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How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

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Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#31

Post by throwaway920102 »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #28
Ir0nMan wrote: post #23

Right now, you need a guaranteed paycheck, not a speculative project. A side hustle might replace your income one day, but it won’t move fast enough to solve a six-month rent deficit. Focus 100% of your energy on securing a job first; once your housing is stable, you can use your off-hours to build that $10k idea.

In general yes, but there are no regular jobs now. Only gaslit interviews, if you can even get a response.

Are you talking about tech jobs, or -any- job?

If you are six months behind on rent, you just go find a job cleaning shit and fatbergs out of sewers if that's what is available IMO.

Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#32

Post by ProjectVader »

grugdev42 wrote: post #24

You might laugh, but selling cheap marketing websites is an easy $10,000. Selling ten $1,000 websites to small businesses is easy. It isn't fun or exciting, but it works. It's 50% sales, 30% chasing people, and 20% building. Find small local businesses with bad websites, or better yet no website. They honestly do exist. Resist the urge to make your own anything. Just use Squarespace or Wix! You don't need to hide SS…

This is spot on. I run a small agency, and the number of clients coming from Wix or Squarespace is surprising—especially considering those platforms are marketed as “easy.” I’d recommend using your LLM to research businesses that need websites and start reaching out by email or phone. After that, it becomes a numbers game. Most business owners eventually realize they need professional help in this space. Skip the penny-pinchers and focus on quick wins, and delegate if the margins are there.

Lastly, most of the advice you'll get around here will be technical, but every now and again a gem will popup that sort-of 'fills in the blanks' when it comes to the other part of this, which is sales and marketing. It's not easy, but it's not all hard. I recommend this thread if you want to read more about it, the Op gives some good advice on how to get leads, and eventually customers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46661167

Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#33

Post by throwaway920102 »

Nurse aide? Housekeeping for a hotel, retirement home/nursing home, hospital? patient care tech, lab assistant, phlebotomist, medical courier, etc Substitute teacher? Bus driver? Amazon warehouse worker?

If you need guaranteed work immediately, software is not it. If you want to maximize salary, and can take plenty of time trying and failing, it can be. It doesn't sound like you have that time.

If you are worried about homelessness, you need a radical mindset shift. You should not be thinking about software dev in the slightest.

Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#34

Post by Luke7492 »

grugdev42 wrote: post #27
Luke7492 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you convince a small business or individual that $1k is a good price for their website? As someone that has learned web development as a hobby many years ago, I’ve helped build sites for several people through word of mouth but I can never seem to ask much for the work I’ve done for some reason. I work really fast, it’s easy, and even fun for me. This idea sounds great and I even have access to create unlimite…

Well the first point is don't ask for payment after the work is done. No one will pay because you've already solved their pain. You're in a weaker position at that point. Tell them how much you charge before you start work and ask if they want you to start work. It can only go one of two ways. The easiest way to convince them is to compare it to sales. If they are an electrician with an average job of $500, that webs…

Thank you for the new perspective! I was looking at it the wrong way. They're not paying for the website, they're paying for new customers. I think I can manage taking a bit of time to understand their business a bit and then explain how a site will be valuable to them.

EDIT: Did you mean $1k annually or just for the initial project?

Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#35

Post by mixmastamyk »

throwaway920102 wrote: post #31
mixmastamyk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general yes, but there are no regular jobs now. Only gaslit interviews, if you can even get a response.

Are you talking about tech jobs, or -any- job? If you are six months behind on rent, you just go find a job cleaning shit and fatbergs out of sewers if that's what is available IMO.

Tech jobs gaslight. You would be surprised, was recently ghosted on a local job, $700 a month in CA to sweep a large apt complex. Restaurants don’t respond either.

The fewer skills required the more people you need to compete with.

Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#36

Post by Luke7492 »

quickthrowman wrote: post #29
Luke7492 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you convince a small business or individual that $1k is a good price for their website? As someone that has learned web development as a hobby many years ago, I’ve helped build sites for several people through word of mouth but I can never seem to ask much for the work I’ve done for some reason. I work really fast, it’s easy, and even fun for me. This idea sounds great and I even have access to create unlimite…

You can charge a lot more than you think. IMO, $1,000 for a website is too low. I provide commercial electrical services and $1,000 would get you one of my electrician’s labor for six hours, which does not include material. For specialized electricians who do things like work on generators and do switchgear testing, $1,000 only covers around 5 hours.

This has also always irked me when thinking about switching to web development full time, knowing how much to charge. I've never been able to get a clear answer on how much is enough or too little for projects. OP suggested $1k for a small business site and honestly this seems pretty fair to me, although I think I just interpreted their other comment to have meant $1k annually... I think I'd rather have an initial project fee and then a monthly for any maintenance or changes, but then how much should that be?

Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#37

Post by b_mutea »

pickleglitch wrote: post #22

> Up until last year, I was working as a technical writer in ML/AI. Those roles basically 'disappeared' Ouch, hoisted by your own petard. Start a Substack positioning yourself as a reformed AI enthusiast who now rails against the economic havoc the technology leaves in its wake. I'm only half joking. A lot of folks on Substack are pretty hostile toward AI, and they would probably eat that up.

Thanks. Substack is hostile, trust me I have had a Substack for about an year. You really need to standout with a lot of convicing to even have atleast 1 person even pay to read your newsletter.

Another reason, Substack payments channels are not available in some regions which means you can't have some premium posts and again just redirecting to a lets say Buy Me Coffee page does not always work to a majority of people there.

Maybe you could have some tips on how to approach this in your experience

Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#38

Post by b_mutea »

throwaway920102 wrote: post #33

Nurse aide? Housekeeping for a hotel, retirement home/nursing home, hospital? patient care tech, lab assistant, phlebotomist, medical courier, etc Substitute teacher? Bus driver? Amazon warehouse worker? If you need guaranteed work immediately, software is not it. If you want to maximize salary, and can take plenty of time trying and failing, it can be. It doesn't sound like you have that time. If you are worried abo…

:)

Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#39

Post by atmosx »

ProjectVader wrote: post #32
grugdev42 wrote: post #24

You might laugh, but selling cheap marketing websites is an easy $10,000. Selling ten $1,000 websites to small businesses is easy. It isn't fun or exciting, but it works. It's 50% sales, 30% chasing people, and 20% building. Find small local businesses with bad websites, or better yet no website. They honestly do exist. Resist the urge to make your own anything. Just use Squarespace or Wix! You don't need to hide SS…

This is spot on. I run a small agency, and the number of clients coming from Wix or Squarespace is surprising—especially considering those platforms are marketed as “easy.” I’d recommend using your LLM to research businesses that need websites and start reaching out by email or phone. After that, it becomes a numbers game. Most business owners eventually realize they need professional help in this space. Skip the pen…

Friend of mine develops and runs eshops. Through word of mouth he runs like 60-70 right now. Big and small. He sells setup, etc and takes care of hosting and patching and developing new features.

The most money and the easiest ones come from hosting ;-) it’s like X amount per year so that they don’t have to worry about it. He runs two huge servers, and makes pretty good money at are going to increase over time.

But he had patience and will to do the dirty work early on. Now he is riding the wave.

Re: How do I make $10k (What are you guys doing?)

#40

Post by fdgd555 »

aristofun wrote: post #8

Build a career or build a business. Nothing new under the moon in the last few centuries. There is no magic pill or secret ingredient. Each path has its trade offs. I’ve tried both. Reaching 10k in software engineering salary took longer but easier and more predictable. My first profitable business attempt was a tiny bootcamp school (about software engineering obviously) and it never reached 10k of my own income due…

> Nothing new under the moon in the last few centuries

Really? Seems like large scale grifts are in and basically legal now, starting with crypto.

> I bet LLM would give you similar answer :)

Wow! You think that is something to be proud of!? That is...just, wow.

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