I'm a YC founder working on tools that make it easier to create and sell programming classes. Would love to chat more if you're interested - david [at] mirio.org
Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?
201–210 of 286 posts
Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?
#202Building and selling macOS apps is a pretty good niche to be in right now. I escaped my stressful corporate job 1 year ago and I’ve been living comfortably since then from app revenue only. I’m making between $3.5k and $9k per month with https://lunar.fyi/ and the smaller apps I create at https://lowtechguys.com/ It’s not much for some parts of the world. But I’m well enough from this that I even took the time to bui…
How do you promote / seed your apps ?
Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you decide on whether you should open source an app? What impact do you think this has on your revenue/profits/clone-ability?
Ah I did notice you encrypt/hide pro features. Still curious to hear your thoughts!
I usually open source free apps, that I don't think I'll ever be able to sell because "who else could have the same problem as me?"
If it turns out that people have a need and want to pay for Pro features, I try my best to keep the source available for the free part of the app, and only encrypt the code that constitutes the paid features.
That happened with Lunar, and it seems to start happening with Clop as well.
I have no idea if it did impact my profits at all, but it did help other people to start competing with me. The only competitors to Lunar (MonitorControl and DisplayBuddy) started by using Lunar's code [1] for controlling monitors on Apple Silicon [2], as Lunar was the first app to get that feature.
Competition is still good though, as long as it's not break-neck competition. I learned how to make Lunar simpler in terms of menubar UI from MonitorControl, and got some ideas on how to implement Custom Presets from testing DisplayBuddy.
[1] https://github.com/alin23/Lunar/blob/master/Lunar/DDC/DDC.c#...
[2] https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/journey-to-ddc-on-m1-macs/
Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?
#204email me
Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?
#205> monetizing hobbies
I find two issues with this (disclaimer, My "hobby" is coding, so I guess I've been monetizing it, all my adult life):
1) Once someone starts paying you, they get to exert their influence on your work, and it becomes a lot less "hobbyish."
One of the biggest joys in my life, these days, is not having managers destroying my work.
2) Delivering ship software requires a lot of "not fun" stuff.
In some cases, the majority of the project could be wrapped up in "unfun," like needing to use particular coding practices, languages, dependencies, techniques, etc. Also, there's all the "polishing the fenders" kind of thing, like documentation, UX finish, maintenance, fixing all those bugs that you don't think are "actually bugs," establishing CI/D, configuration management, presentations to the Board, etc.
These days, I write software for myself. I eat my own dog food. Every one of my projects is a complete ship product, with all the aforementioned stuff (without the CI/D, as I don't really need it, for my one-man shop).
Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?
#206> The thought of returning to corporate working kind of disgusts me. daily meetings, middle management bs, politics, bureaucracy... im sure your familiar with the typical complaints. Have you considered working in a company that isn't like that? Things to look for: * Ownership: The owner should be the person running the business. * Size: Fewer than 20 employees. Ideally two or three; consider being the first. * Reven…
I've worked in small (less than 20 employees) companies and although there were no grooming / standup / retro meetings (i.e. all the bullshit agile stuff I can't stand), it was replaced with other bullshit like having to answer the phone and deal with passive aggressive customers, zero benefits other than salary (no 401k etc), an owner who said things like "microsoft can build excel, why can't we build ", no project/…
>an owner who said things like "microsoft can build excel, why can't we build ",no project/product managers to manage the todo list, so everything was urgent and must be done imediately!
<10 employees here. This is exactly my experience. The grass is always greener.
Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?
#207Building and selling macOS apps is a pretty good niche to be in right now. I escaped my stressful corporate job 1 year ago and I’ve been living comfortably since then from app revenue only. I’m making between $3.5k and $9k per month with https://lunar.fyi/ and the smaller apps I create at https://lowtechguys.com/ It’s not much for some parts of the world. But I’m well enough from this that I even took the time to bui…
How do you promote / seed your apps ?
Mostly links in comments and word of mouth :) see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33621814
Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?
#208It used to be easier to start an internet business before the Great Monopolization of the '10s happened. For us it was simply the WWW. Now you have to look for a platform that still has a window of opportunity open before the monopoly in charge of it decides to choke everyone out. A kind soul mentioned the iOS app store.
Perhaps there is a window of opportunity in content, video content. For youtube, start with making shorts or just copy popular shorts from tiktok. Youtube promotes them so you can get subscribers (but no money), that you can then use to upload longer, money-making videos.
Gaming is also a possible niche. If you can create something that complements a popular game, you have a dedicated community to monetize.
Re: Ask HN: Alternative ways to make money with coding and system skills?
#209Reading your post it sounds like you dont really want to learn how to do something new. You just want to use your existing skill set to make money. That is fine but to start a business, and starting a side hustle is starting a business, you need to learn new things. If you dont want to do that then maybe finding a smaller company or a company with a better culture will help. I didnt love my first two eng jobs. I like…
> you dont really want to learn how to do something new. You just want to use your existing skill set to make money
Yeah for the short term, i have been thinking of ways to leverage the person I am now. Developing new skills and talents is a long term investment, which is useful just not my immediate goal. hope that makes sense