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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?

#291

Post by Mushhh »

sph wrote: post #269
Mushhh wrote: post #16

My partner and I created a very successful business in the UK out of selling mushroom grow kits and microscopy spores. We didn’t think there would be any market here because there weren’t any UK shops doing it. Then a couple of years later it took off and growing mushrooms became cool. In this time we learned how to run a webshop and navigate an industry where every payment processor dropped us - to the point where w…

Ah, for a second there I thought psilocybin mushrooms were legal in UK (as they are/were in NL) and I would have really wanted to buy one of your kits. Maybe if the laws change feel free to let us know ;)

If the laws change, feel free to let us know too - we would love making ten-fold the sales by producing and selling magic mushroom grow kits! ;)

But in all seriousness, psilocybin was banned in 2005 in the UK. We have only sold products which were to be used to help cultivate psilocybin mushrooms to one single customer - an organisation with a special license to do so provided by the Home Office in the UK.

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

#292

Post by mdrzn »

testmasterflex wrote: post #235
mfrye0 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fxtentacle, I remember chatting with you briefly earlier this year about all the projects you had worked on, and you didn't even mention this one. You are one interesting dude.

Does HN have some kind of discord channel or similar?

This would be the closest thing to one: https://discord.gg/Wp2PSCgH

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

#293

Post by Fredej »

giaour wrote: post #177
to1y wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no overheads as a employee but too many in solo endeavours? Did you get that the right way around?

Yep! To contract, I have to find clients, solicit project work, write invoices, keep after clients for payment; in general, I have to do all the extroverted business shit I became a software developer to avoid doing. As an employee, I can work on problems I identify, invest time in mentoring colleagues, spend time building a skill that will be of long term but not immediate benefit to my employer, etc: stuff nobody w…

Depends on how much you want to do it. If you wanna do full time consulting, sure that's the case.

But a part-time consulting gig on the side, when you've been working for 10+ years and have a solid network? In that case, you can often find opportunities in your network, if you're looking.

Basically, if anyone you know is taking a C-level position in a funded startup, for example, they might very often need help with all sorts of different things and would be willing to pay.

Similarly, any time someone reaches out on linkedin with a job, tell that you're happily employed on not planning on moving, but that you would be interested in helping them on a part-time consulting basis. Done.

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

#294

Post by zem »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #290
xxEightyxx wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You’re one of these special lucky people who only needs 4 hours sleep. I have a friend like that and he uses his extra time to complete video games and be a dad/husband. I’m more of a 8-9 hours person myself so I’m super jealous

I recommend Nancy Kress's excellent science fiction trilogy "Beggars in Spain" for a good fictional exploration of this idea

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

#295

Post by taneq »

eps wrote: post #282
marpstar wrote: post #17

I had partnering with a marketing agency for awhile doing implementation of their designs in WordPress. After a few years of clients breaking their sites doing upgrades and other ad-hoc questions/enhancement requests coming via email, I got tired of sending $100-200 invoices, so I started selling "WordPress Maintenance" as a product. It's not fun or sexy, but don't underestimate the number of organizations willing to…

> don't underestimate the number of organizations willing to pay $3K/year ... it's an "easy" $30K every year. So 10 then :)

“That’s a trick we engineers call ‘math’” - Dilbert

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

#296

Post by michepriest »

I spent last month trying as many things as possible to see what was most desirable. Best paying ended up being trading time for money. In order of most money made:

• workshops • custom illustration packs • microcoaching • online courses • ebooks • merch on Etsy • Upwork gig

I’ll be working on converting residue from time-for-money projects into products. For example, I’m turning my workshops into online courses, my illustration packs into icon bundles to sell as digital products, microcoaching as asynch videos, online courses transcribed into ebooks, and concepts from all of them into merch (coffee mugs, journals, t-shirts) with an ability to mix and match bundles

I started all of this when I got laid off. I ended up needing flexibility to take time off to help my family so can’t see getting a full time job anytime soon. I’m also done working 60-80 hour weeks for startups and can’t figure out a job that pays enough that’s low stress. So scrambling to make this work

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

#297

Post by lolive »

rsync wrote: post #207
lolive wrote: post #204

Dealing MtG[1] cards on eBay. [1]: Magic: the Gathering.

What a coincidence - that is actually the worst income stream I ever created. I was working at Software Etc.[1][2] in 1995 and used my employee discount to buy 12 boxes of Fallen Empires. I was certain it would make me (relatively) rich. Five years later I sold them all on ebay for, basically, even money. FE was so overprinted that it had no value at all and I don't think I would have made any significant money until…

Fast forward to 2022: Hasbro is printing limited series of various qualities. For the juicy series, the price basically doubles right after the sold-out. That’s my definition of easy money.

Hint: the next limited serie is « MtG meets The Lord of the Rings »

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

#298

Post by waltbosz »

powvans wrote: post #63

When I was in college I sold discarded text books on half.com. This isn’t my best income stream, but in many ways it was my favorite. After the Spring 2000 semester, I noticed that the bookstores had junk book bins. Students would dump into the bins any books that the bookstore would not buy back. Anyone was welcome to rummage through the bin and if they found something interesting they could keep it. The bookstores…

I used to sell on half.com . My dad was a college professor and would get free sample textbooks from the publishers that wanted him to consider them for his classes. He'd give them to me to sell

But my most memorable sale was to see the name of a classmate on my half.com portal. I just handed him the book in class one day instead of having to take it to the post office.

I'd also buy deeply discounted old editions from the school bookstore to resell. They still had resale value because not all schools would update to the latest book right away.

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

#299

Post by exikyut »

fxtentacle wrote: post #289
windowshopping wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit confused - this doesn't look like a quick tool built to solve one issue - this links to what appears to be a whole company with many sophisticated products. You did this all yourself?

Wow I didn't expect this to get so much attention. Yes, I built all these products. The tools have a shared C++ core library and then I did the DAW integrations and platform-specific GUIs with JUCE, which is a cross platform C++ toolkit popular with audio people. The original issue that I solved was simply mixing a large number of inputs down to something like 22.2 cinema surround based on mathematical formulas. Inst…

Wow, 22.2 is pretty crazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22.2_surround_sound

When you say you can input XYZ coordinates - I couldn't help but wonder, is this sort of thing ever hooked up to motion tracking?

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

#300

Post by grwthckrmstr »

So glad you asked this question, thanks!

One of my favorite projects and one that keeps bringing me joy is my online course on Programmatic SEO.

Created in January 2021, after the initial 5-digit launch sales, i didn't work on the course or make any updates and just kinda left it.

The course has been making >$500/mo in fully passive income. I love it more than the SaaS product I run even though that makes >50x more per month.

Course landing page, for whoever is interested - https://preetamnath.com/programmatic-seo

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