9 ms·

My 10 Year Side Project Story

138 points by jonathanberger 5y ago

dolphenstein 5y ago
Can relate. I built a little web utility back in 2009. Did practically nothing with it (occasional updates every 2/3 years) and it slowly accumulated inbound links and google ranking. Then finally in 2019 I decided to put a bit more effort into it. Now I make my living from it! :-)
- rajasimon 5y ago
  > You mention making living from it. Can you tel me your MRR?
- hihihihi1234 5y ago
  What is your web utility, if I may ask?
  - dolphenstein 5y ago
    https://www.ezyzip.com/ https://www.ezyzip.com/
    - Waterluvian 5y ago
      Are all those formats for decompression and compression done purely client side? What library are you using for the client side compression? Or did you make your own?
      - dolphenstein 5y ago
        Yeah, it's all client side. Which is why I was able to just leave and forget about it for so long. Was hosted on an S3 bucket. There's tons of libraries out there that does client side compression/decompression. Just search through github! :-)
travisgriggs 5y ago
> The site now has more than a million visitors a month and earns a nice side income from a small ad. So when it says that, what does that mean? It pays for hosting costs I assume. Are we talking enough to pay for a couple of meals out a month? Or enough to retire on?
- jonathanberger 5y ago
  It means I didn't want to get too specific about the amount involved. But I can see there's lots of interest in this question. I wonder actually if something like https://www.levels.fyi https://www.levels.fyi could be built or exists but for ad-supported websites (side project idea?). It'd be really useful for people to understand more broadly "if you create site of type x and it gets y amount of traffic you can expect this level of ad revenue". One reason the amount involved in my case would only be so useful is that sites can wildly vary (by as much as 100x I'm told) in how much $ per visit is generated (the industry term is "RPM").
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    > It means I didn't want to get too specific about the amount involved. Is this because you don't want to reveal anything about your personal financial situation or is it because knowing the amount would somehow help someone compete and encroach on your "territory"?
    - jonathanberger 5y ago
      Interesting question. I tried to introspect a bit about the reason and I'm still not really sure. Maybe an American cultural influence of things like salaries being taboo.
  - infecto 5y ago
    I wish I remember the site from a decade ago but I feel like this existed sorta with a site that used to hold auctions/sales for people selling their website. I wish I could remember the site now, would be fun to look at it in wayback machine. I remember things like traffic numbers, sources, revenue etc.
jonathanberger 5y ago
I made this post but credit to kw_dev who inspired this with his https://kwcodes.com/how-i-failed-5-side-projects-in-6-years-earning-0 https://kwcodes.com/how-i-failed-5-side-projects-in-6-years-... HN post from a few days ago.
hu3 5y ago
Thanks for sharing! Inspiring little project that made the world a better place and earned you some ROI.
- jonathanberger 5y ago
  I appreciate the comment and "world a better place" is exactly how I like to think about it.
rgbrgb 5y ago
very cool, thx for sharing and for making a useful thing on the internet! I know it's gauche, but I'd love to get a rough feel of how much you're making from that ad. You think you'd ever go full-time on this type of side project?
- jonathanberger 5y ago
  Thanks! My dream actually is to do it full-time but there's only so much I can reduce my personal burn rate by. I also sent you a direct message.
fuckthedangcunt 5y ago
Dang is a massive cunt
kristaps320 5y ago
thanks for sharing! the story is very inspiring and i like your product especially the domain name you chose, could you share more about how you used google trends to decide the domain name to take?
- jonathanberger 5y ago
  My original domain was www.thetimezoneconverter.com. I can't remember what my original search was 10 years ago but I tried out a number of queries on Google Trends to see which variation of "time zone", "time zone calculator", "timezone converter", etc. (different spaces and such) were most popular. Then I named the site that and got that domain. Many years later (and just a few months ago) I switched over to a new domain "Dateful" as I had accumulated a number of different features for the site that went beyond just timezone conversion. "Dateful" isn't based at all off Google Trends, I just like the name.
hbn 5y ago
I made a very small and simple scraper utility for a photo sharing website (it's one of those sites that doesn't let you download through the app or easily on the website, similar to Instagram). Grab the link, throw it in a box on my site, and it gives you the full-res image you can right click -> download. It's doing pretty decent in traffic, ranking around number 4 in a fairly generic search for this utility, and gets about 1200-1400 invocations of the download functionality per day. I'd like to monetize it but I'm not really sure what I can do. I put some ads up from a small ad network that's slowly been building up a couple cents per day maybe (and Adsense isn't really interesting in my type of site -- I tried), but I'm not even really sure how valuable my traffic is anyway. If someone has suggestions for a better way to monetize, I'd be willing to hear you out!
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  Donation button in a visible but non-intrusive spot. Share a little bit about yourself to humanize. It will probably make you more than the ads.
  - hbn 5y ago
    That's worth a shot, I'll consider it. Thanks!
- jonathanberger 5y ago
  I had trouble getting AdSense "interested" also. Depending on what Adsense is telling you I'd have varying suggestions if ads were still the way you wanted to go. The best ways I know to monetize something for consumers: ads, app stores, donation buttons. I tried an iPhone app to monetize the time zone converter but in my case the ad performed better. I tried a donation button for a few weeks and it brought in more than I expected.
  - hbn 5y ago
    > I tried a donation button for a few weeks and it brought in more than I expected. I figured I'd come back and update that I removed all the ads from the fairly sketchy-looking ad network I joined (which had accumulated something like $8 of unpaid payout over the past year or so) and added a donation section to my website, and just a couple days later I already got someone that tossed me $10. Perhaps I underestimated the generosity of people! Thanks for the advice!
sloreti 5y ago
As someone with a couple side projects kicking around, enjoy posts like this. Would you be willing to share what kind of ad revenue a tool like this can generate with 1M views per month?
- jonathanberger 5y ago
  I'm hesitant to share publicly but if you send me a message I always love to discuss side projects. :)
- sneilan1 5y ago
  Check out https://www.google.com/adsense/start/#calculator https://www.google.com/adsense/start/#calculator The numbers on this seem inflated though. From what I've googled/read, I've seen numbers as low as $1k/month per 1 million pageviews. Unsure if number of unique visitors effects that number however.
xupybd 5y ago
"another said it should have taken an hour not a weekend to create." I hate comments like that. Maybe someone could make it in less time but I suspect the commenter hadn't even tried. Why throw your estimate out there as better than someone's real effort? That level of arrogance is frustrating.
- is_true 5y ago
  I guess it could be either: Different constraints or ignorance.
- debarshri 5y ago
  I used to be of mindset where I used to think why did people take months or years for something which I thought would have considerably less time. Until I started building my own product. Building something with insights, care, robustness and building something right is function of time and money. Therefore as an indie dev, take your time to build it. Rushing a solution and doing a half ass job often backfires when you reveal it to the world.
- thrashh 5y ago
  I think it’s because some people grew up having to make time estimates and deciding whether to do something based on the estimate. If they were in the same boat, they might have not done it if they expected it to take a weekend.
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  I think it usually is a combination of lack of experience and a deep desire to impress others. In other words: they are immature and lack self confidence.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  I think it's easy to overlook all the little things. Sure, you could probably whip something up in an hour that did a large part of of what it needed to do, but it would be kinda crappy and half-assed. You almost always do 80% of the work in the first 20% of the time, the rest is a lot slower, but every bit as important. People absolutely can tell when they are using something that has thought and effort put into it, and you can't fake that.
is_true 5y ago
Hi Jonathan. Love the simplicity. In the spanish translation I would change "Realimentacion" to "Comentarios" or "Enviar comentario".
- jonathanberger 5y ago
  Thanks, fixed.
slickbackiq 5y ago
very easy to use!
- jonathanberger 5y ago
  Thank you.
pkdpic 5y ago
Just wanted to say this was super inspiring, practical, unpretentious and to the point. My favorite HN read in a long time.
- jonathanberger 5y ago
  Thanks so much.
pipeline_peak 5y ago
> Besides, that’s what your day job is for. Someone had to say it.
johnx123-up 5y ago
The site now has more than a million visitors a month and earns a nice side income from a small ad. SCR, interested in the actual number if possible

Can relate. I built a little web utility back in 2009. Did practically nothing with it (occasional updates every 2/3 years) and it slowly accumulated inbound links and google ranking. Then finally in 2019 I decided to put a bit more effort into it. Now I make my living from it! :-)

rajasimon 5y ago
> You mention making living from it. Can you tel me your MRR?
hihihihi1234 5y ago
What is your web utility, if I may ask?
- dolphenstein 5y ago
  https://www.ezyzip.com/ https://www.ezyzip.com/
  - Waterluvian 5y ago
    Are all those formats for decompression and compression done purely client side? What library are you using for the client side compression? Or did you make your own?
    - dolphenstein 5y ago
      Yeah, it's all client side. Which is why I was able to just leave and forget about it for so long. Was hosted on an S3 bucket. There's tons of libraries out there that does client side compression/decompression. Just search through github! :-)

travisgriggs 5y ago

> The site now has more than a million visitors a month and earns a nice side income from a small ad. So when it says that, what does that mean? It pays for hosting costs I assume. Are we talking enough to pay for a couple of meals out a month? Or enough to retire on?

jonathanberger 5y ago
It means I didn't want to get too specific about the amount involved. But I can see there's lots of interest in this question. I wonder actually if something like https://www.levels.fyi https://www.levels.fyi could be built or exists but for ad-supported websites (side project idea?). It'd be really useful for people to understand more broadly "if you create site of type x and it gets y amount of traffic you can expect this level of ad revenue". One reason the amount involved in my case would only be so useful is that sites can wildly vary (by as much as 100x I'm told) in how much $ per visit is generated (the industry term is "RPM").
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > It means I didn't want to get too specific about the amount involved. Is this because you don't want to reveal anything about your personal financial situation or is it because knowing the amount would somehow help someone compete and encroach on your "territory"?
  - jonathanberger 5y ago
    Interesting question. I tried to introspect a bit about the reason and I'm still not really sure. Maybe an American cultural influence of things like salaries being taboo.
- infecto 5y ago
  I wish I remember the site from a decade ago but I feel like this existed sorta with a site that used to hold auctions/sales for people selling their website. I wish I could remember the site now, would be fun to look at it in wayback machine. I remember things like traffic numbers, sources, revenue etc.

jonathanberger 5y ago

I made this post but credit to kw_dev who inspired this with his https://kwcodes.com/how-i-failed-5-side-projects-in-6-years-earning-0 https://kwcodes.com/how-i-failed-5-side-projects-in-6-years-... HN post from a few days ago.

hu3 5y ago

Thanks for sharing! Inspiring little project that made the world a better place and earned you some ROI.

jonathanberger 5y ago
I appreciate the comment and "world a better place" is exactly how I like to think about it.

rgbrgb 5y ago

very cool, thx for sharing and for making a useful thing on the internet! I know it's gauche, but I'd love to get a rough feel of how much you're making from that ad. You think you'd ever go full-time on this type of side project?

jonathanberger 5y ago
Thanks! My dream actually is to do it full-time but there's only so much I can reduce my personal burn rate by. I also sent you a direct message.

fuckthedangcunt 5y ago

Dang is a massive cunt

kristaps320 5y ago

thanks for sharing! the story is very inspiring and i like your product especially the domain name you chose, could you share more about how you used google trends to decide the domain name to take?

jonathanberger 5y ago
My original domain was www.thetimezoneconverter.com. I can't remember what my original search was 10 years ago but I tried out a number of queries on Google Trends to see which variation of "time zone", "time zone calculator", "timezone converter", etc. (different spaces and such) were most popular. Then I named the site that and got that domain. Many years later (and just a few months ago) I switched over to a new domain "Dateful" as I had accumulated a number of different features for the site that went beyond just timezone conversion. "Dateful" isn't based at all off Google Trends, I just like the name.

hbn 5y ago

I made a very small and simple scraper utility for a photo sharing website (it's one of those sites that doesn't let you download through the app or easily on the website, similar to Instagram). Grab the link, throw it in a box on my site, and it gives you the full-res image you can right click -> download. It's doing pretty decent in traffic, ranking around number 4 in a fairly generic search for this utility, and gets about 1200-1400 invocations of the download functionality per day. I'd like to monetize it but I'm not really sure what I can do. I put some ads up from a small ad network that's slowly been building up a couple cents per day maybe (and Adsense isn't really interesting in my type of site -- I tried), but I'm not even really sure how valuable my traffic is anyway. If someone has suggestions for a better way to monetize, I'd be willing to hear you out!

forgotmypw17 5y ago
Donation button in a visible but non-intrusive spot. Share a little bit about yourself to humanize. It will probably make you more than the ads.
- hbn 5y ago
  That's worth a shot, I'll consider it. Thanks!
jonathanberger 5y ago
I had trouble getting AdSense "interested" also. Depending on what Adsense is telling you I'd have varying suggestions if ads were still the way you wanted to go. The best ways I know to monetize something for consumers: ads, app stores, donation buttons. I tried an iPhone app to monetize the time zone converter but in my case the ad performed better. I tried a donation button for a few weeks and it brought in more than I expected.
- hbn 5y ago
  > I tried a donation button for a few weeks and it brought in more than I expected. I figured I'd come back and update that I removed all the ads from the fairly sketchy-looking ad network I joined (which had accumulated something like $8 of unpaid payout over the past year or so) and added a donation section to my website, and just a couple days later I already got someone that tossed me $10. Perhaps I underestimated the generosity of people! Thanks for the advice!

sloreti 5y ago

As someone with a couple side projects kicking around, enjoy posts like this. Would you be willing to share what kind of ad revenue a tool like this can generate with 1M views per month?

jonathanberger 5y ago
I'm hesitant to share publicly but if you send me a message I always love to discuss side projects. :)
sneilan1 5y ago
Check out https://www.google.com/adsense/start/#calculator https://www.google.com/adsense/start/#calculator The numbers on this seem inflated though. From what I've googled/read, I've seen numbers as low as $1k/month per 1 million pageviews. Unsure if number of unique visitors effects that number however.

xupybd 5y ago

"another said it should have taken an hour not a weekend to create." I hate comments like that. Maybe someone could make it in less time but I suspect the commenter hadn't even tried. Why throw your estimate out there as better than someone's real effort? That level of arrogance is frustrating.

is_true 5y ago
I guess it could be either: Different constraints or ignorance.
debarshri 5y ago
I used to be of mindset where I used to think why did people take months or years for something which I thought would have considerably less time. Until I started building my own product. Building something with insights, care, robustness and building something right is function of time and money. Therefore as an indie dev, take your time to build it. Rushing a solution and doing a half ass job often backfires when you reveal it to the world.
thrashh 5y ago
I think it’s because some people grew up having to make time estimates and deciding whether to do something based on the estimate. If they were in the same boat, they might have not done it if they expected it to take a weekend.
mbrodersen 5y ago
I think it usually is a combination of lack of experience and a deep desire to impress others. In other words: they are immature and lack self confidence.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
I think it's easy to overlook all the little things. Sure, you could probably whip something up in an hour that did a large part of of what it needed to do, but it would be kinda crappy and half-assed. You almost always do 80% of the work in the first 20% of the time, the rest is a lot slower, but every bit as important. People absolutely can tell when they are using something that has thought and effort put into it, and you can't fake that.

is_true 5y ago

Hi Jonathan. Love the simplicity. In the spanish translation I would change "Realimentacion" to "Comentarios" or "Enviar comentario".

jonathanberger 5y ago
Thanks, fixed.

slickbackiq 5y ago

very easy to use!

jonathanberger 5y ago
Thank you.

pkdpic 5y ago

Just wanted to say this was super inspiring, practical, unpretentious and to the point. My favorite HN read in a long time.

jonathanberger 5y ago
Thanks so much.

pipeline_peak 5y ago

> Besides, that’s what your day job is for. Someone had to say it.

johnx123-up 5y ago

The site now has more than a million visitors a month and earns a nice side income from a small ad. SCR, interested in the actual number if possible