9 ms·

Easiest path to $2000 a month?

129 points by sadiq 16y ago

petervandijck 16y ago
Consulting in a hot area like iPhone apps or something, I'd say. Creating and selling some products is much more risk-prone.
josh33 16y ago
You need $2000 per month? You must add at least that much extra value into the world to get it. The reason people who responded to the original post suggested consulting is because consulting is value creation that is very well defined by the person requesting it. If you want to create value in software, in either desktop, iphone OS, or web apps, you have to look where there is pain in some market, and see if the pain is worth $2000 to solve. It's not a question of platform, but a question of market and value.
- dpcan 16y ago
  With mobile "games" it's not about pain, it's about pleasure. If you can show someone a good time for 24 hours, you can get $2 from them. Therefore, in the app world, you are in the "I'll tickle you for $2 business" and you just need 1000 customers a month.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Now that we have mobile games, people have begun to experience "boredom at the train station" as pain, and "getting tired with old games" as pain too. People will try harder to get themselves from pain back up to baseline than to get themselves from baseline to happiness. And once they reach happiness for long enough, that becomes the new baseline.
- cma 16y ago
  "You must add at least that much extra value into the world to get it." Not true; every exchange can (and typically does) have externalities (positive and/or negative).
  - eru 16y ago
    For ethical reasons you should strive for (mostly) positive externalities. That means you need to add those 2000$ plus the externalities.
loewenskind 16y ago
>Hard work doesn't scare me but consulting is off the table due to restriction at my workplace. What "restrictions"? You have a (most likely verbal) contract with your employer to provide your effort in exchange for money. They don't own you and any clauses they have that restrict what you can do when you're not there or don't even work for them anymore are probably not enforceable. Especially when this dubious claus is holding you back from money you need. Just because a contract says something, even if you signed it, doesn't mean it can actually be enforced.
- petervandijck 16y ago
  "a (most likely verbal) contract" => most likely he actually has a signed contract, no? Why do you think otherwise?
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    The US goes mostly on verbal contracts for permanent employees. I don't personally know of any non-executive exceptions, but there must be some. EDIT: P.S. Even if it's a signed contract, that still doesn't mean it's enforcable.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      The US also goes on at-will employment, so regardless of how legally enfoceable his contract may be (in that they can't sue him for violating it), they can fire him for violating it.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        Some states are at-will employment. I would avoid working in those states, they give the employer way too much power over the worker.
        DannoHung 16y ago
        Which states aren't at-will employment?
jswinghammer 16y ago
I wonder if people are being unnecessarily negative on this discussion thread. It seems to me that his best bet is to start something that he can manage in his spare time that solves a problem. That's not easy but it's not horribly difficult either. I was able to bring a product to market in my spare time and recruited sales people to sell it. I have even lined up speaking gigs at conferences in my vertical (no idea if I'm actually going to be any good at this). I realize that this person is different than me but I did it for a similar reason: I have to make extra money to provide for my family in the long term. Consulting actually seemed harder to me because you need to put in a consistent amount of time and if you have a family that's very hard to do. I still work a job during the day but my evenings are spent largely improving my product and writing marketing copy for the website I'm having designed.
- pixelbath 16y ago
  I thought they seemed negative, until I remembered that the poster said they couldn't do consulting. It takes the discussion from "I am a skilled programmer looking for work" to "what kind of product should I create and market that will sell immediately," which just isn't a realistic discussion to have. As Bob Frances said in that thread (paraphrasing), if it were that easy, a great deal more people would be doing it. I think people get this idea that striking it rich with a popular app is easy after reading a bunch of rags-to-riches app developer stories.
  - greyman 16y ago
    He didn't actually say "immediately". I understood that he needs $2000/month "as soon as realistically possible," and asks in which kind of software is such a goal easiest to achieve. It's just his question is hard to answer when he seems to not have an idea yet what to build...
    - Retric 16y ago
      Chances are if he really needs an extra 2k / month for health reasons then finding a job with better heath insurance is a much better option than possibly building a product that generates 2k/month in profit.
leftnode 16y ago
If he absolutely needs the extra $2000 this month, consulting may be the wrong way to go. Say you bill for 20 hours at $100 an hour to a company and they pay invoices 45 days after submission. Now you're SOL. I'd look for a part time job, or pick up work on the weekends from a Craigslist job where you'll get paid that day.
maxklein 16y ago
They are right in that it just does not happen that fast. Furthermore, trying to make cash when you are under pressure to make cash rarely works - people who need cash quickly usually don't have the time or the patience to successfully bring a product from conception to release. One first has to solve the cash issue before trying to build a product. Building a product from dire straits rarely works.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
dirtyaura 16y ago
At my startup, we have done a few small subcontracting jobs lately just to secure that we have enough runway. It's been a refreshing change and we've been able to use our in-house social gaming tech to other problem domains. What I've noticed that these customers have quite easy, small problems that could be semi-productized, i.e. you could sell similar software with small customizations to other customers. This would make subcontracting much more cost-efficient. In these cases, I don't see possibilities for huge profits, but certainly some. If you are targeting for small extra income, subcontracting first and making a product out of it later seems a viable option. Anybody has experiences with this kind of approach?
Mark_B 16y ago
One comment in thread stood out for me: "Since your problem is medical bills, it seems extremely obvious that you need to switch to a job that has a better benefits package." The poster simply stated she needs an extra $2,000 a month for medical reasons. Why? Medication? Visits to a specialist? If the extra $2k is needed because what she needs isn't covered under her current employer's benefits, job shopping is probably a better way to spend her free time.
- berntb 16y ago
  Good point, but maybe the money is needed for a relative that won't be covered anyway? Anyway, how about a move to a country with socialized health care? (Canada?)
  - a-priori 16y ago
    Under most circumstances, those benefits take time to kick in. In Ontario, for example: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ohip/wait.html http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ohip/wait.htm...
  - laut 16y ago
    Socialized health care is not the same as having money to pay for treatment. Some Canadians go to the US to get treated for cancer. In Denmark there is also government healthcare, but some people, including politicians, still pay private hospitals for treatment.
    - jarek 16y ago
      Canadians go to the US for treatment because they either want to get treated faster than it is possible in Canada or they want or need a method of treatment which is not available in Canada. (The latter is not terribly surprising if you consider population sizes.) Nobody would go for US treatment because of money issues.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
yan 16y ago
> > Success in business is rather like pregnancy. > Because you get screwed a lot at the beginning?
aaronsw 16y ago
$2000 a month? Find a large quantity of text that isn't on the Web that people might search for, put it online, and put AdSense ads on it.
- greyman 16y ago
  You mean like scanning some old obscure books with expired copyright?
  - zackattack 16y ago
    Haha. Aaron, how do you figure out these kinds of things (popular searches)? I know there's the Google search keyword tool.
    - greyman 16y ago
      Yes, with the keyword tools. The real issue is how do you find large amount of text which isn't on the web...
      - zackattack 16y ago
        Give me an example of some searches you would do?
- ddemchuk 16y ago
  I really hope you're kidding...I would venture a guess that there are no more than a handful of people in the world making more than $100/month in adsense, even with a lot of content sites
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I don't know about $2k, but $100 isn't a high threshold at all. There are plenty of areas where $10+ CPM is the norm, and plenty of people in those areas run 10k-visitors-per-month sites.
  - 16y ago
OmarIsmail 16y ago
30 hrs/week * 4.3 weeks = 130 hours in a month. $2000/130 hours = $15/hour You can take on freelance writing gigs that pay the equivalent of $15/hour pretty easily. And these have the extra benefits of being incredibly flexible in regards to work hours, can start pretty much immediately, with no real sales effort required.
- hugh3 16y ago
  Where would one find these freelance writing gigs?
  - OmarIsmail 16y ago
    There are dozens of postings here: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/wri/ http://sfbay.craigslist.org/wri/ And don't limit yourself to your local city, look in all the major cities in North America. At any given time you'll see a few dozen freelance writing/editing gigs in the San Fran, NYC, Toronto Craigslists. You also have sites like Associated Content, Hubpages, etc. And actually, in its heyday Mahalo was probably a pretty good place to make decent money for the right people. I don't think sites like Squidoo, Knol, and the new Mahalo that do rev share are good sources of income. I mean, they can be, but it's probably almost as difficult to make money on those sites as it would be to start up your own content site. Being paid per article/report is the best way to do it - from a writer perspective. Rev share is the best way to do it from the site's perspective. If you're in Canada: http://apply.productwiki.com http://apply.productwiki.com
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
http://www.itworld.com/offbeat/109756/7-strange-ways-make-money-online http://www.itworld.com/offbeat/109756/7-strange-ways-make-mo... Its another Hacker News article on the main page. Don't know how to copy the HN link.
jonpaul 16y ago
I've done it. I consistently make over $2.5k a month selling iPhone apps. At my peak I made a little under $5k. It kinda sucks at times as it's not just one app. To be honest, most people would consider them shovelware, but if you actually download them you'll see that they provide value. You can read my story here: http://techneur.com http://techneur.com I should mention though, it didn't happen overnight and it took about five months or so to get to this point.
brc 16y ago
I've thought about this some more, and I've come to the conclusion that by the time you need $2000/month more, it's almost too late. The problem is that by aiming for such a small amount you're going to be looking at marginal solutions to marginal problems. You're better off, in my opinion, aiming for 10 or 20,000 a month and hitting 2,000 than trying to max out at 2,000, and probably hitting 200.
shalmanese 16y ago
Start with a product that's earning $4000 a month.
pramit 16y ago
Does this story help the quest to $2000/mo? Making Money Online in your Spare Time: 50 Ways & 150 sites http://bighow.com/news/making-money-online-in-your-spare-time-50-ways150-sites http://bighow.com/news/making-money-online-in-your-spare-tim...

129 points by sadiq 16y ago

Consulting in a hot area like iPhone apps or something, I'd say. Creating and selling some products is much more risk-prone.

josh33 16y ago

You need $2000 per month? You must add at least that much extra value into the world to get it. The reason people who responded to the original post suggested consulting is because consulting is value creation that is very well defined by the person requesting it. If you want to create value in software, in either desktop, iphone OS, or web apps, you have to look where there is pain in some market, and see if the pain is worth $2000 to solve. It's not a question of platform, but a question of market and value.

dpcan 16y ago
With mobile "games" it's not about pain, it's about pleasure. If you can show someone a good time for 24 hours, you can get $2 from them. Therefore, in the app world, you are in the "I'll tickle you for $2 business" and you just need 1000 customers a month.
- philwelch 16y ago
  Now that we have mobile games, people have begun to experience "boredom at the train station" as pain, and "getting tired with old games" as pain too. People will try harder to get themselves from pain back up to baseline than to get themselves from baseline to happiness. And once they reach happiness for long enough, that becomes the new baseline.
cma 16y ago
"You must add at least that much extra value into the world to get it." Not true; every exchange can (and typically does) have externalities (positive and/or negative).
- eru 16y ago
  For ethical reasons you should strive for (mostly) positive externalities. That means you need to add those 2000$ plus the externalities.

loewenskind 16y ago

>Hard work doesn't scare me but consulting is off the table due to restriction at my workplace. What "restrictions"? You have a (most likely verbal) contract with your employer to provide your effort in exchange for money. They don't own you and any clauses they have that restrict what you can do when you're not there or don't even work for them anymore are probably not enforceable. Especially when this dubious claus is holding you back from money you need. Just because a contract says something, even if you signed it, doesn't mean it can actually be enforced.

petervandijck 16y ago
"a (most likely verbal) contract" => most likely he actually has a signed contract, no? Why do you think otherwise?
- loewenskind 16y ago
  The US goes mostly on verbal contracts for permanent employees. I don't personally know of any non-executive exceptions, but there must be some. EDIT: P.S. Even if it's a signed contract, that still doesn't mean it's enforcable.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    The US also goes on at-will employment, so regardless of how legally enfoceable his contract may be (in that they can't sue him for violating it), they can fire him for violating it.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      Some states are at-will employment. I would avoid working in those states, they give the employer way too much power over the worker.
      - DannoHung 16y ago
        Which states aren't at-will employment?

jswinghammer 16y ago

I wonder if people are being unnecessarily negative on this discussion thread. It seems to me that his best bet is to start something that he can manage in his spare time that solves a problem. That's not easy but it's not horribly difficult either. I was able to bring a product to market in my spare time and recruited sales people to sell it. I have even lined up speaking gigs at conferences in my vertical (no idea if I'm actually going to be any good at this). I realize that this person is different than me but I did it for a similar reason: I have to make extra money to provide for my family in the long term. Consulting actually seemed harder to me because you need to put in a consistent amount of time and if you have a family that's very hard to do. I still work a job during the day but my evenings are spent largely improving my product and writing marketing copy for the website I'm having designed.

pixelbath 16y ago
I thought they seemed negative, until I remembered that the poster said they couldn't do consulting. It takes the discussion from "I am a skilled programmer looking for work" to "what kind of product should I create and market that will sell immediately," which just isn't a realistic discussion to have. As Bob Frances said in that thread (paraphrasing), if it were that easy, a great deal more people would be doing it. I think people get this idea that striking it rich with a popular app is easy after reading a bunch of rags-to-riches app developer stories.
- greyman 16y ago
  He didn't actually say "immediately". I understood that he needs $2000/month "as soon as realistically possible," and asks in which kind of software is such a goal easiest to achieve. It's just his question is hard to answer when he seems to not have an idea yet what to build...
  - Retric 16y ago
    Chances are if he really needs an extra 2k / month for health reasons then finding a job with better heath insurance is a much better option than possibly building a product that generates 2k/month in profit.

leftnode 16y ago

If he absolutely needs the extra $2000 this month, consulting may be the wrong way to go. Say you bill for 20 hours at $100 an hour to a company and they pay invoices 45 days after submission. Now you're SOL. I'd look for a part time job, or pick up work on the weekends from a Craigslist job where you'll get paid that day.

maxklein 16y ago

They are right in that it just does not happen that fast. Furthermore, trying to make cash when you are under pressure to make cash rarely works - people who need cash quickly usually don't have the time or the patience to successfully bring a product from conception to release. One first has to solve the cash issue before trying to build a product. Building a product from dire straits rarely works.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

dirtyaura 16y ago

At my startup, we have done a few small subcontracting jobs lately just to secure that we have enough runway. It's been a refreshing change and we've been able to use our in-house social gaming tech to other problem domains. What I've noticed that these customers have quite easy, small problems that could be semi-productized, i.e. you could sell similar software with small customizations to other customers. This would make subcontracting much more cost-efficient. In these cases, I don't see possibilities for huge profits, but certainly some. If you are targeting for small extra income, subcontracting first and making a product out of it later seems a viable option. Anybody has experiences with this kind of approach?

Mark_B 16y ago

One comment in thread stood out for me: "Since your problem is medical bills, it seems extremely obvious that you need to switch to a job that has a better benefits package." The poster simply stated she needs an extra $2,000 a month for medical reasons. Why? Medication? Visits to a specialist? If the extra $2k is needed because what she needs isn't covered under her current employer's benefits, job shopping is probably a better way to spend her free time.

berntb 16y ago
Good point, but maybe the money is needed for a relative that won't be covered anyway? Anyway, how about a move to a country with socialized health care? (Canada?)
- a-priori 16y ago
  Under most circumstances, those benefits take time to kick in. In Ontario, for example: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ohip/wait.html http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ohip/wait.htm...
- laut 16y ago
  Socialized health care is not the same as having money to pay for treatment. Some Canadians go to the US to get treated for cancer. In Denmark there is also government healthcare, but some people, including politicians, still pay private hospitals for treatment.
  - jarek 16y ago
    Canadians go to the US for treatment because they either want to get treated faster than it is possible in Canada or they want or need a method of treatment which is not available in Canada. (The latter is not terribly surprising if you consider population sizes.) Nobody would go for US treatment because of money issues.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

yan 16y ago

> > Success in business is rather like pregnancy. > Because you get screwed a lot at the beginning?

aaronsw 16y ago

$2000 a month? Find a large quantity of text that isn't on the Web that people might search for, put it online, and put AdSense ads on it.

greyman 16y ago
You mean like scanning some old obscure books with expired copyright?
- zackattack 16y ago
  Haha. Aaron, how do you figure out these kinds of things (popular searches)? I know there's the Google search keyword tool.
  - greyman 16y ago
    Yes, with the keyword tools. The real issue is how do you find large amount of text which isn't on the web...
    - zackattack 16y ago
      Give me an example of some searches you would do?
ddemchuk 16y ago
I really hope you're kidding...I would venture a guess that there are no more than a handful of people in the world making more than $100/month in adsense, even with a lot of content sites
- _delirium 16y ago
  I don't know about $2k, but $100 isn't a high threshold at all. There are plenty of areas where $10+ CPM is the norm, and plenty of people in those areas run 10k-visitors-per-month sites.
- 16y ago

OmarIsmail 16y ago

30 hrs/week * 4.3 weeks = 130 hours in a month. $2000/130 hours = $15/hour You can take on freelance writing gigs that pay the equivalent of $15/hour pretty easily. And these have the extra benefits of being incredibly flexible in regards to work hours, can start pretty much immediately, with no real sales effort required.

hugh3 16y ago
Where would one find these freelance writing gigs?
- OmarIsmail 16y ago
  There are dozens of postings here: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/wri/ http://sfbay.craigslist.org/wri/ And don't limit yourself to your local city, look in all the major cities in North America. At any given time you'll see a few dozen freelance writing/editing gigs in the San Fran, NYC, Toronto Craigslists. You also have sites like Associated Content, Hubpages, etc. And actually, in its heyday Mahalo was probably a pretty good place to make decent money for the right people. I don't think sites like Squidoo, Knol, and the new Mahalo that do rev share are good sources of income. I mean, they can be, but it's probably almost as difficult to make money on those sites as it would be to start up your own content site. Being paid per article/report is the best way to do it - from a writer perspective. Rev share is the best way to do it from the site's perspective. If you're in Canada: http://apply.productwiki.com http://apply.productwiki.com

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

http://www.itworld.com/offbeat/109756/7-strange-ways-make-money-online http://www.itworld.com/offbeat/109756/7-strange-ways-make-mo... Its another Hacker News article on the main page. Don't know how to copy the HN link.

jonpaul 16y ago

I've done it. I consistently make over $2.5k a month selling iPhone apps. At my peak I made a little under $5k. It kinda sucks at times as it's not just one app. To be honest, most people would consider them shovelware, but if you actually download them you'll see that they provide value. You can read my story here: http://techneur.com http://techneur.com I should mention though, it didn't happen overnight and it took about five months or so to get to this point.

brc 16y ago

I've thought about this some more, and I've come to the conclusion that by the time you need $2000/month more, it's almost too late. The problem is that by aiming for such a small amount you're going to be looking at marginal solutions to marginal problems. You're better off, in my opinion, aiming for 10 or 20,000 a month and hitting 2,000 than trying to max out at 2,000, and probably hitting 200.

shalmanese 16y ago

Start with a product that's earning $4000 a month.

pramit 16y ago

Does this story help the quest to $2000/mo? Making Money Online in your Spare Time: 50 Ways & 150 sites http://bighow.com/news/making-money-online-in-your-spare-time-50-ways150-sites http://bighow.com/news/making-money-online-in-your-spare-tim...