Luck ? Or some serious seo work ?
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