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

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731–740 of 866 posts

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

#731

After reading all this, I admit I feel kind of silly for working so hard (50-60h a week on average) to earn my Silicon Valley FAANG comp. I am wondering how much survivorship bias is at play here, some ideas look relatively simple compared to the amount they bring in. Or maybe one really has to take the leap of faith and trust that there is demand for virtually anything? Maybe it’s not so simple, my partner opened a…

Just curious what index funds are you invested in?

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

#732

I make $10,000 a month on a side business I started in July, less than six months ago. I partnered with the guy who helped me build a fence to start a landscaping company. He was making $23 / hour prior to working with me. I provide all the capital equipment (diesel truck, 14' dump trailer, Kubota tractor), and I do the marketing, recruiting, accounring, legal, management. He handles all bids and actual jobs. It curr…

> g to expand to other marketplaces (I have a lot of customer who are on Shopify, even if I don't offer a Shopify app) and build other APIs. Hopefully I'll have more time once my sons go to nursery / school. > I use Stripe for direct sales on the website and RapidAPI (ex Mashape) as a m How did you learn about "marketing, recruiting, accounting, legal, management" ? Do you have prior background? And what kind of mark…

My main business, coalitiontechnologies.com, taught me those areas of business.

I learned marketing working for another digital agency 15 years ago, recruiting I just carefully studied the market for years and tried and failed lots of time to learn how it worked, accounting I took two courses in, legal I learned dealing with several small claims and a couple of superior court suits plus a great class, management I learned from Manager Tools podcast and years of trial and error.

My market research was just observing how hard it is to find good construction trades help and then trying to put up some marketing to see if we got leads.

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

#733

After reading all this, I admit I feel kind of silly for working so hard (50-60h a week on average) to earn my Silicon Valley FAANG comp. I am wondering how much survivorship bias is at play here, some ideas look relatively simple compared to the amount they bring in. Or maybe one really has to take the leap of faith and trust that there is demand for virtually anything? Maybe it’s not so simple, my partner opened a…

Honest question: why not leave FAANG/SV, take a relaxed remote job of maybe 30h/week and live in a low-cost, warm and cosy Mediterranean city (since you mentioned you're from Europe that shouldn't be a problem)?

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

#734
It's not $500 yet, but I am headed in that direction via a $110/month Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/kyefox

You can find an endless flood of packs and presets for making music, but most of it is...not well-differentiated. With mine, I try to strike the right balance between novel and usable. You won't see "500 Serum presets for $39! Limited time!" from me, but the few I've posted and those I will in the future will stand up well against any of those impressive-looking packs.

I also just got Pigments! It has a lot of what makes Serum good, but it also comes with more than wavetable synthesis. I'm finding a lot of good sound in the combination of wavetables, analog emulation, and sample/granular synthesis. I'm likely to come to favor it over Serum in the future.

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

#735
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…

Hi Cory—your dashboard is really impressive. Did you have to reboot the wedding place card app? Because I remember you commenting somewhere—I can't remember where—that it had tanked. But obviously since this is an end-of-year report that can't be true, right?

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

#736

I don't know if I can even call it a side-project any more. I stopped working professionally 3 years ago. Bought an e-commerce business that was making ~$2k/mo profit and ran it on the side while I had my DevOps job. That project has now turned into ~$30k/mo profit, and I've bought two more e-com businesses that average ~$10k/mo between the two - these are early and I expect them to scale up once I smooth out a few b…

Have you used any broker for buying a business? How was your experience? If you care to recommend them please ping me.

I recently sold a business using a broker for $xxx,xxx. DM if any of you are serious and need an introduction.

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

#737
post #672
post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not find it now, but I recall reading a post from the (former?) founder/owner of a coffee company. His goal was to have an ethically justifiable supply chain, free from slavery and human exploitation. Or at least less of it. His conclusion was that this is impossible and became very disillusioned that due to various reasons he would not be able to not be part of the problem. I found this when searching but I’m…

In my experience living in a poor country, most of the issues brought up against globalized supply chains are either made up or sensationalized by people in developed countries who lack perspective. Low wages? Actually they are a really good entry-level option for people doing rural-urban migration. Expensive middlemen? They serve a purpose in the marketplace and smooth out logistical inefficiencies. Greedy multinati…

Thanks for your perspective . Just to be clear, are you talking in the general or are you in an environment with coffee plantations?

Because the things I’m talking about were presented as issues specific to coffee.

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

#738
post #731

After reading all this, I admit I feel kind of silly for working so hard (50-60h a week on average) to earn my Silicon Valley FAANG comp. I am wondering how much survivorship bias is at play here, some ideas look relatively simple compared to the amount they bring in. Or maybe one really has to take the leap of faith and trust that there is demand for virtually anything? Maybe it’s not so simple, my partner opened a…

Just curious what index funds are you invested in?

95% of my portfolio is VTSAX, VTIAX, VBTLX.

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

#740
post #733

After reading all this, I admit I feel kind of silly for working so hard (50-60h a week on average) to earn my Silicon Valley FAANG comp. I am wondering how much survivorship bias is at play here, some ideas look relatively simple compared to the amount they bring in. Or maybe one really has to take the leap of faith and trust that there is demand for virtually anything? Maybe it’s not so simple, my partner opened a…

Honest question: why not leave FAANG/SV, take a relaxed remote job of maybe 30h/week and live in a low-cost, warm and cosy Mediterranean city (since you mentioned you're from Europe that shouldn't be a problem)?

That’s the tentative plan once I’ll reach my target number :-)
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