Good timing with this thread. My attempt is with making iOS games. Trying to mix pleasure and profit. First attempt is http://clumsyandthestars.com/ . Working on a second one now...
Same here. Our first game is at http://noisytyping.com.
Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
141–150 of 235 posts
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#142I use TeeSpring ( http://www.teespring.com ) to create t-shirts and market them towards people on my Facebook page ( http://www.facebook.com/ModernSherlock ). Generally does very well. Way better than other stuff I've tried, like SEO/Marketing etc. The only problems I have is using a crap design, so it pays to know what the audience really wants before I try selling it to them.
I've considered selling T-Shirts. How much time do they take to create? How much income do you make, for how much effort?
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#143Good timing with this thread. My attempt is with making iOS games. Trying to mix pleasure and profit. First attempt is http://clumsyandthestars.com/ . Working on a second one now...
Same here. Our first game is at http://noisytyping.com .
I like those screenshots. :) Let me know on twitter when it's launched @tudorizer
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#144Our highest selling app (a hiking app) makes 15-30K/month, depending on the season. Our other navigation apps don't make quite as much yet, but some are getting there. You can figure out from my profile which it is, but I didn't want to name it in the thread and have this be something that turned up in searches. I wouldn't call it totally passive, but if we ignored it, it wouldn't stop making money. We have consisten…
Congratulation, good work! Anyway, the question was about passive income...I suppose you have to do a bit of marketing, user support, thinking about new features, etc...isn't it then just a business?
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I did a course on lifecycle emails for SaaS businesses recently. That did pretty well - a few hundred sales. A more professional-looking video on training.kalzumeus.com would've probably helped your conversion rate quite a bit. And avoiding the use of your internet handle on the site would've kept it from sounding cheesy to those outside the HN community.
The question remains unanswered whether a "more professional" video would not have turned out cheesy. IMHO success proves Patrick right.
Success doesn't prove anyone right, it just shows that the current strategy is good enough. Who knows if executing it differently wouldn't have double or tripled the success.
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#146Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#147Real estate. (Ok, not 100% passive, but what is?) You can buy a duplex for not much more than a single family house in many US cities and, thanks to the low interest rates for an owner-occupied mortgage, rent out half and live for free. Unlike tech, you will not have a giant windfall with real estate; but also unlike tech, it's very easy to price your product, find customers, and figure out what your cashflow will be…
A word of caution: unless you have the personal skills to deal with tenants, do not make the mistake of thinking that real estate is passive income. Like any earning occupation, landlording takes attention to detail, the ability not to procrastinate, and people skills. Unlike most occupations, landlording will bring you into contact with some of the worst people the planet has to offer, under what has to be the worst…
On the other hand, interacting with landlords as a tenant has already made me lose my faith in humanity. For how much any landlord I've rented from has cared, it was pretty much passive income for them.
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hobbyist would be the better category for it. At a variable range of 0-100 hours a week, your top end is very far removed from the passive income part of the question. In this case the average number of hours per month may make more sense to discuss.
You're right. And maybe average number of hours per month is more appropriate. Or lets, say average number of hours per week. Usually the top end goes to 100 when I'm working on some new feature and am completely obsessed with it. However, following that there is definitely burn-out which causes me to go down to the 0-20 per week range. Also, considering that I've been working on this since high school, I used to hav…
Well the way you talk about it, it sounds like you are conflicted in how to describe it. Your word choice seems to acknowledge that its a job to an extent, while the intentions behind it are insistent that its your hobby.
I found that interesting.
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#149Real estate - I used to own two flats, and get $200-$300 from each one of them. I recently sold one though - I think I can make a better use of the money by other means. iPhone/iPad apps - I did two or three successful apps, right now they bring in $20-$40 daily. The last time I touched/promoted any one of them was last December, and the sales are quite steady now. I bought some S.DICE shares ( http://polimedia.us/bi…
Is the 1200 per month?
Re: Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?
#150I really like building developer tools and kind of miss doing it full time. I built a tool for testing/playing with REST services last year and sell it on the OS X app store: http://www.uresk.net/httpclient/ I'm not getting rich off it, but it usually brings in a few hundred bucks per month and I like hearing from fellow developers who benefit from using it.
This is still my go to tool for GUI request crafting. Thanks!