Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#21

Post by bennesvig » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 5:39 PM UTC

Pick a specific audience and build them a platform or a way to connect with others looking for their services.

Some random ideas I just came up with are below. Not all of them passive, but might still interest you.

- Website with WordPress templates for real estate agents.

- WordPress multisite network that enables real estate agents to create a site quickly and then pay a monthly hosting fee. You could scale this by selling to different real estate companies, getting all of their agents a personal site.

- Mobile marketing for restaurants. Create a service that enables restaurants to send text message deals to customers.

- Pick an audience that interests you and post user generated content. Then sell ads/sponsorships to companies that want to be in front of that audience. For example, if you create a site for people to submit cute dog pictures, a company like BarkBox might pay for sponsorship.

- Teach people a skill and use Amazon affiliate links to the tools that you use (if possible).

- Marketing analytics. Build a tool that integrates with Google analytics and provides recommended actions to take to improve website performance.

- Create a stock photo site for a specific niche (doctors, lawyers, start ups, etc).

- Create a directory for a specific niche and then sell top placement on that directory.

- Create a site that allows people who don't know how to code to make an app.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#22

Post by salahxanadu » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 5:44 PM UTC

andrewljohnson wrote: post #4

Fork my Stopwatch app for iOS. It makes just over $5/day, and I never did much work on it. Completely open source, no real marketing. https://github.com/andrewljohnson/StopWatch-of-Gaia https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stopwatch-+-timer-stop-watch...

That's so bold! You're a good guy.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#23

Post by andrewljohnson » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 6:14 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #18

andrewljohnson wrote: post #4

Fork my Stopwatch app for iOS. It makes just over $5/day, and I never did much work on it. Completely open source, no real marketing. https://github.com/andrewljohnson/StopWatch-of-Gaia https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stopwatch-+-timer-stop-watch...

Is there a way in iOS for one app to trigger the opening of another app? I was thinking more in an alarm clock situation but perhaps also in a timer situation. For example, "start my Spotify in 1 hour".

Yes, you can use app URLs like APPNAME:// or use the new iOS8 framework for inter-app communication (Extensions).

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#24

Post by fancy_pantser » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 6:15 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #18

andrewljohnson wrote: post #4

Fork my Stopwatch app for iOS. It makes just over $5/day, and I never did much work on it. Completely open source, no real marketing. https://github.com/andrewljohnson/StopWatch-of-Gaia https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stopwatch-+-timer-stop-watch...

Is there a way in iOS for one app to trigger the opening of another app? I was thinking more in an alarm clock situation but perhaps also in a timer situation. For example, "start my Spotify in 1 hour".

URL Schemes are the only way to communicate between apps. So to launch an app you'd need to know it's NSURL (for spotify it's "spotify") to build a URL and do: [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:];

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#25

Post by andrewljohnson » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 6:20 PM UTC

fancy_pantser wrote: post #24

pbreit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way in iOS for one app to trigger the opening of another app? I was thinking more in an alarm clock situation but perhaps also in a timer situation. For example, "start my Spotify in 1 hour".

URL Schemes are the only way to communicate between apps. So to launch an app you'd need to know it's NSURL (for spotify it's "spotify") to build a URL and do: [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:];

There are also App Extensions now, as of iOS8: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documenta...

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#26

Post by joverholt » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 6:24 PM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #20

madd_o wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the tip, I'll do that.

Short overview of what he does: He has a wildly popular blog, and he is an affiliate for a few products, most notably, hosting. He makes 30K or more per month, from this one affiliate program. He sells an ebook, something related to green architecture. He also builds info sites, with Adsense on them and makes a few thousand from those. He has a couple of iOS apps I believe, built with outsourcing. As far as I can see…

Passive does not equal no work. I think the passive comes in after you put in that initial work, creating ebook, adsense sites, etc. and then only needing to devote a minimum of time to maintain that income.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#27

Post by sejje » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 6:40 PM UTC

bennesvig wrote: post #21

Pick a specific audience and build them a platform or a way to connect with others looking for their services. Some random ideas I just came up with are below. Not all of them passive, but might still interest you. - Website with WordPress templates for real estate agents. - WordPress multisite network that enables real estate agents to create a site quickly and then pay a monthly hosting fee. You could scale this by…

FWIW I built idea #3 here (mobile marketing for restaurants), except I targeted another, but similar, niche.

I used long codes (short codes are expensive!), and I didn't do the marketing myself. It's basically a way for them to keep a list of customers, enable automatic signups by texting the number, etc. They write their own messages and send them out.

I'm not much of a salesman, but I was able to make a few sales, mostly to local places via in-person conversations.

Anyway, I have this software built and I'm willing to talk about moving it into other niches.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#28

Post by RickS » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 7:24 PM UTC

tpae wrote: post #10

I was thinking about starting an open source project like Wordpress, Ghost.io, etc.. Then create a market for templates. There used to be more "production ready" open source projects back in the day.. Not as much anymore. Some open source project ideas: - subscription commerce (open source birchbox model) - location based platform for mobile apps (open source Uber/Lyft model) - host your own airbnb page (open source…

Disclaimer: I have no stats to back this up, at all. Just been in the game awhile.

The entry level commerce space (shopify, opencart, woocommerce, etc) always feels overcrowded, but few things really nail it.

Opencart is the only truly free service that's a contender, and it's terrible. Granted - ecommerce, especially security, is very difficult, and asking for that in a free product is lofty.

If you can build a commerce platform that's as low-investment as opencart (read: free) with the UX quality of shopify, and just let it into the wild, you can make an absolute killing by owning the plugin and template market associated.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#29

Post by RickS » Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 7:29 PM UTC

Move fast, this one will blow over quick: Ebola supplies/starter kits, either self-assembled (highest effort, high margin) or just stacks of amazon products with referrals (low effort, low margin).

Second revenue stream for this - there are lots of "end of the world preparedness" sites (think of the people who are buying Glenn Beck's gold coins and you've got an idea of the demographic) that would pay to advertise on a website that attracts people who want to buy their way out of future-phobia.

Re: Ask HN: Ideas for a small passive income site

#30

Post by zura » Fri, Aug 01, 2014, 5:04 AM UTC

andrewljohnson wrote: post #4

Fork my Stopwatch app for iOS. It makes just over $5/day, and I never did much work on it. Completely open source, no real marketing. https://github.com/andrewljohnson/StopWatch-of-Gaia https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stopwatch-+-timer-stop-watch...

That's $150 per month - average salary of an experienced full-time school teacher in Georgia (eastern Europe). And no, living costs are not that different from your place of living.