Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I Built a $5K a Month Side Project

campfirelabs.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 261 posts

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

#141

Post by bryanrasmussen »

kbenson wrote: post #111
yeldarb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was more focused on enjoying life, traveling, backpacking, etc. > In retrospect when you're sitting on a rocket it might make sense to buy more gas and light up that bad boy. I can identify with this. I started a Facebook game in early 2008 that picked up a million users in its first year. Back then all the stars were aligned and if I would have had a bigger vision for it there’s no reason it couldn’t have turned…

The flip side of this is realizing where the path might have lead you. Were I in your position, I suspect my regret might be tinged with relief. Zynga might be an extremely profitable company, but they also epitomize some of what I view as the most egregious offenses in manipulation human nature for monetary gain. So, were I presented with your prior circumstances and had I capitalized on them, would my convictions h…

considering known statements at the time I think probably Zuckerberg would think it sounded ideal.

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

#142

Post by adrianN »

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.

The universe is rarely best described by boolean logic. There are other options that are currently not feasible, but not forbidden by any laws of nature. For example robots could provide everybody's needs. Or we could genetically engineer people so that everybody finds their particular job meaningful and fulfilling.

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

#143

Post by [deleted] »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #102
JDiculous wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way. Pay is good, work can be interesting, work-life balance and job security are relatively good, but being a developer never gave me any sense of real fulfillment. I'm not making any serious difference in anyone's life, and my six figure salary could be replaced with a team of eastern Europeans who could probably get more done at a fraction of the cost. If I were to die tomorrow, it wouldn't really…

The thing that amazes me is that so many people feel the same way, yet this "way of life" is still the norm. That is, why is there no way to innovate a new structure, given the degree of intrinsic support that would seem to exist? And, software engineers in particular would seem well-suited to this task. If software is eating the world and we write software, then...

[deleted]

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

#144

Post by vonseel »

zanny wrote: post #28
Skunkleton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a millennial myself, I would like the need for income taken off the table so that I can find a recurring source of meaningful work.

This is such a modern problem too. No matter what anyone feels about it having to farm crops to eat was definitely meaningful work a hundred years ago. Even if you were being exploited in a factory suicide was common but mostly from abuse and injury rather than the vacuousness of the job. Its wholly contemporary to invent bullshit jobs and imagine complexity to keep people at desks en masse, leaving them with such a…

Farming crops doesn’t sound like an entirely bad job, but I’m not sure the pay is great compared to software development.

I’d seriously consider agricultural jobs (farming, ag engineering, agricultural science) in another lifetime if I hadn’t invested so much time in my tech career and weren’t so allergies to grass/pollen outdoor allergens.

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

#145

Post by rahoulb »

Skunkleton wrote: post #29
zanny wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a modern problem too. No matter what anyone feels about it having to farm crops to eat was definitely meaningful work a hundred years ago. Even if you were being exploited in a factory suicide was common but mostly from abuse and injury rather than the vacuousness of the job. Its wholly contemporary to invent bullshit jobs and imagine complexity to keep people at desks en masse, leaving them with such a…

Truth. My job is "important", but at the same time I don't think anyone's life would be measurably worse if I didn't do it (besides mine lol). IMO it is kind of a problem with software in general. It is getting me down honestly; I could use some advice.

Imagine yourself sat in a big chair aged 110 years old. And you’re thinking to yourself “I’m so glad I did X”.

What is X?

(It’s tough, I’m 44 and I only figured it out last year, but I didn’t do it this way)

Now, how can you do X?

Is it a side hustle? Is it a spare time thing? Does it need millions of dollars? Does it need you to quit your job and change direction completely?

Can you get to X in five years?

If so, what is the single most important thing you need to have completed in 3 years?

To do that one thing, what’s the most important thing you need to have completed by January next year?

And to do that, what’s the single most important thing you need to have completed by March this year.

Now you have a goal - something to achieve by March. Write out 12 tasks to get you there and do one each week between now and then.

If you can’t come up with 12 tasks you can be more ambitious in your March goal. If you can’t fit it all in you need to scale back your March goal.

And then when you hit March, look at your one year target and figure out the next 12 weeks.

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

#146

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway218649 wrote: post #65
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this new trend of belittling accomplishments down to luck? At the very least, thousands of people had the same opportunity to do what your boss did. And that's if we take your word that this is all he did, and he didn't negotiate at all or spend any time researching what products to sell, or take a loss in the beginning to provide good customer service for future gain. Even seeing the opportunity is a skill i…

> You can't prove it's impossible to do what he did today. Others are actively doing it. There is a whole genre of get-rich-quick scammers claiming that exact thing: https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-scam-lawsuit-bowser-washing... https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/men-p... Just because something is possible does not mean it is common. Why didn't all the hard-working software entrepreneurs from the…

[deleted]

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

#148

Post by cosmie »

yellowapple wrote: post #15

I witnessed "Play #3" firsthand. The first startup for which I worked (developing a peer-to-peer learning system that paired up students to learn off one another, whether in person or via video chat) had an uphill battle getting customers and investors because we had to convince them that the problem our product solved was actually a problem they had. Our product happened to chiefly operate by integrating with a diff…

> We barely had the resources - sapient or monetary - to sell our own product; trying to sell other people's products upon which ours depended was doomed to fail.

Just to know, this isn't a particularly uncommon problem. I spent quite a few years working in the B2B lead generation space, and there are countless companies built around the value proposition of being a complementary product to another software platforms.

There are quite a few techniques you can use to suss out what software and platforms companies are using internally, in order to better target your prospecting. Or you can skip that step and go straight to purchasing a list of companies that are known users of that platform. There are companies that curate that type of information - similar to BuiltWith[1] or Wappalyzer[2], but include internal-only technology and not just what's visible by crawling their website. Or you can take it even further, and commission a custom program from a B2B lead generation firm which includes a requirement that any leads have self-reported that they use a specific platform and that they have decision making authority over it[3]. There are also a ton of options in between; feel free to reach out if you'd like to chat more (email in profile).

[1] https://builtwith.com/

[2] https://www.wappalyzer.com/

[3] These are a patently different class of lead generation program than what the article references - both in quality and cost. You're looking at $20-$50 per lead vs. $1 per lead. But with a guarantee that they match your targeting and pre-qualification criteria, even if that pre-qualification criteria was as random as "she has confirmed they use Khan Academy internally, and that she's in charge of it, and that is a pain point for them".

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

#149

Post by vonseel »

sah2ed wrote: post #129
illumin8 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

actually, the article was posted yesterday. He’s writing about his experience in 2015...

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

#150

Post by archlight »

JDiculous wrote: post #97
Skunkleton wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truth. My job is "important", but at the same time I don't think anyone's life would be measurably worse if I didn't do it (besides mine lol). IMO it is kind of a problem with software in general. It is getting me down honestly; I could use some advice.

I feel the same way. Pay is good, work can be interesting, work-life balance and job security are relatively good, but being a developer never gave me any sense of real fulfillment. I'm not making any serious difference in anyone's life, and my six figure salary could be replaced with a team of eastern Europeans who could probably get more done at a fraction of the cost. If I were to die tomorrow, it wouldn't really…

well put. I recently had this thought that dev is no difference from production line worker. There are only small fraction of dev sitting on top of pyramid designing blueprint and managing production line.
Post reply on HN