Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#71

Post by I_dev_outdoors » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

whynaut wrote: post #64

iambateman wrote: post #61

I built MoneyHabitsHQ.com for simplified personal finance. The hardest thing about it is that talking about budgeting is really personal. People are more than willing to talk about their process but things get awkward when it gets specific. I can’t screenshare with someone to onboard them because that would involve seeing every bank account they have. Im curious if anyone has thoughts on how to solve that problem?

could you create dummy accounts with fake amounts, and onboard them through your screen?

That's just a demo if you aren't actually setting it up with their data.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#72

Post by foobazzy » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #61

I built MoneyHabitsHQ.com for simplified personal finance. The hardest thing about it is that talking about budgeting is really personal. People are more than willing to talk about their process but things get awkward when it gets specific. I can’t screenshare with someone to onboard them because that would involve seeing every bank account they have. Im curious if anyone has thoughts on how to solve that problem?

Hi! Absolutely loved the idea. Here's a tangential quirk though.

Your `/book/introduction` page could use a little css change for the nav sidebar (zoom out on your screen to see what I mean)

I think removing this css will help

left-[max(0px,calc(50%-45rem))]

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#73

Post by Random_Person » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

I built a tool for educators ~7 years ago at my previous employer. That employer shut down and I bought the tool then sold it to my current employer. This year, my employer decided to pivot and we are no longer serving software services. I now have ownership again with multiple clients paying $5k a year for the tool. I was restricted on my time spent on the tool while it belonged to my employer, but now that it's mine again, I can start working on needed improvements and seeking out more clients.

I also have a fairly large YouTube back catalogue of ~1,650 videos. While most of my videos get less than 50 views, I still generate ~$500 a year in AdSense.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#74

Post by selcuka » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #68

gregsadetsky wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, did you consider creating a browser extension version of your software? As a developer of a dictation extension for Chrome [0] I see that it gets a lot of use for accessibility purposes. I once experimented with a tremor-compensating extension and some css that hid the “natural” cursor and overlaid a cursor image instead whose position I controlled (using a basic rolling window average to make it st…

Can you hook the mouse in a browser extension?

You can detect the location but no, you can't change the position of the pointer using Javascript.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#75

Post by txdm » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

gottebp wrote: post #29

After my grandfather got Parkinson’s disease circa 2005, I developed hand tremor cancelling software for the mouse [1]. It has gone through a lot of development since then; it is my best work as a developer. It suffers from the common flaw us engineers have of hyperfocus on the product while not caring about marketing enough. It makes enough. I have a hard time talking about it in everyday life for some reason. It fe…

I got steadymouse several years ago for my father when he developed parkinsons. It's been a huge benefit in his life. Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#76

Post by slivanes » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

I created an online market for a game that sold in-game items with revenue at its peak of over $300k USD per month. Initially it just used eBay affiliate links, but since I would track the sellers in my database, I reached out to the big wholesalers and encouraged them to go nearly exclusive on my market for a similar cut. It was all built over a few years and it runs mostly on autopilot, all marketing, hosting, and code built by me. Never discussed it on any forum before.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#77

Post by onetime8192 » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

Neural net for soft porn (tasteful nudes). Android app, 5 years old:

http://driftwheeler.com

More than 860 users per day, on average. Continuously growing user base. Profit through Met-Art affiliation: https://partners.metartmoney.com

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#78

Post by xnorswap » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

MattyMc wrote: post #14

I staked $15k, bought season tickets for my favourite baseball team, wrote an electron app to auto-price and market those tickets under face value. We ended up going to 6-7 games for free, sat in MUCH better seats than we ever could have afforded to, and had access to playoff tickets at face value. Further, my friends had access to great seats at reasonable prices and I avoided having to buy from resale sites (who I…

So you're a ticket scalper?

That's nothing something to be proud of.

You say your friends detest resale sites but it sounds like you just became one yourself unless I'm misunderstanding what was happening here.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#79

Post by nojito » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

LittlePeter wrote: post #56

nojito wrote: post #47

I make a very sizeable side income on prediction markets. Basically, through scraping, collecting, and cleaning an obscene amount of data.

I am aware of maybe 3 or 4 prediction markets. Can you provide some names? Are you betting or cleaning data and reselling it or displaying it and earning income via ads?

I'm on Predictit, Poly, and Kalshi and use the data for betting.

Re: Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd not talk about them?

#80

Post by swanson » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

I got really into daily fantasy at the height of the boom: you make a fantasy football lineup and enter it into paid contests. For big leagues like the NFL you can potentially win millions of dollars (but there are tons and tons of players and lots of 'pros' that do it full-time).

But for the past several years, I have been only playing niche sports: specifically Canadian football (CFL). It's way smaller stakes but the competition is much easier and I've written my own analytics tools so I have a nice edge compared to NFL where there is tons and tons of high quality content and analysis. I've profited over $20k during the past three seasons.