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How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

campfirelabs.co

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Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#121

Post by kokokokoko »

vesak wrote: post #114
kokokokoko wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, maybe pay people a living wage no matter what country they are from? Doesn't seem that unreasonable.

Well, if a person is producing below a living wage, then it's difficult to pay that person a living wage.

You realize, that the business we are talking about is performing arbitrage on labor. That the very definition of this business is that the workers are receiving less than the full amount of the value they are creating.

Its literally how the business makes money. Paying them less than their output.

This business cannot exist and at the same time not have more money to pay the people doing the work.

Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#122

Post by shostack »

blunte wrote: post #69

This is great and educational. But I've noticed that many (most?) of the successful side projects were started by people who had some sales and marketing experience. Sales first, tech second (or third). If you want other people to buy, rent, invest, etc., you have to be able to find the right people and communicate with them in a way that will lead them to become your customers/partners. Unfortunately, I doubt many o…

I'm a marketer who has gradually gotten more and more technical over my career.

I refuse to believe that people with CompSci degrees can't quickly pick up the more basic (and even many intermediate and advanced) marketing skills, particularly in the digital realm.

Yes, knowing how to apply them, and learning about audiences messaging, etc. are going to be challenging, but you'd be shocked how far you can get for many products and services just by semi-intelligent testing and implementation of best practices with things like paid search, SEO, email marketing automation, analyzing web analytics, etc.

In fact, I'm often shocked at how many marketers are not technical enough to do those things at even a basic level.

There's a LOT of good information out there, and sometimes it really is just a matter of honing your bullshit detector to weed out the guru spam. Heck, spending a week reading through the Google Ads and Facebook help docs would set you ahead of quite a few of your peers, AND you'd have a leg up on implementing the more advanced approaches that require technical integration.

That said, finding an experienced marketing mentor or consultant can help you short circuit the learning curve and guide you away from wasted time and money.

Spending $5k with a consultant to help you create your initial plan might be wiser than say, randomly spending $5k on FB ads without having known you should setup conversion tracking, how to properly structure your account and audiences, how to build great creative, etc. and then not even having any clue what the spend did for you because you don't understand what the data is actually saying.

Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#123

Post by dragonwriter »

zorga wrote: post #116
unclebucknasty wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your entire comment--including suggestions as to what the OP really wants--is predicated on the belief that the current structure is the result of some static law of nature, rather than completely man-made. If you envision other means of distributing the planet's vast resources, then you'll realize that there are alternatives beyond a) working unfulfilling jobs that produce wealth for others in order to subsist; and…

> If you envision other means of distributing the planet's vast resources Whether you pay for yourself, or others pay for you, is a binary choice. There are no other options that don't fall into those two categories. > is predicated on the belief that the current structure is the result of some static law of nature Nope, just on the nature of boolean logic.

> Whether you pay for yourself, or others pay for you, is a binary choice.

No, it's a continuum where those are the two polar extremes.

> There are no other options that don't fall into those two categories

That's true in the sense that all options aside from those two extremes are a mix of them.

Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#124

Post by zorga »

kokokokoko wrote: post #110
hawkice wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, ya see, it's wrong to pay people in poorer countries less because now you're talking to a poor person. If you hire an American, you never even spoke to a poor person, so it isn't your fault. If that sounds like a fever dream, you aren't alone, but it's my best guess at understanding what's happening. Obviously, my complete lack of employing people in central Africa is why they are all middle class Americans now,…

Or, maybe pay people a living wage no matter what country they are from? Doesn't seem that unreasonable.

That is a living wage in their country.

Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#125

Post by kokokokoko »

DATACOMMANDER wrote: post #117
unclebucknasty wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.

Because he should be employing Americans, or because he should be paying the developing-country worker $50/day? If the latter, how do you think that workers in developing countries are going to go from making $5/day to $50/day if they never make anything in between? Surely a 200% pay increase given immediately is better than a 900% pay increase that’s purely hypothetical?

Because he should be paying human beings a living wage no matter where they are. Pretending that living costs in a developing nation is somehow magically non existent is immoral.

Pay people a reasonable wage to live their lives and provide for their families. Just because someone lives in another country does not give a person the moral authority to pay them an amount that does not allow them to properly feed and care for themselves and their family.

Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#126

Post by PinkMilkshake »

kokokokoko wrote: post #110
hawkice wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, ya see, it's wrong to pay people in poorer countries less because now you're talking to a poor person. If you hire an American, you never even spoke to a poor person, so it isn't your fault. If that sounds like a fever dream, you aren't alone, but it's my best guess at understanding what's happening. Obviously, my complete lack of employing people in central Africa is why they are all middle class Americans now,…

Or, maybe pay people a living wage no matter what country they are from? Doesn't seem that unreasonable.

It seems reasonable until you realize you could completely wreck their local economy.

If you start paying people to compile lists for you at a higher rate than they are paid performing important local services, then they will stop performing important local services and start compiling lists for you.

What needs to happen is slower growth.

So foreign businesses outsource to the Philippines, paying them low wages. Then other businesses see this as a good way to save and do the same, and then more businesses and so on. Soon the people in the Philippines have options, and their market starts to become competitive, and they start demanding more pay (which is good). During this whole process they are spending that foreign money into their local economy, allowing it to grow and keep up.

China is a good example.

Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#127

Post by sah2ed »

chucksmash wrote: post #89
csa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vouched for the dead comments. The story might need to have a missing date on it (4 years old?), but the two comments that the author of the post made don’t seem to violate the terms or spirit of HN rules. If someone can show me how the rules were broken in his comments, I will gladly unvouch.

Maybe shadowbanned because he's the Mike of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13339723 fame?

That was an interesting thread of rebuttals and counter-rebuttals.

Thanks for linking to it!

Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#128

Post by zorga »

illumin8 wrote: post #84
derekp7 wrote: post #43

If you don't mind me asking, I'd like some help laying out what my next steps should be on one of my side projects. I had an idea for a side project, ran it by a hand full of friends and associates, expecting to have a bunch of holes poked into it (they have done that to me many times in the past). This time they all think I have something. Problem is I work full time, as a Linux systems engineer (30 years of Unix ex…

Honestly, as someone who has started a 5-6 figure monthly "side-hustle" in an area where there are many other players, and which requires learning new frontend skills, while I'm a crusty UNIX/Linux head, 30 years experience like you, I would say: just do it! Here is the thing I learned in 2018, in which I also generated >$700K of side income working 10-12 hours a week (mornings, evenings, and weekends): If you know h…

And where do you find clients with one off needs like that?

Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#129

Post by sah2ed »

illumin8 wrote: post #88
nowarninglabel wrote: post #54

"the first thing I did was hire a team in the Philipinnes to ensure I never had to stay up until 1am building lists" Is it possible for anyone to share how they found people to hire/outsource building sales lists to?

He says right in the article: odesk.

Right, but they now go by the name UpWork.

That the article uses the old name of oDesk from 4 years ago points to the need to add “(2015)” to the thread title.

https://www.upwork.com

Re: How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

#130

Post by all2 »

solveit wrote: post #37
mcguire wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about sucky experiences that don't end well?

Fuck those. We wish we hadn't been so mindblowingly stupid as to put ourselves through those.

Well, those can also be remembered fondly.

One that crops up in my memory with some frequency is lying face-down in three inches of snow. My feet are going numb. My SAW is freezing my fingers. My helmet keeps sliding down over my eyes. We've been out here on the perimeter for almost two hours, just waiting for the word to move.

They told us to embrace the suck. It was fun. I've never felt so alive.

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