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

Your best passive income? (2014)

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 437 posts

Re: Your best passive income? (2014)

#241

Post by simonhamp »

r4pha wrote: post #219

I'm making negative 15 USD/month hosting two side projects: http://srctree.net - A pastebin with version control http://blocksim.net - A poor man's online simulink-like thingy I am aware that there is a _lot_ of room for improvement in both services, but the fact that nobody uses it at all is not very motivational.

Sorry to hear they're not a great success. They look good though! I've noticed both of those sites use Bootstrap? If you want, submit them to http://builtwithbootstrap.com/submit and I'll publish them tomorrow, see if you get any more action on there.

Re: Your best passive income? (2014)

#242

Post by Qworg »

firstplanthendo wrote: post #160

Somewhat different area, but earns me around $300 a month- Churning credit cards for rewards. So called “award/travel hacking”. 2 new credit cards per calendar quarter, conservatively estimate each signup bonus is worth $600 (if you know how to redeem them, usually that means for travel). Have to live in the U.S. and have good credit to do it, but I’ve been at it for a few years now and haven’t paid for airfares or b…

Doesn't this destroy your good credit? I've always wanted to do this, but that worry always crops up.

Re: Your best passive income? (2014)

#243

Post by astral303 »

eo34 wrote: post #201
astral303 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$5 is not cheap by app store standards. It's a fair price for an app in that class. As to whether you're entitled to support or feature requests, you can make an argument both ways. One could generate some word of mouth by following up on (simple) feature requests. In one of the apps, Fourier, the reviewers say that the horizontal frequency scale is off by a factor of 2 (but the frequency display elsewhere is accurat…

First, wow, I didn't expect any HN readers to actually know about, much less have bought, my work! Thanks. Second, I understand your frustration. I love building things, and sometimes I wish I could do that full time, but grad school is a 70 hr/wk commitment for me. If the app is not useful for you without the missing feature, Apple does allow returns. I'm not quite sure how it works, but I see a few returns a year o…

That open source library is awesome. Wow, thank you.

Re: Your best passive income? (2014)

#244

Post by tybro0103 »

r4pha wrote: post #219

I'm making negative 15 USD/month hosting two side projects: http://srctree.net - A pastebin with version control http://blocksim.net - A poor man's online simulink-like thingy I am aware that there is a _lot_ of room for improvement in both services, but the fact that nobody uses it at all is not very motivational.

Same here for me with http://timebot.io/ I just have no clue how to go about getting customers.

Re: Your best passive income? (2014)

#245

Post by jrs235 »

bsaul wrote: post #93
dangrossman wrote: post #6

Not much has changed since the last thread. Improvely ( https://www.improvely.com ) is still in the 5-digit monthly RR range and growing, and I do no outbound marketing other than some PPC ads that don't need much active management. Everything that can be automated has been automated (onboarding, lifecycle mails, dunning mails for billing issues, etc), leaving me free to spend all my time on support and improving the…

How did you manage to compete against google analytics (which does conversion tracking and a lot more, for free) ? Conversion tracking is something that i thought became a dead market at least 5 years ago (at that time i developed an analytics and conversion tracking solution myself).

I think Google Analytics dashbaord can be confusing and cumbersome. I understand that once you've used it and understand you can be proficient at it but many people don't have the time or care to learn the a complex tool.

I think the biggest value proposition Improvely offers is the Click Fraud reports/reporting and alerts.

Re: Your best passive income? (2014)

#246

Post by ZanderEarth32 »

I've got an iOS app that I'm lucky if I get a sale or two a day. It was really more of a project to teach myself how to build iOS apps and be an accompaniment to an ebook my GF wrote that sells fairly well. I guess technically it hasn't 'made' any money since we're still in the red when factoring in the cost of the icon design, Apple dev account, etc.

I'm currently working on an app that is aimed at kids that should encourage them to write more and be creative. Hoping to get more traction with that.

Re: Your best passive income? (2014)

#247

Post by lukethomas »

dangrossman wrote: post #6

Not much has changed since the last thread. Improvely ( https://www.improvely.com ) is still in the 5-digit monthly RR range and growing, and I do no outbound marketing other than some PPC ads that don't need much active management. Everything that can be automated has been automated (onboarding, lifecycle mails, dunning mails for billing issues, etc), leaving me free to spend all my time on support and improving the…

This is a super cool product, I'm giving it a shot.

Re: Your best passive income? (2014)

#248

Post by asnark »

harvestmoon wrote: post #163

I wrote a book on adult ADHD. I published it 3.5 years ago, and it brought in $75 last month. It used to bring in more, but some people wrote very negative reviews which were upvoted, so its sales dropped. I don't feel too bad because many people who read it say it is unusually helpful and accessible.

Sounds interesting. Link to book?

Re: Your best passive income? (2014)

#249

Post by graeme »

dangrossman wrote: post #6

Not much has changed since the last thread. Improvely ( https://www.improvely.com ) is still in the 5-digit monthly RR range and growing, and I do no outbound marketing other than some PPC ads that don't need much active management. Everything that can be automated has been automated (onboarding, lifecycle mails, dunning mails for billing issues, etc), leaving me free to spend all my time on support and improving the…

I'm having trouble figuring out what you do. Or rather, I know what you do, but am not sure how you do it. How do you track conversions?

I couldn't find a page on the site letting me know how much technical skill I'd require to implement this.

Post reply on HN