12 ms·

Ask HN: Fastest route to $2000/mo. cashflow, worry free and conscience clear

90 points by jharrison 16y ago

In the vein of "You don't need a million dollars..." (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2025122), I'm wondering what the fastest way to get the effective monthly return on investing a million in a safe, worry free, hands-off investment is. I think that roughly translates to a couple thousand dollars a month depending on where you insert inflation. I included "conscience clear" in the description because I personally would want to be entirely above-board (no "spam viagra ads" and the like). Just to be clear, I'm not in dire straits or in need of a million dollars. I'm just curious. Additional clarification: For this purpose I'd like to assume someone doesn't have a million dollars or the prospect of receiving such in a lump sum. How would they go about building up to a cash flow that would be equivalent to having a million dollars in a safe, hands-off investment? edit: Apparently I don't know the difference between conscious and conscience. Fixed.

cheald 16y ago
Create a product and sell subscriptions. Even at a low price point, if you offer something people are willing to pay for on a recurring basis, you'll end up with a steady and growing income stream. Niche products work here - find an itch in a niche market you participate in, scratch it, and then charge other people to have you scratch the itch for them. I've done side/hobby projects of both the ad-driven and subscription-driven flavors, and the subscription-driven stuff gets a lot more profitable a lot faster. It does incur additional stress, because you have direct paying customers to take care of, but depending on the nature of the product, it might not need that much support. On the flip side, it's friggin' amazing to watch payments come in on a daily basis, then look back in a week and realize that you've got your rent paid for.
JasonPunyon 16y ago
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- jharrison 16y ago
  My mistake. Thank you for pointing that out.
- ezl 16y ago
  inconceivable!
gregjor 16y ago
Conscience is the word you want. And cash flow is not the same thing as income. There's an old Monty Python sketch called "How To Do It" where the explanation of how to get rich is "First, get lots of money."
- jharrison 16y ago
  Thanks for the correction and clarification.
patio11 16y ago
I'd recommend a niche software product, preferably one with recurring revenue, but you could do it with a day or two of consulting if you have skills and contacts.
- jharrison 16y ago
  Thanks, Patrick. I meant to exclude consulting. I'm thinking of something that happens in your sleep, like a "safe" investment would. Web apps/niche software are where I would lean as well but that's why I'm asking. I'm hoping the collective experience of HN can expose other options.
- cvos 16y ago
  create a niche software product with recurring revenue in a day or 2? Sign me up, i'll take 10!
  - jharrison 16y ago
    To be fair, I didn't clarify a timeline. I'm just curious what HNers think would be the fastest option. Fastest could mean 2 years.
  - chc 16y ago
    I think the parent meant you could make that much money as a consultant in a couple of days, not create a niche software product with recurring revenue.
  - patio11 16y ago
    I meant that if you were willing to count a few days a month as "not really working", then you can trivially bill $2k quickly. Otherwise, niche software is an option.
keiferski 16y ago
Make a simple web app that sells for $15 a month. You'll only need to get roughly 150 customers to make $2000. Or change the price and recalculate.
- iworkforthem 16y ago
  Alternatively, make a simple web app that subscribe for $5 a month, 400 subscribers will get you the same $2k. People are more willingly to spare a $5 change.
  - keiferski 16y ago
    Yup. It just comes down to value, and it depends on the app. Underpricing something that has a lot of value is generally not a great business move. Especially when you intend on adding features later. But if it's just a simple web app, presumably one that has some similar competition, then $5 may be a better idea.
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    Yeah, no they're not.
  - mmap 16y ago
    This has a strong element of "build it and they'll come." It leaves out a large part of the problem of selling something. How will enough interested people discover the "simple web app"? If there are competitors (chances are there will be) and the app's page is in the 12th results page of Google and PPC keywords cost $5 per click, getting enough relevant traffic to ultimately reach 400 subscribers can be quite a lot of hard (and costly) work. As an indication, if you look at point 5 in this survey http://webappsurvey2009.techcrunch.com/ http://webappsurvey2009.techcrunch.com/ you will see that ~50% of marketing sites of web apps got 0-1,000 visitors a month. It can be done but don't just expect to "build it and they will come." Also, a book that sums up good points about selling a web app (especially if you are a developer) is http://www.startupbook.net/ http://www.startupbook.net/ Good luck!
    - 16y ago
coffeenut 16y ago
Leverage existing equity as collateral and purchase one or several investment properties (very carefully of course). There are some incredible deals to be found right now.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- thrashr888 16y ago
  I may have this opportunity as early as January and would like to be smart about it. I can leverage existing property equity at ~3% APR and I'm sure I can use it wisely to pull in much better than that. Any example ideas? I'm just now starting to look into this.
calbear81 16y ago
So I'm not sure if you're asking what are some business investments or you're asking about financial vehicles that can generate $2K/month of cashflow off of $1M of initial investment. One option during this down market is to purchase rental property, you'll have to do some digging but the most depressed markets are 70% off of their peaks and most pros will tell you it won't drop much more than that (but it's not ZERO risk). You need to crunch the numbers and then renovate and find tenants but I know of a few small investors that own 15-20 rental properties and can generate ~10% margins monthly and you have the potential upside of property appreciation. If you don't want to deal too much with getting hands on and managing a business, it's conceivable to be pretty low-risk to go with high dividend / low growth blue chip stocks. For example, AT&T is at $29/share right now. It's been paying $.42/share per quarter so about $1.60/year. It'll move around a bit but assume that they won't get screwed when the iPhone goes multi-carrier, you are talking about $1M for 34,483 shares which will pay $13,793/quarter in dividends alone which is $4,597 per month. Assume 40% taxation rate and you're $2,758 post taxes. You can use any finance site to screen for companies with high dividend yields. Keep in mind that high dividend usually means low risk of stock price movement but there is still risk.
whalesalad 16y ago
I made about 10k off sales from a WordPress theme over the course of about a year. Not that much money, but it's a GREAT feeling to wake up in the morning and see money in your account. I'd be walking through the mall with my girlfriend at the time and tell her, "just sold a premium copy! want ice cream?" Very, very motivating. It gets to the point that you get a "taking-candy-from-a-baby" feeling that leads you to really try and improve your product day-after-day, to keep your initial customers happy, and to get more sales. So, I agree that a niche software product you're actually passionate about will help. I happened to be in a fortunate position where a demand existed for a one-off product I had created a while back, all I had to do was fill the void. Customers were already looking to me for it. I feel like a total fucking idiot for not doing it sooner. I could have made probably 3x the money, just guestimating. Find something that inspires you personally, because that is what will push you to completing it. I got laid off from a startup position that was caving in. I had a small severance to live off of, and had always wanted to build this idea. Unfortunately while at the startup I was also working on a second one on the side (death, I know) so I never really had time to do anything but those two things. Getting laid off was perfect. I sprinted as hard as I possibly could for 3 weeks, designing, coding, and building a sale site with a mini activation server. It was loads of fun. It was also very exciting to look back on those three weeks and realize that I had done a great job making the right decision when hit with a small road block. Asking myself things like, "Where does this fit with the 80/20 rule? Can I launch this feature in a second update a week later? Do I need it at all? Oh, wait, these two features can easily be combined into one. The technology behind the two won't be nearly as cool, but users will probably prefer it." All of that, I feel, is what lead to my success. Getting the product out as soon as possible, without cutting any essential corners. We've all heard it before, but living it was great. I guess I pretty much built my own "nano" startup. Damnit, now I want to do it again.
- petervandijck 16y ago
  "Nano startup". Like that.
  - iworkforthem 16y ago
    I love this term!
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
I just coded http://boog.me http://boog.me over the weekend hoping it may generate some revenue while running unattended. If it brings at least $100 a month, I'll work on nine more sites like that to make a grand.
- andy_boot 16y ago
  I dont know if you're joking or not. But how is that going to generate revenue? I mean the site is cool and useful and all. But its just anoth http://mailinator.com/ http://mailinator.com/ clone.
  - Kilimanjaro 16y ago
    Yes it is a mailinator clone. I hope to provide a better service with more features like auto-forward, private inboxes and stuff like that. Ad revenue. Mailinator claims they get a million emails a day, that's a lot of money in ad revenue. My goal is to dethrone mailinator as the de facto temp email provider.
    - pclark 16y ago
      aren't all those million emails almost by definition value-less? its the lowest value emails to send.
      - Kilimanjaro 16y ago
        Yes and no. It all depends on how many are spam and how many are welcome emails with registration info. People register in websites and go check their confirmation links. Then forget about it. Out of that, one percent of welcome emails means 10K real visits daily, and that is good enough for a steady ad revenue flow.
        cullenking 16y ago
        If only 10% signup, then 10% of that purchase....These are dangerous ways to make a business, though we all do them while daydreaming...
chubs 16y ago
Seems like the common thread here is to 'start a web app, charge a recurring fee'... Any suggestions for such an app that people here would find useful and willing to pay, say, $10 a month for, that would be small enough to be developed by one guy? I can't think of any ideas off the top of my head.
- rmc 16y ago
  Read about patio11. He made a webapp to make bingo cards online. http://www.kalzumeus.com/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/
- rhizome 16y ago
  A better to-do list. Seriously.
  - YuriNiyazov 16y ago
    whats wrong with remember the milk?
    - LiveTheDream 16y ago
      A year or so ago I stopped using RTM because the web interface became so buggy and slow that that it wouldn't load half of my lists. I let my Pro account expire. I was really impressed with the tool originally; hopefully they've fixed those issues. I've been doing fine with a plain text file since then. I honestly think there's always room for another good todo app. Different workflow/interfaces click with different people.
      - pontifier 16y ago
        Your last statement there inspired me. 2 days ago I registered A website for my new todo list concept, and I got it set up a few hours ago. Just need to get adsense and my dns set up better and I'll be ready to roll with an MVP... ToDoWiki.com
  - chc 16y ago
chubs 16y ago
Make a few iphone / ipad apps? Start an ebay business?
jraines 16y ago
Take a few hours to scan the "recently sold" listings on flippa.com and you will have a few answers to that question.
- slindstr 16y ago
  Be wary of the more expensive sites that sell - something seems fishy about selling a wordpress blog with no revenue, no page rank, and no site stats attached to the auction. I recently asked a question about this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000924 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000924 HN gave me a lot of great insight to Flippa
robryan 16y ago
Usually if something is easy, fast and worry free to get to that kind of wage, which is very comfortable living in the vast majority of locations, there are probably many people attempting to do said thing. Really you need to leverage some kind of skills to go after something either outside the low hanging fruit, or create something that people wouldn't have considered to have a good enough market. Of course there is an element of luck, if you can make some apps and get them to take off, the mobile ad market seems to be like the early web advertising at the moment, probably returning above the mark. Something like this for example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1870960 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1870960
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
The fastest route would be an iPad app. Make an ABC book for kids about animals, or fruits, or things, with big pics and nice visuals. Kids love them, parents love them, instant winner.
- code_duck 16y ago
  What a great publishing environment! Love this tip.
- prawn 16y ago
  Make a kids book with some interactivity. e.g., about a family picnic, but with little ants or bugs invading the story space. The child has to move the food around to escape the ants, squish them (might not go down well with many parents) or brush aside the bugs, etc.
feint 16y ago
I take a multi stream approach to the problem. Half my income comes from a web app I built (task.fm) and the other half from my personal site - I just review the books I read and products I use and earn through affiliate commissions. A couple of pages on my personal site make over $500 a month in commissions, because they are highly targeted (first result in Google).
rishi 16y ago
The fastest way to $2k/mo in your own business is a lot of hard work.
lessthanideal 16y ago
What you're really looking for is a product. I'll even wager you are probably looking for a product that requires minimal unit production and distribution costs. That puts you in a class of products that are electronic, or products that you can convert from an electronic representation to a physical one and have a supplier to deal with those physical challenges (like shipping) for you. People often forget the 2nd option, but it's there. A short list of items that meet this qualification: software, writing (books, novellas, blogs, etc.), digital art, digital photography, music (original), sound of other types (background sounds that can be used in the production of music, for example), designs/instructions (for building something) and a probably a bunch of other stuff. If I missed a big one, please reply to this post with it. You should also be looking for free resources online that you can leverage. Are there free services that you can leverage to make your business easier to manage? Can you do some work (collection or processing) of some freely available data that might give it additional value which you can then extract through sales or in some other way? Because your goal is to make a living and give yourself some extra freedom, you don't have to overengineer this. This isn't your masterpiece. It doesn't have to be pretty or break new ground necessarily. Don't chrome plate it if you're writing software for it or to support it. Frankly, I just started taking advantage of this type of business and I feel almost guilty. The code isn't that great. The idea isn't that great. It's not something to write home about in terms of engineering a solution. But it makes me money even if I don't touch it for a month at a time. I'm not living off this business yet, but I am seeing good growth and I see a virtually infinite path to expanding the digitally based offerings of the business (more offerings = more money).
jaywalker 16y ago
Perhaps, "a money machine" is a better word than "hands-off investment."

90 points by jharrison 16y ago

cheald 16y ago

Create a product and sell subscriptions. Even at a low price point, if you offer something people are willing to pay for on a recurring basis, you'll end up with a steady and growing income stream. Niche products work here - find an itch in a niche market you participate in, scratch it, and then charge other people to have you scratch the itch for them. I've done side/hobby projects of both the ad-driven and subscription-driven flavors, and the subscription-driven stuff gets a lot more profitable a lot faster. It does incur additional stress, because you have direct paying customers to take care of, but depending on the nature of the product, it might not need that much support. On the flip side, it's friggin' amazing to watch payments come in on a daily basis, then look back in a week and realize that you've got your rent paid for.

JasonPunyon 16y ago

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

jharrison 16y ago
My mistake. Thank you for pointing that out.
ezl 16y ago
inconceivable!

gregjor 16y ago

Conscience is the word you want. And cash flow is not the same thing as income. There's an old Monty Python sketch called "How To Do It" where the explanation of how to get rich is "First, get lots of money."

jharrison 16y ago
Thanks for the correction and clarification.

patio11 16y ago

I'd recommend a niche software product, preferably one with recurring revenue, but you could do it with a day or two of consulting if you have skills and contacts.

jharrison 16y ago
Thanks, Patrick. I meant to exclude consulting. I'm thinking of something that happens in your sleep, like a "safe" investment would. Web apps/niche software are where I would lean as well but that's why I'm asking. I'm hoping the collective experience of HN can expose other options.
cvos 16y ago
create a niche software product with recurring revenue in a day or 2? Sign me up, i'll take 10!
- jharrison 16y ago
  To be fair, I didn't clarify a timeline. I'm just curious what HNers think would be the fastest option. Fastest could mean 2 years.
- chc 16y ago
  I think the parent meant you could make that much money as a consultant in a couple of days, not create a niche software product with recurring revenue.
- patio11 16y ago
  I meant that if you were willing to count a few days a month as "not really working", then you can trivially bill $2k quickly. Otherwise, niche software is an option.

keiferski 16y ago

Make a simple web app that sells for $15 a month. You'll only need to get roughly 150 customers to make $2000. Or change the price and recalculate.

iworkforthem 16y ago
Alternatively, make a simple web app that subscribe for $5 a month, 400 subscribers will get you the same $2k. People are more willingly to spare a $5 change.
- keiferski 16y ago
  Yup. It just comes down to value, and it depends on the app. Underpricing something that has a lot of value is generally not a great business move. Especially when you intend on adding features later. But if it's just a simple web app, presumably one that has some similar competition, then $5 may be a better idea.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  Yeah, no they're not.
- mmap 16y ago
  This has a strong element of "build it and they'll come." It leaves out a large part of the problem of selling something. How will enough interested people discover the "simple web app"? If there are competitors (chances are there will be) and the app's page is in the 12th results page of Google and PPC keywords cost $5 per click, getting enough relevant traffic to ultimately reach 400 subscribers can be quite a lot of hard (and costly) work. As an indication, if you look at point 5 in this survey http://webappsurvey2009.techcrunch.com/ http://webappsurvey2009.techcrunch.com/ you will see that ~50% of marketing sites of web apps got 0-1,000 visitors a month. It can be done but don't just expect to "build it and they will come." Also, a book that sums up good points about selling a web app (especially if you are a developer) is http://www.startupbook.net/ http://www.startupbook.net/ Good luck!
  - 16y ago

coffeenut 16y ago

Leverage existing equity as collateral and purchase one or several investment properties (very carefully of course). There are some incredible deals to be found right now.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
thrashr888 16y ago
I may have this opportunity as early as January and would like to be smart about it. I can leverage existing property equity at ~3% APR and I'm sure I can use it wisely to pull in much better than that. Any example ideas? I'm just now starting to look into this.

calbear81 16y ago

So I'm not sure if you're asking what are some business investments or you're asking about financial vehicles that can generate $2K/month of cashflow off of $1M of initial investment. One option during this down market is to purchase rental property, you'll have to do some digging but the most depressed markets are 70% off of their peaks and most pros will tell you it won't drop much more than that (but it's not ZERO risk). You need to crunch the numbers and then renovate and find tenants but I know of a few small investors that own 15-20 rental properties and can generate ~10% margins monthly and you have the potential upside of property appreciation. If you don't want to deal too much with getting hands on and managing a business, it's conceivable to be pretty low-risk to go with high dividend / low growth blue chip stocks. For example, AT&T is at $29/share right now. It's been paying $.42/share per quarter so about $1.60/year. It'll move around a bit but assume that they won't get screwed when the iPhone goes multi-carrier, you are talking about $1M for 34,483 shares which will pay $13,793/quarter in dividends alone which is $4,597 per month. Assume 40% taxation rate and you're $2,758 post taxes. You can use any finance site to screen for companies with high dividend yields. Keep in mind that high dividend usually means low risk of stock price movement but there is still risk.

whalesalad 16y ago

I made about 10k off sales from a WordPress theme over the course of about a year. Not that much money, but it's a GREAT feeling to wake up in the morning and see money in your account. I'd be walking through the mall with my girlfriend at the time and tell her, "just sold a premium copy! want ice cream?" Very, very motivating. It gets to the point that you get a "taking-candy-from-a-baby" feeling that leads you to really try and improve your product day-after-day, to keep your initial customers happy, and to get more sales. So, I agree that a niche software product you're actually passionate about will help. I happened to be in a fortunate position where a demand existed for a one-off product I had created a while back, all I had to do was fill the void. Customers were already looking to me for it. I feel like a total fucking idiot for not doing it sooner. I could have made probably 3x the money, just guestimating. Find something that inspires you personally, because that is what will push you to completing it. I got laid off from a startup position that was caving in. I had a small severance to live off of, and had always wanted to build this idea. Unfortunately while at the startup I was also working on a second one on the side (death, I know) so I never really had time to do anything but those two things. Getting laid off was perfect. I sprinted as hard as I possibly could for 3 weeks, designing, coding, and building a sale site with a mini activation server. It was loads of fun. It was also very exciting to look back on those three weeks and realize that I had done a great job making the right decision when hit with a small road block. Asking myself things like, "Where does this fit with the 80/20 rule? Can I launch this feature in a second update a week later? Do I need it at all? Oh, wait, these two features can easily be combined into one. The technology behind the two won't be nearly as cool, but users will probably prefer it." All of that, I feel, is what lead to my success. Getting the product out as soon as possible, without cutting any essential corners. We've all heard it before, but living it was great. I guess I pretty much built my own "nano" startup. Damnit, now I want to do it again.

petervandijck 16y ago
"Nano startup". Like that.
- iworkforthem 16y ago
  I love this term!

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

I just coded http://boog.me http://boog.me over the weekend hoping it may generate some revenue while running unattended. If it brings at least $100 a month, I'll work on nine more sites like that to make a grand.

andy_boot 16y ago
I dont know if you're joking or not. But how is that going to generate revenue? I mean the site is cool and useful and all. But its just anoth http://mailinator.com/ http://mailinator.com/ clone.
- Kilimanjaro 16y ago
  Yes it is a mailinator clone. I hope to provide a better service with more features like auto-forward, private inboxes and stuff like that. Ad revenue. Mailinator claims they get a million emails a day, that's a lot of money in ad revenue. My goal is to dethrone mailinator as the de facto temp email provider.
  - pclark 16y ago
    aren't all those million emails almost by definition value-less? its the lowest value emails to send.
    - Kilimanjaro 16y ago
      Yes and no. It all depends on how many are spam and how many are welcome emails with registration info. People register in websites and go check their confirmation links. Then forget about it. Out of that, one percent of welcome emails means 10K real visits daily, and that is good enough for a steady ad revenue flow.
      - cullenking 16y ago
        If only 10% signup, then 10% of that purchase....These are dangerous ways to make a business, though we all do them while daydreaming...

chubs 16y ago

Seems like the common thread here is to 'start a web app, charge a recurring fee'... Any suggestions for such an app that people here would find useful and willing to pay, say, $10 a month for, that would be small enough to be developed by one guy? I can't think of any ideas off the top of my head.

rmc 16y ago
Read about patio11. He made a webapp to make bingo cards online. http://www.kalzumeus.com/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/
rhizome 16y ago
A better to-do list. Seriously.
- YuriNiyazov 16y ago
  whats wrong with remember the milk?
  - LiveTheDream 16y ago
    A year or so ago I stopped using RTM because the web interface became so buggy and slow that that it wouldn't load half of my lists. I let my Pro account expire. I was really impressed with the tool originally; hopefully they've fixed those issues. I've been doing fine with a plain text file since then. I honestly think there's always room for another good todo app. Different workflow/interfaces click with different people.
    - pontifier 16y ago
      Your last statement there inspired me. 2 days ago I registered A website for my new todo list concept, and I got it set up a few hours ago. Just need to get adsense and my dns set up better and I'll be ready to roll with an MVP... ToDoWiki.com
- chc 16y ago

chubs 16y ago

Make a few iphone / ipad apps? Start an ebay business?

jraines 16y ago

Take a few hours to scan the "recently sold" listings on flippa.com and you will have a few answers to that question.

slindstr 16y ago
Be wary of the more expensive sites that sell - something seems fishy about selling a wordpress blog with no revenue, no page rank, and no site stats attached to the auction. I recently asked a question about this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000924 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000924 HN gave me a lot of great insight to Flippa

robryan 16y ago

Usually if something is easy, fast and worry free to get to that kind of wage, which is very comfortable living in the vast majority of locations, there are probably many people attempting to do said thing. Really you need to leverage some kind of skills to go after something either outside the low hanging fruit, or create something that people wouldn't have considered to have a good enough market. Of course there is an element of luck, if you can make some apps and get them to take off, the mobile ad market seems to be like the early web advertising at the moment, probably returning above the mark. Something like this for example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1870960 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1870960

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

The fastest route would be an iPad app. Make an ABC book for kids about animals, or fruits, or things, with big pics and nice visuals. Kids love them, parents love them, instant winner.

code_duck 16y ago
What a great publishing environment! Love this tip.
prawn 16y ago
Make a kids book with some interactivity. e.g., about a family picnic, but with little ants or bugs invading the story space. The child has to move the food around to escape the ants, squish them (might not go down well with many parents) or brush aside the bugs, etc.

feint 16y ago

I take a multi stream approach to the problem. Half my income comes from a web app I built (task.fm) and the other half from my personal site - I just review the books I read and products I use and earn through affiliate commissions. A couple of pages on my personal site make over $500 a month in commissions, because they are highly targeted (first result in Google).

rishi 16y ago

The fastest way to $2k/mo in your own business is a lot of hard work.

lessthanideal 16y ago

What you're really looking for is a product. I'll even wager you are probably looking for a product that requires minimal unit production and distribution costs. That puts you in a class of products that are electronic, or products that you can convert from an electronic representation to a physical one and have a supplier to deal with those physical challenges (like shipping) for you. People often forget the 2nd option, but it's there. A short list of items that meet this qualification: software, writing (books, novellas, blogs, etc.), digital art, digital photography, music (original), sound of other types (background sounds that can be used in the production of music, for example), designs/instructions (for building something) and a probably a bunch of other stuff. If I missed a big one, please reply to this post with it. You should also be looking for free resources online that you can leverage. Are there free services that you can leverage to make your business easier to manage? Can you do some work (collection or processing) of some freely available data that might give it additional value which you can then extract through sales or in some other way? Because your goal is to make a living and give yourself some extra freedom, you don't have to overengineer this. This isn't your masterpiece. It doesn't have to be pretty or break new ground necessarily. Don't chrome plate it if you're writing software for it or to support it. Frankly, I just started taking advantage of this type of business and I feel almost guilty. The code isn't that great. The idea isn't that great. It's not something to write home about in terms of engineering a solution. But it makes me money even if I don't touch it for a month at a time. I'm not living off this business yet, but I am seeing good growth and I see a virtually infinite path to expanding the digitally based offerings of the business (more offerings = more money).

jaywalker 16y ago

Perhaps, "a money machine" is a better word than "hands-off investment."