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Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#251

Post by asicsp »

l33tc0de wrote: post #243
asicsp wrote: post #178

Left my job in 2014. Tried a few things that didn't succeed before selling programming ebooks came to my rescue (2018). From the danger of draining out my savings completely, I'm now earning more than double my needs (which isn't really that much for my modest lifestyle, living alone in a developing nation - $150/month). What's more, my ebooks are all free to read online. Only PDF/EPUB are sold, and I've always given…

Is this a side hustle or your main source of income? $150/month seems less even for a developing nation (I might be wrong though)

Main source of income. I've now saved enough for 3 years if ebooks stop selling (which is a real possibility - most of my readers are from America/Europe/Australia and they would be able to subscribe to AI tools instead of learning from books). I'll probably try in-person local tutoring, look for other options, etc.

And $150/month really provides a comfortable living for me in the outskirts of a city :)

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#252

Post by DarrenDev »

I built an Add-In for Microsoft Word for creative writers that counts occurrences of different types of words and displays each occurrence next to the sentence it occurs in for context. The copy on the website describes it differently, but it's basically just a list of lists with a good UI - nothing complex about it, no AI or ML.

It covers word and phrase frequency, adverbs, dialog tags, etc.

I spent a good bit of time working on it years ago alongside my full time jobs, but haven't touched it in years. It still brings in about $1000 a month.

I Google every one who buys it and they're all published writers or run editing shops.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#253

Post by sarora27 »

sohnakukkar wrote: post #168
sarora27 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The b2b saas was a grind tbh. Lots of cold emailing directors & VPs. Classic top down sales motion. For Kbee, I actually wrote up our journey here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/our-journey-from-idea-to-p... Would love to know what you think and if you have any follow up questions :)

How do you find companies for cold calling? Where do you find phone numbers?

I didn’t do cold calling though maybe I should have. Instead, I trawled LinkedIn and used tools like hunter.io to find email addresses and then cold emailed folks.

Fwiw, Apollo.io seems to do a good job surfacing contact info as well.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#254

Post by porker »

Pawka wrote: post #248
l33tc0de wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a side hustle or your main source of income? $150/month seems less even for a developing nation (I might be wrong though)

150$ from "thin air" every month is nice addition in developing nation. Not something what would change the lifestyle but something what you can easily spend on things you like - books, courses, etc.

It can be enough to change the lifestyle. I'm working with a charity where we're increasing people's income by $90 a year and that makes a significant difference to their lives

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#255

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

xxEightyxx wrote: post #182

I actually have a few: 1) Board member (advisor really) of a crypto/blockchain company. They pay me $5k per month to basically answer questions and help solve certain issues that might arise. There's also regular meetings but all in I spend 4 hours per week max. 2) Small contractor jobs. I was a contractor and home builder in a previous life. These days, I do side jobs both for the extra income and as a way to relax…

i find this....doubtful. sorry i'm just not one to believe everything i read online from anonymous people.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#256

Post by zinclozenge »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #239
smileysteve wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

S&P 500 indices pay 1.56%, so after a couple of years if Faamng salary is $400k that can make it savings that's $6k residual growing each year. S&p dividend indices are 2.54%, utility indexed 2.85%

if faamng salary is supposedly that high, that's like a shocker, and probably massive hyperbole, unless something bizarre happened over the last 5 years. that said, total comp could be pretty high like that quite plausibly.

It's not hyperbole, although prior to 2022, getting $400k total compensation as a senior meant working at a handful of companies, even ones like Google and Microsoft weren't paying out that much unless it was through stock appreciation.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#257

Post by xxEightyxx »

jrvarela56 wrote: post #199
xxEightyxx wrote: post #182

I actually have a few: 1) Board member (advisor really) of a crypto/blockchain company. They pay me $5k per month to basically answer questions and help solve certain issues that might arise. There's also regular meetings but all in I spend 4 hours per week max. 2) Small contractor jobs. I was a contractor and home builder in a previous life. These days, I do side jobs both for the extra income and as a way to relax…

I know this has been upvoted to the top, but this is the most matter-of-a-factly description of superhuman productivity I have encountered. Can you elaborate a bit on how you get so much stuff done? What do you see 'regular people' (or HN folks at least) complain/discuss where you just shrug and wonder why it seems so hard?

I have no social life. Without diving super deep into my past or anything, I just prioritize things and go do it. Have no interest in movies, TV, concerts, bars, or anything else really. I suppose I inherited it from my parents who are workaholics. Also, grew up poor and never want to experience that again so there's probably a bit of a deep-seeded fear in the back of my mind that going broke and losing everything is always possible. Also, I really only sleep 3-4 hours a night and if I'm not doing something productive I feel unsatisfied and generally melancholy. I also only eat one meal a day, sometimes two which combined takes around an hour to prepare, cook, and eat. So that leaves me roughly 18-19 hours per day to work. And in all my work, I automate absolutely anything and everything that can be automated.

There's probably a bit of underlying depression involved where I feel like if I slow down all those mental worries and fears will manifest and send me down a dark path which want to avoid at all costs.

I try not to judge other folks because everyone has different priorities in life. Mine is working, but others may want to travel, try different beers, play sports, have dinner with friends, etc. I can never stop thinking about projects I want to do so I really don't enjoy a lot of socializing.

More specifically - my two jobs are typical 8-4 hours. Before and after I do whatever maintenance is required for the websites I admin. The crypto/blockchain company will have meetings in the evening, occasionally on the weekends. I have friends and family assist with managing my properties and I pay them very well for their help because some properties are located in another state that they're closer to. This mostly leaves weekends available for some contracting projects in my neighborhood (new development, wealthy folks who don't want to do any manual labor!). Additionally, I'm able to check on my properties, do walk-throughs with tenants, repairs (normally plumbing related - sinks, faucets, toilets, boilers), as well as move-ins and move-outs. If it's an emergency I have contacts for electricians, plumbers, HVAC, etc. who can get over there when I can't. My biggest gripe is with modern appliances. Normally use GE appliances, but the quality has gone down-hill, tried Samsung and same thing. I'm spending more to put in higher quality products like Bosch or Miele when possible.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#258

Post by pawelkobojek »

https://scrapingfish.com

A SaaS we developed with my cofounder. Started at the beginning of this year and been growing steadily. We are involved daily in user support, marketing and development.

We attribute the growth to a couple of very successful blog posts which made it to the front page of HN.

Thank you HN!

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#259

Post by gualang »

shauryamanu wrote: post #221
gualang wrote: post #169

Suing lawyers as side income. we all know most lawyers are scummy using all sorts of deceit to gain advantage. However in the increasing documented world, it is a matter of digging(using text search) to find fault with the offending lawyer's deceit and then file a DIY action in court. I am involved in estate litigation since 2016 where I discovered collusion by many lawyers with the estate administrator to defraud th…

Don't you think this might not be a safe side income for you?

It is as safe as filing any valid cause of action in law. Submissions in court is not much different than presenting for a budget in large corporate. Law is not mysterious, it is just plain ability to find case laws that fits your particular sets of circumstances (authorities) - what we devs call pattern matching. Like chess,prepare your defenses while you plan your offensive. Playbook is just like MCO("chess") but be prepared to stay motivated for the long haul.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#260

Post by philsnow »

kebsup wrote: post #87

I make around 200-300 USD per month through https://gifmemes.io . Basically zero maintenance, but I'll add user generated templates one of these days. Will be nice to "automated" content generation in addition to "automated" income generation.

Have you gotten bothered with any copyright issues (founded or unfounded) yet?
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