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Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

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Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#381

I created a game wiki site ten years back. I started optimizing it for SEO this year, and am about to pass $900/month. My goal is $1k/month. It's super passive and I don't do much. Tech stack: Static site hosted on S3 (less than $1 a month) and Cloudflare for CDN.

How do you build a wiki as a static site?

    vim file.txt

    ....

    :wq

    git add file.txt
    git commit -m "New stuff. Read it."
    git push

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#382
post #289

I have two! An app for making wedding place cards that does about $1000/mo https://www.placecard.me/ A boilerplate for making SaaS apps with Python/Django that does $5k/month (highly variable) https://www.saaspegasus.com/ I also have a third that does around $150/mo. It's an app that adds analytics to GroupMe which is a WhatsApp alternative. https://chatstats.co/ I keep complete revenue and effort data here if you're…

What happens when it comes to taxes? Do you pay taxes if it's from side projects? Or it's done automatically e.g. Stripe?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#383

I make a Safari ad blocker app for iOS and macOS - Magic Lasso Adblock - https://www.magiclasso.co/ It's free to use and download with an optional Pro subscription that includes additional features and makes > $500/month. Key things that have helped the revenue in 2021: - Released a major new version 3.0 which blocks all YouTube ads and has kicked along sales and improved the conversion rate considerably - Apple's sm…

How much is the Pro subscription please? I can't see it listed on the homepage, and if I go to the App Store page, the "yearly subscription" is listed multiple times at $30 or $15.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#384

Open Source Hardware! Specifically a USB Oscilloscope: https://espotek.com/labrador Sell maybe $1k/mo of these through the website and another $3k through Amazon at a margin of around 50%. The biggest things that I see a lot of people get wrong in the hardware business is the importance of manufacturing and logistics. It doesn't matter that you're constantly producing new and improved revisions of your board if you'r…

This literally made me say "WTF?!" when I went to the page. I think you're burying the lede here. It's only $29 inc worldwide shipping ! WTAF, that's awesome. I'll be ordering one as soon as Christmas is out of the way. Any plans to add an EU or UK distribution point? I'm prepared to wait the 2-3 weeks for free UK shipping tbh, but if you're adding more local distribution early next year I'd hold on.

>It's only $29 inc worldwide shipping

Oh yeah, thanks for pointing that out. The one time I'm not in a shilly mood (Christmas and all) and the post actually gets interaction. Murphy's Law!

>Any plans to add an EU or UK distribution point?

Sorta kinda maybe. I did have one, but a whole lot of VAT compliance bullshit caught up with me. In most countries, GST/VAT is handled automatically by large eCommerce platforms (if you sell something on eBay to an Aussie, for example, we'll pay 10% GST regardless of the item's physical location and the seller won't even necessarily know).

However, the EU requires every single individual business with any stock located on EU soil to register and file individually in every single country where the stock is distributed regardless of revenue. I can only assume this is to create jobs for bureaucrats.

Now that Brexit has happened and the UK's laws have changed to something sane, I'll probably get something set up over there. This will be months, though. Trying to set up a (different) startup while raising a small child means a lot of Espotek stuff gets pushed to the side!

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#387
We created a fitness app, available in iOS and Android. Currently it made 200$/month, hope to grow to 500$/month soon. Spend most of time to work with a professional trainer to create contents.

https://apps.apple.com/am/app/fityou-lose-weight-in-30-days/...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vietfitnes...

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2021 – Show and tell

#390

Open Source Hardware! Specifically a USB Oscilloscope: https://espotek.com/labrador Sell maybe $1k/mo of these through the website and another $3k through Amazon at a margin of around 50%. The biggest things that I see a lot of people get wrong in the hardware business is the importance of manufacturing and logistics. It doesn't matter that you're constantly producing new and improved revisions of your board if you'r…

So how did you solve your manufacturing and logistics challenges?

The short answer is outsourcing.

The logistics are covered by a mixture of Amazon FBA (USA/Canada) and a Chinese 3PL company (all other countries). The only orders I handle myself are the Aussie ones, as well as large orders to overseas universities.

I try to keep at least 6 months' work of stock at any time spread across multiple locations. Given the way social media and online communities work, sales tend to be very bursty. When it got on Hackaday, for example, I sold something like $12k worth in a weekend.

I did run into issues at the start of COVID, as American universities would place huge orders or ask 100+ students to do it individually, but we're now robust to this too!

In terms of manufacturing, this is also outsourced. Full PCBAs are made by a group in Shenzhen. The only work done in-house is packaging them. Combined with the above, this makes the chain immune from the Slashdot effect. If (when) we go viral, I just fulfil every order remotely and then replenish the stock with a large order.

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