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I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

calebporzio.com

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Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#421

Post by closeparen »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #279
virgilp wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, yes you need to report revenues, but... do you need a company for that? Do e.g. all Finnish photographers on Shutterstock have a company, in order to receive payments?

Yes, if you sell things (or electronic things), in any meaningful amount (no one will care for 200$ per year though), you have to set up a company or a sole proprietorship. It is like this in most western countries. The activity that you are doing in that case is called business, and of course you need to have a company or a similar business structure (like sole proprietorship) to do business. Whether all people do i…

In the US, AFAICT "sole proprietorship" is just the label for a natural person doing business; the extent of the registration can just be DBA ("doing business as") so that you can cash checks in a name other than you own.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#422

Post by morpheuskafka »

Ndymium wrote: post #132

Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities. So this means that if you see a donation/sp…

What a joke. Here in the US, as long as you don't give over $15,000 per year to a given individual, you don't have any tax or reporting obligations.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#423

Post by NorwegianDude »

henryfjordan wrote: post #379
stefanfisk wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a freelancer in Sweden I can't even imagine how big I would have to fuck up for a customer to sue me for anything beyond what they had already paid me.

Imagine you are paid $100 to build a website to sell some new widget to be delivered on November 1st just in time for the holiday season. The company also spends $1000 on a one-day internet marketing campaign that's around the launch. Then there's a technical issue at launch and orders are being rejected left and right. They could be out basically the whole value of the marketing campaign which is 10x your salary. Yo…

That's why you have contracts/ToS, so it's clear what is and isn't your responsibility.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#424

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

komali2 wrote: post #130
jermaustin1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you set the entity up correctly and work with a decent accountant, your $112k turns into more like $40k taxable, and if you are married, that $40k drops to $20k @ 10% + $20k @ 12% or ~ $4500 in taxes.

This is news to me so I'm just saying, if you wrote about this in more detail, I'd read the shit out of it.

IRS Publication 334: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p334/index.html

It's actually a very interesting little booklet.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#425

Post by sbalough »

FpUser wrote: post #81
msoad wrote: post #8

$100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV as an engineer. Specially an engineer at this caliber. But working on OSS full time is probably 100x more fulfilling than building CRUD for a boring ad company.

I've worked on my own from home for the last 20 years. Would not trade it for any full time employee position. And thought of being in FAANG makes me shudder

Write a blog post ... lots of us envy you.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#426

Post by webmaven »

smnplk wrote: post #399
hkai wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For each donated dollar, I will create and send you 100 random bytes that you can use in your cryptographic applications." $7 = 700 random bytes $15 = 1500 random bytes + 500 bytes free! $99 = lifetime* subscription for 25k random bytes per year * your lifetime or my lifetime, whichever terminates earlier

I'll take a nibble just for taste.

Word.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#427

Post by foobar_ »

caniszczyk wrote: post #167

Sigh, GitHub is still promoting the "open source gig economy" https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-... It's been about 2 years of GitHub sponsors and they haven't shared any data on how well people are doing.

That was an insightful link. But is it really the gig economy ? This seems more like the crowdfunding model, which is more applicable to arts and crafts. I remember first reading about radiohead or someone else using pre-order sales to get money and then release the album.

There really needs to be an open data for business otherwise GDPR is pointless. Code is somehow not where the money is.

What is peculiar about software is maintenance cost which puts it somewhere between crowdfunding and subscriptions.

The gig economy makes sense if the person doing the gig is able to set the price otherwise it's not really fair.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#428

Post by loeg »

maxwelljoslyn wrote: post #303
wongarsu wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the confusion in this thread is that (in most of Western Europe) you automatically become a business (or even company) by the sole act of doing "business" (enterprise with the purpose of earning money), and once you cross some (small) threshold you have to register in some capacity. That can be a ~$20 bureaucratic act, compared to the ~$500 act of setting up a proper company. But of course at that point it va…

Thank you for explaining this. As an American, I was unaware.

In the US, you're already a sole proprietorship without any registration. Of course, if you're actually doing business, you probably want the protections of an LLC, which requires registration and fees. But you can accept uncompensated gifts as an individual, and you can accept business income as a sole proprietor, all without registering for anything in particular. You are, as always, required to file accurate taxes, including estimated withholding.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#429

Post by FpUser »

sbalough wrote: post #425
FpUser wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked on my own from home for the last 20 years. Would not trade it for any full time employee position. And thought of being in FAANG makes me shudder

Write a blog post ... lots of us envy you.

Sorry but I do not blog. No social media either. HN does not really count as I use it as a distraction when I need to take short break from work.

Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors

#430

Post by satya71 »

numpy was the first project that I came across that used a similar technique to fund the development. The numpy book was available exclusively to funders until the early development was paid for. Travis Oliphant, the author of numpy and of the guide, went on to found Anaconda (Continuum Analytics).
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