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

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1–10 of 17 posts

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

#3
I don't talk about my zines (https://kradeelav.itch.io) and artwork to people IRL -- it occupies a very liminal space in my mind and soul where I can mention things a bit too raw or depraved for office spaces. ;)

While I don't make zines to make money, per se (going as far to give a free digital copy on my site), there's still evidentially enough people that buy them that it technically counts.

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

#4

I don't talk about my zines ( https://kradeelav.itch.io ) and artwork to people IRL -- it occupies a very liminal space in my mind and soul where I can mention things a bit too raw or depraved for office spaces. ;) While I don't make zines to make money, per se (going as far to give a free digital copy on my site), there's still evidentially enough people that buy them that it technically counts.

Do you only sell them on the website or local consignment shops too?

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

#5
post #4

I don't talk about my zines ( https://kradeelav.itch.io ) and artwork to people IRL -- it occupies a very liminal space in my mind and soul where I can mention things a bit too raw or depraved for office spaces. ;) While I don't make zines to make money, per se (going as far to give a free digital copy on my site), there's still evidentially enough people that buy them that it technically counts.

Do you only sell them on the website or local consignment shops too?

Interesting you ask that; it's only been on itch.io up until now because I was printing incredibly small zine runs (like sub 20-30) off the office printer; but recently have been working with a printer for the next few and have a surplus to which I might send out to various zine ships. Good thinking. ;)

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

#6

I don't talk about my zines ( https://kradeelav.itch.io ) and artwork to people IRL -- it occupies a very liminal space in my mind and soul where I can mention things a bit too raw or depraved for office spaces. ;) While I don't make zines to make money, per se (going as far to give a free digital copy on my site), there's still evidentially enough people that buy them that it technically counts.

Just chiming in: your art looks amazing! I can totally imagine some incredible game cutscenes in this style.

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

#8
I built a system to help people take payments with Google Forms. It was very much an MVP but I lucked into a niche that hadn't been filled, so each week a few people found it and started to use it. I charged 2% of the transaction volume (later lowered to 1.5%) and made about $3k before shutting it down at the end of last year to focus on other things.

Interestingly by that point there were much better, cheaper alternatives and the friction of switching was low, but I had a hard time convincing people to stop using it.

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

#9
post #7

My partner and I started roasting and selling coffee ( https://tinywaffle.co ). My day job matches donations 2:1 so I've been funneling in proceeds to max the $10k benefit. It's been fun learning about coffee, marketing, and design.

This is highly interesting.

Would you share some more details about all this, your setup and how you do it? I'm expecting you to do this in a much lower scale than "regular" coffee roasters, and I'm sure more people might be interested in this.

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

#10
post #8

I built a system to help people take payments with Google Forms. It was very much an MVP but I lucked into a niche that hadn't been filled, so each week a few people found it and started to use it. I charged 2% of the transaction volume (later lowered to 1.5%) and made about $3k before shutting it down at the end of last year to focus on other things. Interestingly by that point there were much better, cheaper altern…

You would have considered gifting the business to another dev, perhaps in the developing countries.
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