7 ms·

Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects – what did you make?

48 points by xrxrxrx 11y ago

It can be a SaaS app, a mobile app, or any side project that is netting you recurring revenue.

haddadda 11y ago
bentbasket.com
- nonuby 11y ago
  Neat idea... Why does it prompt to join mailing list when clicking 'Order one now' and if I close that annoying pop-up nothing happens (still on main page)... Clicking the button again does work though. Latest Chromium if it helps
dangrossman 11y ago
Here's a recent discussion on the topic, along with some links to other previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879529
andersthue 11y ago
As in the previous thread I made http://www.watermark-image.com http://www.watermark-image.com that makes 3000+ each month. I am using the money to build http://timeblock.com http://timeblock.com that currently makes around $350 a month.
- zerr 11y ago
  Interesting. There are tons of image watermarkers, how do you differentiate in terms of marketing/promotion (and maybe pricing)?
  - andersthue 11y ago
    Pricing is more or less the same across all the watermarkers out there - any lower and it is just not worth the time! Marketing wise I primarily offer great and fast support also in building additional features, this drives a lot of user reviews and reccomendations on forums. Email me if you want more insights, I will be happy to help you building something different!
- palidanx 11y ago
  How did you come with the idea with watermark-image? Looks like a cool site!
  - andersthue 11y ago
    Originally I had 200+ images I needed to watermark where I could not find a tool, this made me create a command line tool to watermark my images. Then a friend suggested I made a product out of it and the rest is history :)
- dchuk 11y ago
  I've seen your timeblock.com site a few times because of these threads, and every time I click on the link and end up back on your landing page I get so frustrated because your site does such an amazing job of not actually saying anything about the product. What is your product? What does it look like? How do I use it? How does it compare to other products? Why would I pay for it? What am I paying for?
  - andersthue 11y ago
    The product is a methodology that helps makers and managers align their expectations and plans giving makers more time in flow and managers better overview. When you use the app/methodology you get less stress, less chaos, more creativity and better planning leading to more revenue and better quality of your products. One user said "it's like scrum, just more humane" You would pay for it if you wanted more transparency and improved communication between you, your co-founders, your employees and your customers. It is also an app that supports the methodology, it currently integrates with Jira, and we are working on Asana and TeamWork. I apologize for the missing info on the website, we are shooting explainer videos today!
- adzeds 11y ago
  Just been looking at your TimeBlock site. You have a few UX issues and lots of conversion blockers on there.... If you want a hand optimising the site let me know, (for free!). Might help to double your revenue pretty quickly for this project
  - andersthue 11y ago
    I would absolutely LOVE your feedback - let me know how to contact you or reach out to me at anders(at)timeblock.com Thank you so much for offering your help!
    - adzeds 11y ago
      Not a problem. I will drop you an email today with some thoughts.
      - andersthue 11y ago
        Thanks!
iqonik 11y ago
https://retailwizard.co.uk https://retailwizard.co.uk & https://propertywizard.io https://propertywizard.io (Same product, different marketing) Automated social media assistant for small businesses in the UK - currently making £750 MRR. If you have any questions I'm happy to answer.
- throweway 11y ago
  How do you sell? Face to face? Phone? Word of mouth?
  - iqonik 11y ago
    Right now I spend my Saturdays going to a High Street and going shop-to-shop. If the manager/owner isn't in I'll follow up with a call to try and get a meeting. Word of mouth is starting to bring in new business, my accountant has recommended a few people to me! :)
    - throweway 11y ago
      Nice hustling!
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  Looks very useful. Is it only twitter and Facebook? Had a guy from Google tell us we should maintain our Google+ page for better search ranking but I really can't bothered, since nobody views it. Can it maintain picture galleries across accounts? What makes it UK specific?
  - iqonik 11y ago
    1) It does LinkedIn too - I can add Google+ if a customer requests it though - fire me an email if you're interested (in my profile)? 2) Yes, when you include a picture in the status update it goes across accounts. 3) It's UK specific purely because of my location and the high touch sales process I have at the moment - there isn't anything stopping the product working in any timezone.
adzeds 11y ago
http://betalyst.com/ http://betalyst.com/ - A football betting analysis/predictions website. Offer the whole service for free. Revenue generated through advertising/sponsorship. Looking to move into a premium model over the coming months to gain some MRR to allow me to develop it furthur.. Currently earns over £75,000 per year in advertising/sponsorship/affiliate revenue. Work on it for about 2-3 hours a week.
- flashm 11y ago
  That is brilliant, top work. Do you put your money where your mouth is? Place bets that your system pops out? Edit: Roughly how many visitors do you get, monthly?
  - adzeds 11y ago
    Yeah, I follow the system... It makes it easier for me to build on and improve the algorithms if I am using the service myself.. I am looking to add an extension to the site so it places bets automatically through the Betfair API then I can track the growth of the better balance that way. I am planning to turn all the learnings from this into a free betting guide/ebook as well in the coming months to educate people on how to pick better bets and manage their bankroll. The site gets around 25k visitors a month, and has a very good pages per visit rate and visitor duration. - The bulk of the engagement comes from the Android app which has around 75k users.. I am hoping to actually release the new improved version in the coming months and then launch on iOS as well. - There is also an email database with just over 20k subscribers, which gets a 30% open-rate and 5-6% click-rate on average per email. Is all pretty fun... Currently spending more time on the site as I neglected it a bit when focusing on the app and the algorithm. Working hard on SEO to get the traffic levels up. Want to have 100k monthly visits to the site by the end of the year.
- MattBearman 11y ago
  That's awesome! At 3 hours a week you are truly living the dream. What are your plans for a premium pricing model?
  - 11y ago
MattBearman 11y ago
Holy crap, I remember seeing these kinds of threads before and being amazed by people making good money from a side-project, I can't believe I'm now one of them! My project is BugMuncher - https://www.bugmuncher.com https://www.bugmuncher.com - a website feedback tool I created back in 2011, and it's currently making $1,489 Monthly Recurring Revenue. Strictly speaking it's not a side project anymore, as in Sept 2015 I fired all my freelance clients to focus on BugMuncher full time, but I've never taken funding, and I'm the only person working on it, so it still feels like a side project :) If anyone is interested I've been writing a blog series about my mission to go from side project to profit, which starts here - https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-to-profitable-start-up-part-1.html https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-to-...
- xrxrxrx 11y ago
  have you considered adding a free tier? Our project has one and we have had success upselling existing free customers a lot, since our free tier is very limited. Its different from a free trial since if they like your product will use it until they grow enough to upgrade and might eventually start giving you money. I can think of countless products that I ended up upgrading from free to paid after using their product > a few months on their free tier.
someotheridiot 11y ago
https://rebrickable.com https://rebrickable.com - A LEGO database that shows you which sets you can build from your existing collection, also includes thousands of fan-submitted designs. The revenue fluctuates quite a lot though since I suck at that side of things.
- _jdams 11y ago
  Revenue is from LEGO and toy-related ads? What is the pricing model for an information-based website such as yours? I'm at work and unfortunately can't browse at the moment.
  - someotheridiot 11y ago
    Yeah, ads and affiliate sales. It gets a decent amount of traffic (~130K users/month, 2M pageviews) but I have trouble monetising it.
gasparch 11y ago
Engineering has a lot of similarities with crafting :) Sooo I just started http://www.smiles-bags.com/ http://www.smiles-bags.com/ with my wife. I'm doing design of the products and she runs a business :)

48 points by xrxrxrx 11y ago

It can be a SaaS app, a mobile app, or any side project that is netting you recurring revenue.

haddadda 11y ago

bentbasket.com

nonuby 11y ago
Neat idea... Why does it prompt to join mailing list when clicking 'Order one now' and if I close that annoying pop-up nothing happens (still on main page)... Clicking the button again does work though. Latest Chromium if it helps

dangrossman 11y ago

Here's a recent discussion on the topic, along with some links to other previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879529

andersthue 11y ago

As in the previous thread I made http://www.watermark-image.com http://www.watermark-image.com that makes 3000+ each month. I am using the money to build http://timeblock.com http://timeblock.com that currently makes around $350 a month.

zerr 11y ago
Interesting. There are tons of image watermarkers, how do you differentiate in terms of marketing/promotion (and maybe pricing)?
- andersthue 11y ago
  Pricing is more or less the same across all the watermarkers out there - any lower and it is just not worth the time! Marketing wise I primarily offer great and fast support also in building additional features, this drives a lot of user reviews and reccomendations on forums. Email me if you want more insights, I will be happy to help you building something different!
palidanx 11y ago
How did you come with the idea with watermark-image? Looks like a cool site!
- andersthue 11y ago
  Originally I had 200+ images I needed to watermark where I could not find a tool, this made me create a command line tool to watermark my images. Then a friend suggested I made a product out of it and the rest is history :)
dchuk 11y ago
I've seen your timeblock.com site a few times because of these threads, and every time I click on the link and end up back on your landing page I get so frustrated because your site does such an amazing job of not actually saying anything about the product. What is your product? What does it look like? How do I use it? How does it compare to other products? Why would I pay for it? What am I paying for?
- andersthue 11y ago
  The product is a methodology that helps makers and managers align their expectations and plans giving makers more time in flow and managers better overview. When you use the app/methodology you get less stress, less chaos, more creativity and better planning leading to more revenue and better quality of your products. One user said "it's like scrum, just more humane" You would pay for it if you wanted more transparency and improved communication between you, your co-founders, your employees and your customers. It is also an app that supports the methodology, it currently integrates with Jira, and we are working on Asana and TeamWork. I apologize for the missing info on the website, we are shooting explainer videos today!
adzeds 11y ago
Just been looking at your TimeBlock site. You have a few UX issues and lots of conversion blockers on there.... If you want a hand optimising the site let me know, (for free!). Might help to double your revenue pretty quickly for this project
- andersthue 11y ago
  I would absolutely LOVE your feedback - let me know how to contact you or reach out to me at anders(at)timeblock.com Thank you so much for offering your help!
  - adzeds 11y ago
    Not a problem. I will drop you an email today with some thoughts.
    - andersthue 11y ago
      Thanks!

iqonik 11y ago

https://retailwizard.co.uk https://retailwizard.co.uk & https://propertywizard.io https://propertywizard.io (Same product, different marketing) Automated social media assistant for small businesses in the UK - currently making £750 MRR. If you have any questions I'm happy to answer.

throweway 11y ago
How do you sell? Face to face? Phone? Word of mouth?
- iqonik 11y ago
  Right now I spend my Saturdays going to a High Street and going shop-to-shop. If the manager/owner isn't in I'll follow up with a call to try and get a meeting. Word of mouth is starting to bring in new business, my accountant has recommended a few people to me! :)
  - throweway 11y ago
    Nice hustling!
wodenokoto 11y ago
Looks very useful. Is it only twitter and Facebook? Had a guy from Google tell us we should maintain our Google+ page for better search ranking but I really can't bothered, since nobody views it. Can it maintain picture galleries across accounts? What makes it UK specific?
- iqonik 11y ago
  1) It does LinkedIn too - I can add Google+ if a customer requests it though - fire me an email if you're interested (in my profile)? 2) Yes, when you include a picture in the status update it goes across accounts. 3) It's UK specific purely because of my location and the high touch sales process I have at the moment - there isn't anything stopping the product working in any timezone.

adzeds 11y ago

http://betalyst.com/ http://betalyst.com/ - A football betting analysis/predictions website. Offer the whole service for free. Revenue generated through advertising/sponsorship. Looking to move into a premium model over the coming months to gain some MRR to allow me to develop it furthur.. Currently earns over £75,000 per year in advertising/sponsorship/affiliate revenue. Work on it for about 2-3 hours a week.

flashm 11y ago
That is brilliant, top work. Do you put your money where your mouth is? Place bets that your system pops out? Edit: Roughly how many visitors do you get, monthly?
- adzeds 11y ago
  Yeah, I follow the system... It makes it easier for me to build on and improve the algorithms if I am using the service myself.. I am looking to add an extension to the site so it places bets automatically through the Betfair API then I can track the growth of the better balance that way. I am planning to turn all the learnings from this into a free betting guide/ebook as well in the coming months to educate people on how to pick better bets and manage their bankroll. The site gets around 25k visitors a month, and has a very good pages per visit rate and visitor duration. - The bulk of the engagement comes from the Android app which has around 75k users.. I am hoping to actually release the new improved version in the coming months and then launch on iOS as well. - There is also an email database with just over 20k subscribers, which gets a 30% open-rate and 5-6% click-rate on average per email. Is all pretty fun... Currently spending more time on the site as I neglected it a bit when focusing on the app and the algorithm. Working hard on SEO to get the traffic levels up. Want to have 100k monthly visits to the site by the end of the year.
MattBearman 11y ago
That's awesome! At 3 hours a week you are truly living the dream. What are your plans for a premium pricing model?
- 11y ago

MattBearman 11y ago

Holy crap, I remember seeing these kinds of threads before and being amazed by people making good money from a side-project, I can't believe I'm now one of them! My project is BugMuncher - https://www.bugmuncher.com https://www.bugmuncher.com - a website feedback tool I created back in 2011, and it's currently making $1,489 Monthly Recurring Revenue. Strictly speaking it's not a side project anymore, as in Sept 2015 I fired all my freelance clients to focus on BugMuncher full time, but I've never taken funding, and I'm the only person working on it, so it still feels like a side project :) If anyone is interested I've been writing a blog series about my mission to go from side project to profit, which starts here - https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-to-profitable-start-up-part-1.html https://blog.bugmuncher.com/2015/10/22/from-side-project-to-...

xrxrxrx 11y ago
have you considered adding a free tier? Our project has one and we have had success upselling existing free customers a lot, since our free tier is very limited. Its different from a free trial since if they like your product will use it until they grow enough to upgrade and might eventually start giving you money. I can think of countless products that I ended up upgrading from free to paid after using their product > a few months on their free tier.

someotheridiot 11y ago

https://rebrickable.com https://rebrickable.com - A LEGO database that shows you which sets you can build from your existing collection, also includes thousands of fan-submitted designs. The revenue fluctuates quite a lot though since I suck at that side of things.

_jdams 11y ago
Revenue is from LEGO and toy-related ads? What is the pricing model for an information-based website such as yours? I'm at work and unfortunately can't browse at the moment.
- someotheridiot 11y ago
  Yeah, ads and affiliate sales. It gets a decent amount of traffic (~130K users/month, 2M pageviews) but I have trouble monetising it.

gasparch 11y ago

Engineering has a lot of similarities with crafting :) Sooo I just started http://www.smiles-bags.com/ http://www.smiles-bags.com/ with my wife. I'm doing design of the products and she runs a business :)