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Ask HN: Sideprojects/passive income businesses with little or no own coding?
Whenever sideprojects or ways to gain passive income are discussed here, the conversation focuses on programming projects that can be run on the side. Of course, this is very much connected to the nature of the side.
However, I'd like to hear from people who do/did sideprojects that involved little programming from their side and that, maybe, even provided them with a passive income. For me it's a bit difficult to imagine such projects and I think it would be a novel topic to talk about.
- pjc50 9y agoWhat other type of work would you be discussing? Obviously there are no opportunities that don't involve either work or capital investment...
- samsolomon 9y agoI believe the OP is asking about projects making income that are not programming heavy. Some quick thoughts off of the top of my head: - Writing Books - Content-Focused Websites or Newsletters - Selling Digital or Physical Products It probably depends on your skillset. Without some sort of specialist knowledge it may be tough. In the design world icon sets, UI kits and typefaces are popular things to sell.
- filipm 9y agoLightroom presets come to my mind.
- realPubkey 9y agoIf you google "get rich quick", you will find 100ths of schemes.
- ju-st 9y agocandyjapan.com comes to my mind (not my project)
- discreditable 9y agoI wouldn't say Candy Japan involves little/no coding. Their blog details a lot of the cool behind-the-scenes stuff and code is a frequent topic. https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes
- emilioolivares 9y agoCandyjapan is definitely a business supported by a lot of custom code. Read this: https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes/how-many-lines-of-code-is-candy-japan https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes/how-many-lines-...
- ju-st 9y agoYes, but it would be possible to create a similar thing without much coding (paypal checkout button, email, excel, wordpress).
- british_india 9y agoOpen a hotdog stand
- rodolphoarruda 9y agoDirectory Listings or Job Openings sites using Wordpress and specific plug-ins/themes.
- rodolphoarruda 9y agoI wonder why I got downvoted here.
- timthelion 9y agoNot something I've done personally, but lawyers selling form letters is a common passive income source which requires no coding ;).
- rodolphoarruda 9y agoYes. Or if you are a specialist within your industry, you can put together a collection of useful templates and sell them online via a mini e-commerce site.
- eurticket 9y agoThe real money in that is made by offering support, which might as well be another full time job.
- bewe42 9y agoIt's a kind of coding in lawyer's programming language
- Symphlion 9y agohoi
- cjoh 9y agoReal estate. Rental units are a great passive income
- weego 9y agoThere's a slight barrier to entry there that someone looking for small amounts of passive income might not be able to overcome...
- brightball 9y agoProperty management would probably be the next closest thing minus the barrier.
- mxuribe 9y agoHaving worked several years for the largest real estate franchiser in the U.S., I can tell you that getting into real estate - at least as a realtor - for passive income is no longer an easy thing to get into. Maybe years or even decades age, it was considered the kind of job that people can obtain some easy passive income, but nowadays - at least to make any worthwhile money - it takes quite a bit of time and commitment. Many home buyers - especially younger buyers - often question the value of real estate agents. Younger buyers buy stuff online all the time - they figure - so why not simply use online services like zillow, etc. - they think to themselves. So if you do get into real estate you have to constantly fight to show your value. Furthermore, nowadays, being in real estate means you have to build and manage yourself as your own business AND brand...Even with an affiliation to an established real estate brand/franchise and any tools and support they might provide, it is still a very time-consuming (and often a capital-intensive) operation. You have to build up your network of clients and potential referrals...You have to build your brand within the geography that you will sell within...Current and potential clients need to know that "when they think real estate, homes, rentals, etc.", that they think of you. Then, you have to compete against other real estate agents who got into the job years ago when they lost their earlier careers to a recession (and are not leaving this job)...And, then you have to fight against any start-ups trying to dis-intermediate the whole concept of needing human real estate agents...And then, you have to consider any dangers with the large real estate companies trying to acquire the disruptive start ups as they try to bring costs down by lessening the need to pay humans for "doing" real estate, etc., etc., etc. I don't mean to make real estate sound like an awful/dead-end career...I simply want to clarify that it is not the easy career that people think that it is, or that it perhaps used to be so many years/decades ago. And, while it may start as a passive income job for many at first, in the long-term it requires the attention of a full-time career.
- ph_coffeejunkie 9y agoSelling music is also often mentioned.
- thekashifmalik 9y agoWhat are we talking about; selling third party music or one's own music?
- ph_coffeejunkie 9y agoPrimarily own music, but both is possible of course ;) For instance there are a lot of "digital only" labels around
- rblion 9y agoBecome an escort.
- jatsign 9y agoDrop shipping. Haven't done it, don't recommend it, but I see it mentioned in places like https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/
- pjc50 9y agoDoesn't that run the risk of making yourself accessory to someone else's credit card fraud?
- throwaway2016a 9y ago"Victim" not "accessory"... if it is fraud there will likely be a charge back which will cause you to lose money the if you can't document it well but the customer / fraudster still gets the item. You pay the dropship warehouse, you don't pass the customer card info to them. It is as if you bought the product and picked someone else's shipping address. No more / less risk than standard eCommerce, just someone else is doing the fulfillment for you. Drop shipping is great in theory, one problem is that the margins are usually lower than if you bought the items wholesale but you don't have any warehousing or handling cost. The real problem is that if you are drop shipping an item odds are 1000 other people are and it is a race to the bottom to see who is willing to sell for the least profit.
- arkades 9y agoHas dropshipping been a viable side gig since 2005 or so? My understanding was that it was super-saturated.
- ilovetux 9y agoThe best side project I had involved no coding whatsoever. When in college, I applied for and received a "peddlers license" which I used to allow me to set up a table downtown by a bus stop and sell holiday themed items at the appropriate times of the year. In my third semester, I got some freshmen to take over the daily operations just taking a percentage off the top. Those freshmen passed the gig onto the next class and that kept going, that little table is still bringing in about $1000 four times a year for me (Valentine's day, independence day, thanksgiving and christmas)
- jaymzcampbell 9y agoiOS sticker packs - never did it myself (can't draw to save my life) but there was at one point good money [2] to be made in them. The full title of [1] is How I made two ridiculous iOS 10 sticker packs for Messages without any coding experience so think that fits the bill. The reddit post [3] is from 4 months ago, so perhaps there's still room to get somewhere with it. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/13/ios-10-sticker-packs-messages/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/13/ios-10-sticker-packs-messages... [2] https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/13/chat-app-line-makes-over-270-million-a-year-from-selling-stickers/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/13/chat-app-line-makes-over-2... [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/6kyair/i_just_made_1k_usd_selling_imessage_stickers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/6kyair/i_just...
- bewe42 9y agoBooks and courses come to mind (require some coding). Affiliate websites etc Can't remember one now, but there are plenty of examples of startups that faked to be fully automated software but behind the scenes all was done manually.
- throwaway2016a 9y agoBooks and courses are actually a tremendous amount of work upfront. Last book I wrote for a major published I only got $6000 and it consumed hundreds of hours. Self-publishing is high profit but the same amount of work (if you care about quality and reputation), no upfront advance, and you have to do your own marketing.
- jasonwen 9y agoAmazon FBA businesses, dropshipping, blogs but that will take a while for SEO to kick in, Amazon affiliates, and other affiliate programs but you’ll need traffic to do that.
- jmkni 9y agoI know a guy who sells Hot Sauce on Amazon, he's a talented programmer but probably makes more money selling sauce!
- anmolparashar 9y agoI built this site [1] that lets people find and list internet businesses that are available for sale. I didn't write a single line of code, used Carrd and Airtable to build the whole thing. Let me know if this is the type of answer you were looking for? [1] https://soochi.co https://soochi.co Edit: If anyone does have a business they'd like to list, just include HN at the beginning of your story to get $10 off!
- samsolomon 9y agoThis is a cool idea. Are you using Airtable as a CMS or just using it to collect form data and manually updating the Carrd site? If you are using Airtable are you using Zapier or some other tool to connect it to Carrd?
- jamesmattis 9y agoAccording to this casestudy, https://www.purevpn.com/blog/how-i-made-1000-dollars-by-becoming-a-vpn-affiliate/ https://www.purevpn.com/blog/how-i-made-1000-dollars-by-beco... VPN seems to be a great niche right now to kick off affiliate marketing. You can run a review blog and join affiliate programs of different VPN providers. People search for VPN reviews, affiliate links make money. For a developer, who understands Virtual Private Networks and its use. It can be a great passive income making project.
- arkades 9y ago> I'd like to hear from people who do/did sideprojects ITT: almost exclusively people who didn’t do the projects they’re spitballing.
- emilioolivares 9y agoIf you want passive income with no work, then you have to supply capital. If you don't have capital, then work is required. Unfortunately there are no passive income businesses that require zero capital and zero work. They just don't exist. Passive no-coding ways to make money: >Public market investments: stock market, ETF's, bonds, derivatives, commodities, real estate, bitcoin >Non-public investments: start-ups, business ventures, hedge funds, private equity, etc. There are other businesses which people think are passive but they are not. Having a website that makes money is not a passive income. Ask anyone that has one, they have to put in some sort of work. If they don't the money dries up. You have to create new content and really target your ads to actually make money. Good luck!
- TomMarius 9y agoYou can hire copywriters, PPC marketers and a manager using revenue of the site
- jthewriter 9y agoBut you'd have to supply work/capital to get it to the point of generating revenue.
- TomMarius 9y agoI don't think the question was about passive income that's free to set up. There is no such one, why would anyone work if you could just wave your magic wand?
- davidgh 9y agoNiche knowledge. We had our first house built for us. I learned a ton in the process and lots of “if I ever have a house built again I will remember to...” Some years later, we decided to move and build another house. Alas, all those things I “learned” were mostly forgotten. So I decided to journal the entire experience and turned it into a blog. Most of the content I just gave away for free. But I also put up a $9 “kit” that provided a printable copy of the blog, additional pictures, my full budget breakdown, spreadsheets I developed to help manage the project, etc. I’ve done nothing to promote the site but have earned in the low thousands over the years.
- dkmn 9y agoThis. Actual value you know, have, or are creating anyway. Many people will happily pay a reasonable fee for such things. Pros: not a gimmick, satisfaction of being an author. Cons: target of opportunity.
- segmondy 9y agogofundme Just open a page, tell a sob story and wait for the money to roll in.
- atsaloli 9y agoA friend of mine put together a deal to purchase a rental property, and I invested with him, and my investment is earning dividends now.
- Random_Person 9y agoAt work, I had a client say "I wish we had software that did this." What they were asking for was little more than a Google Form with a few reporting options. So, I whipped them up something in PHP/MySQL and handed it off. I quickly found more clients (word of mouth) that want the same software and can't find anyone that will provide it for less than $5k/yr. I work for a non-profit (education industry) that isn't really built to operate on funding streams like this, so I set up my own business and bought the rights back to my code/ip. I'm currently in the pre-launch phase as I re-factor a bit and make the code better suited to multi-agent use, but honestly, it's something an experienced developer could code in a weekend. I'm a total hack, so it's taking time. I already have 4 clients and more calls coming in, so the only thing holding me back is myself.
- bprieto 9y agoIf you have some niche or specific knowledge, you can set up a blog and sell infoproducts (courses, books, templates, etc.). I've done this on the side and there is money to be made. I had earnings of low thousands some months. But it's difficult to grow an audience, it's hard work to create quality products and even though you can set up an almost automatic selling machine with little coding, just plumbing WordPress, Mailchimp and PayPal, there are still some customer support to be done. So it's long term, not completely passive income, but if you know something and other people are willing to pay for that knowledge, it can be done.
- amorphic 9y agoThere is now potential for side-projects involving small-scale manufacturing thanks to recent advances in 3D printing. A friend and I created Enstaved [1] ("Customized Staves and Accessories") after a prop that we designed and 3D printed for a talk I gave at PyCon AU proved really popular. We did put in quite a bit of up-front work designing a product line and a website. Now most of our job is promotion and manufacturing the staves people order. Frankly that doesn't feel like "work" at all...:) [1] https://enstaved.com https://enstaved.com