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Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2022 – Show and tell

• consultantrhys 5y ago
  I run getrhys.com I productized myself and made myself on-demand (easily available) to struggling SaaS businesses. Currently doing $5K+ per month for working one day a week doing short 30 min calls with clients.
• jbirer 5y ago
  I am working on a multiplayer adult metaverse game that's running on two blockchains, and so far it has earned me over 1000$. https://coomiverse.xyz https://coomiverse.xyz I guess it will leave the side project status once it gains even more traction but for now I consider it a side job.
• caviv 5y ago
  I have been running a Gematria website in Hebrew called https://gimatria.co.il https://gimatria.co.il - reaching just a bit more that $500 USD per month from Google Ads.
• zoltron3000 5y ago
  Getting close with https://www.onward.ly/ https://www.onward.ly/. A course + journal for getting clearer on yourself. Helps form mental models and habits around being present, leaning into what you want, and saying no to the rest. Basically show up as yourself not what other people expect you to be.
• dizzydiz 5y ago
  Made this Amazon product ideas search engine: https://amalytics.com https://amalytics.com Not sure where to take it next as there’s well funded competition and conversions/revenue have plateaued…
• wazels 5y ago
  I sell random generators for Dungeons & Dragons games. https://www.herebetaverns.com https://www.herebetaverns.com To be fair - I did spend full time on this when it launched but it’s been a side project for the last 6 months. The sales fluctuate a ton but usually above $500 a month, almost pure profit and almost 0 hours work. I have a plan to increase revenue this year by going all in on SEO
• etattva 5y ago
  Helps students find the best-fit Graduate programs. Guaranteed to find the right college, else money back. Net revenue around $400 a month https://www.collegehippo.com/ https://www.collegehippo.com/
• throwaway74657 5y ago
• motyar 5y ago
  https://bruzu.com https://bruzu.com API to generate images on the fly. Sample https://img.bruzu.com/?a.text=HN3 https://img.bruzu.com/?a.text=HN3
  • techsin101 5y ago
    did you built the editor, it must have taken 2 months at least
    • motyar 5y ago
      Yes, using fabricjs for that, we are improving it everyday but yes, it took few days to make the MVP of the editor.
      • techsin101 5y ago
        thanks didn't know about fabricjs
  • Lord_Zero 5y ago
    I have done this before, a bare bones example can be done easily in Lambda with GraphicsMagick and ImageMagick for node https://www.npmjs.com/package/gm https://www.npmjs.com/package/gm see "annotate an image" example. I understand your service does more that this. I map the POST JSON to GM params to allow the caller to do nearly anything GM CLI can do.
    • motyar 5y ago
      Yes its very easy to build.
  • cinntaile 5y ago
    > I am a developer, Do I need this API? No, if you can build your own rendering system with all these features and able to make it run this fast. You don't need this API. Your FAQ is great hahaha!
• dutchbrit 5y ago
  Correction, previously asked 26 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29667095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29667095 Obviously still nice to see what people have built who missed the last post!
• msadowski 5y ago
  I run a robotics newsletter: https://weeklyrobotics.com/ https://weeklyrobotics.com/
  • blutack 5y ago
    Which is a good read if anyone is interested in robotics/ros/drone stuff
    • msadowski 5y ago
      It depends what you are interested in. My latest find from this week is the Introduction to Autonomous Robots open source book: https://github.com/Introduction-to-Autonomous-Robots/Introduction-to-Autonomous-Robots https://github.com/Introduction-to-Autonomous-Robots/Introdu.... If you were looking for news then sUASnews is great for some catching up on drones. For robotics I often find articles on IEEE Spectrum and The Robot Report interesting.
      • blutack 5y ago
        Sorry I meant I'm a subscriber and it's a great newsletter!
  • lormayna 5y ago
    How do you promote a newsletter to become profitable? I have a newsletter, but it's not getting traction.
    • msadowski 5y ago
      I’ve been rubbing it for over 3 years now and I’m approaching 3k e-mail subscribers. I feature it quite a lot on LinkedIn and Twitter and sometimes I would share some issues on /r/robotics or HN. So far the best way I’ve found for growing subscribers is trading shoutouts with other newsletters but I didn’t experiment much with paid ads.
• eximius 5y ago
  https://hoppy.network https://hoppy.network Hosted WireGuard as a Service with static IP assignment.
  • asaddhamani 5y ago
    What’s your server location?
    • eximius 5y ago
      Only Chicago right now. We'd like to expand when the economics makes sense (there is a bit of a chicken/egg problem there where we definitely lose some potential sales by not providing the region folks want - but we need sufficient saturation to pay for the new deployment). My advice if you want to use our service but in a region besides Chicago: use our service and email us the region you'd prefer. In the mean time, the extra 20ms round trip latency probably won't bother you and we'll let you know when we expand in the future (and your voice will help decide where!).
  • pyuser583 5y ago
    Is this a VPN? How does it compare to, say, NordVPN?
    • eximius 5y ago
      Yes and no. It is more like we provide you a network interface that, instead of being plugged into your modem for Comcast/AT&T/etc, it's plugged into a datacenter. You get a public static IPv4/IPv6 connection with Reverse DNS - just located somewhere else. Making your machine publicly routable is the primary use case (e.g., for email, web, whatever you want if you have trouble with NAT/CGNAT or simply don't want your home IP associated with the service), but it also encrypts your traffic between your PC and our datacenter such that your ISP can't snoop - which is not to say we're a good privacy solution - that is not what our product is designed to do.
      • pyuser583 5y ago
• konschubert 5y ago
  I make this e-paper calendar: https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-calendar https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale... It syncs with Google Calendar. To be fair, I currently does > 500$/month in revenue not earnings. If it doesn't count let me know and I will delete my comment. EDIT: I am currently out of stock sadly. If you want to be notified when I am back in stock, you can leave your email here: https://forms.gle/tNcCcYrNBu5nWKgJ9 https://forms.gle/tNcCcYrNBu5nWKgJ9
  • dom96 5y ago
    Really awesome. I’m working on a hardware project myself, nice to see a success story. I’m curious about the enclosure, do you cut it out of wood yourself or are you using a supplier for it that cuts it/glues it for you?
  • jacobmarble 5y ago
    Very cool product!
  • financetechbro 5y ago
    Looks like your form is restricted to org members only
    • konschubert 5y ago
      Whoops, is it fixed now?
      • judge2020 5y ago
        Yes.
  • tych0 5y ago
    This is pretty cool, though it would be nice if it worked with caldav instead of just google calendar :)
    • 5y ago
• codegeek 5y ago
  https://cronhub.io https://cronhub.io (a project I just took over). Makes about 1k/month for now.
  • josephd79 5y ago
    I use to follow the original creator of this app. Nice to see its still around.
  • andreygrehov 5y ago
    This is cool. What's the story behind taking the project over?
    • codegeek 5y ago
      Not much. Original creator just wanted more help on growing it and is busy with a full time job. I on the other hand love the idea of buying SAAS businesses. This is my 2nd one. 1st one I bought has grown to low 7 figures in revenue. Not sure if I can replicate the same success but hopefully that's the idea.
  • jventura 5y ago
    I had a similar idea 2 years ago [1] but haven't been pushing it forward because I thought nobody would need something like this, since it's easy to implement a cronjob in a backend server. Maybe I should revisit this! :) [1] https://cronbeats.com/ https://cronbeats.com/
    • codegeek 5y ago
      sure go for it :).
    • cuu508 5y ago
      Hi @jventura, I tried to sign up on cronbeats.com but the verification email did not arrive – are your emails working? About the logo – I'll take it as "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" ;-)
• timmaah 5y ago
  Previously from 26 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29667095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29667095 That said, this seems to be the extent of my marketing desire. I screen scrape campground registration websites and alert you when someone cancels on a date you want to go camping. Fabulously successful. Now back to my day-job. https://wanderinglabs.com https://wanderinglabs.com
  • techsin101 5y ago
    the UI is just so nice, it's functional and simple. it's not trying win design awards to point of bein completely insufferable like some sites i see today.
  • Arubis 5y ago
    This feels like a good balance to me--you're giving people a heads-up that there's an open block that they can book, without doing the "value add" of blocking it off and then scalping the slot. More power to you.
  • bfoks 5y ago
    How much do you earn?
• thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
  I made a background noise website and app https://asoftmurmur.com https://asoftmurmur.com There are a lot of improvements I want to make, but due to life commitments it has been stuck in maintenance mode for far longer than I'm comfortable with
  • michaelbuckbee 5y ago
    Just wanted to say how much I enjoy the site.
  • 2pir 5y ago
    I use this all the time, and I tell everyone else to as well.
  • shepherdjerred 5y ago
    I used your app constantly before I picked up Sonos speakers and had to restort to Spotify playlists!
  • abetusk 5y ago
    Do you mind going into where your main revenue stream comes from and how it breaks down? Is it mostly apple users? Google play? Do you get any revenue from the website itself?
    • thrwy_ywrht 5y ago
      The basic model is people pay for access to more sounds. For the last few years this bas been separate transactions on the ios app, android app and for the web version. Ideally I'd move to a single subscription-based account that worked across all devices for extra sounds. Revenue breakdown is roughly equal between android, ios and web, somewhat surprisingly. Android converts worse but has higher user numbers. Web converts much worse, but converts at a higher price (justified by the fact that hosting/maintaining the web stuff take a lot more time and money)
      • abetusk 5y ago
• udfalkso 5y ago
  My brother started Podcast Notes in 2015. I help out on the tech side. We now have a growing community of Premium Members, 35k Twitter Followers, 25k email subscribers. https://podcastnotes.org https://podcastnotes.org
  • akudha 5y ago
    There is a typo in the URL :)
    • udfalkso 5y ago
      Thx, fixed!
  • budadre75 5y ago
    I've been writing my own notes for various things including some podcasts. I'm curious who are the writers or note-takers for your website?
• scarecrowbob 5y ago
  I play music in bars. Or busk an accordion. Fun times. Definitely not passive income, but it's work I like.
  • midiguy 5y ago
    Hey fellow accordion busker! I find my busking income has diminished vastly with age, despite my skill rising. Everyone wants to toss a coin at the 10 year old playing decent accordion. Not so much the 30 year old playing good accordion.
    • vorpalhex 5y ago
      I realize you can't exactly do exit interviews but have you tried talking to "users"?
    • scarecrowbob 5y ago
      Well, I'm 43.... Not to say that this is your issue, but I find it helps if I dress up a lot. I have nice, embroidered pearl snaps, custom cowboy boots, fancy hats, and a couple nice vests. That is to say, it's pretty easy for folks to confuse me with panhandlers. I have no problem with folks panhandling, but my tips are way better if I look like a performer.
  • anonymouse008 5y ago
    Are you using Venmo for tips? I used to have an itch for digital tip jars, but never figured out the right set of features to really drive adoption... This was well before Patreon, and PayPal was pretty much the only API game in town. Since then, I've felt like Venmo handles 9/10ths of the live performance problem (unleash the appreciation (money) locked in digital form).
    • 650REDHAIR 5y ago
      I never have cash on me and when I see a QR code I usually give 2-5x more than I would if I was carrying cash on me because it feels weird to "drop in" $1-4 on Venmo and I guilt myself into more. Anyway, accordion OP you should get a QR code for tips :)
• bojanvidanovic 5y ago
  I run a nerdy product discovery website: https://devandgear.com https://devandgear.com
• buttscicles 5y ago
  We're making about $600/mo right now working on Oku, which we're building as a social book tracker (and more) and hoping to replace Goodreads with. https://oku.club https://oku.club Here's my profile for example: https://oku.club/user/joe https://oku.club/user/joe
  • shepherdjerred 5y ago
    Do you provide a way to export data in case the site closes down? I don't use any app/site to track what books I read, but I see that it could be interesting.
    • buttscicles 5y ago
      We do but it's not fully automated just yet, it'd involve sending us an email. Similar story with csv imports, it's half supported but not in the UI yet.
  • agacera 5y ago
    That is pretty landing page! Just read that the meaning of oku [1] is 1) private, intimate, and deep; 2) exalted and sacred; and, 3) profound and recondite anyway, your brazilian users will find this funny since oku has the same sound of "o cu" that literally means "the butt hole". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oku_(theory)#:~:text=3%20Boundaries-,Origin,often%20used%20in%20adjective%20form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oku_(theory)#:~:text=3%20Bound....
    • pedrogpimenta 5y ago
      Not really, because the O is only open when alone, or a longer word. This reads Óku, not Uku. At least that's how I read it being Portuguese. The defunct social network Orkut is a good example of this. It's Órkut, not Urkut. Of course, none of this matters :)
  • snarkypixel 5y ago
    Looks neat. Why do you think oku will replace goodreads?
• pbnjay 5y ago
  Things have tapered off quite a bit since 2021, but it's still over the threshold: https://virtualpostersession.org https://virtualpostersession.org It's a platform for virtual scientific and research-oriented poster session hosting. Pretty simple but desperately needed when all the conferences were cancelled!
• ronyfadel 5y ago
  I’m making ~$4k a month, from a small macOS and iOS app portfolio: - macOS apps: https://fadel.io/ https://fadel.io/ - iOS apps: https://apple.co/3fqcWfO https://apple.co/3fqcWfO
  • TrueGeek 5y ago
    I bought Batteries For Mac when my mouse died without warning. It's funny how much a simple little widget actually helps out.
    • ronyfadel 5y ago
      Thank you for being a fan of Batteries! :)
  • anyfactor 5y ago
    This is what I aspire to do. Building small apps that is super specific to solving a problem.
• MailNerd 5y ago
  I built an email forwarding service - not for your own domains, a lot of those exist already - instead you can choose an email at any of our 150+ domains and we forward it to your existing account, no migration required. You can even send from this address with many providers. https://www.mailbox.my https://www.mailbox.my
  • techsin101 5y ago
    what do you need to learn to run your email servers, im assuming you run your email servers?
    • MailNerd 5y ago
      Yes I'm running my own servers. You should know your way around Linux (if you already know Ubuntu, you can use it on the server as well). You need some software: - For receiving and routing mails: I use postfix - For authenticating: Dovecot - For serving mails via IMAP: Dovecot is a popular choice There are some good guides on the net how to set up these on Ubuntu or Debian (which is pretty similar), just google for e.g. "postfix ubuntu". It's critical that the mail you route arrives at the other end, so you must prevent spammers from abusing your systems. Otherwise you get blacklisted. As a start you need to implement state-of-the-art things like: SPF, DKIM, DMARC. MTA-STS, TLS-RPT are also useful. None of these are hard and there are also good tutorials out there, it's just a bit of work.
      • techsin101 5y ago
        Is there a site like MDN for these things? how did you learn this?
• yboris 5y ago
  I created Video Hub App - browse, search, and organize your videos - "like YouTube for videos on your computer". It's a commercial project / charityware that is turning 4 years old next month. I sell it for $5 per copy and give $3.50 to a cost-effective charity. If you go to the blog you'll see the history of sales. As of now I donated almost $13,000 to charity thanks to this project. It's averaging around 100 sales per month for over a year now. https://videohubapp.com/en/ https://videohubapp.com/en/ Also open source MIT: https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App
  • techsin101 5y ago
    one customer segment that can reaaaally benefit from this is people who edit videos, they need to have repository of 1000s of sound effects, memes, and clips from general media. There really needs to be a tool to find gifs, images, videos and audios by typing general word and it even should match synonym tags.
  • charles_f 5y ago
    Selling perpetual licenses for software that runs on your machine?! How quaint!
  • Ruthalas 5y ago
    Offering perpetual licenses is a huge plus in my book, and often drives my purchasing decision. Thank you.
  • disqard 5y ago
    I recently purchased VHA -- thank you so much for making this!
• daneeveritt 5y ago
  I've been making a pretty consistent amount off my open-source side-project Pterodactyl through company sponsorships. https://pterodactyl.io https://pterodactyl.io
  • rooster212 5y ago
    I recently got Pterodactyl setup on my home server and I just wanted to say that it's an incredible project and it works great. I run various game servers on a whim and it's been easy to spin them up. Many thanks for your hard work.
• kareemm 5y ago
  I make https://www.savio.io https://www.savio.io. We help SaaS CS and Product teams use product feedback from Intercom, Zendesk, Hubspot, Help Scout, etc to understand and build what customers are asking for.
• kouteiheika 5y ago
  I'm running a website for people learning Japanese and currently making ~$590/month from Patreon donations: https://jpdb.io/ https://jpdb.io/ This is an entirely spare-time project on which I've been working publicly for the past year. Here's some info about the tech stack I'm using: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26693959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26693959
  • NTARelix 5y ago
    Upon initial login I'm definitely impressed by the interface, the existing content, and the potential to finally brush up on my Japanese. I ended up linking to my Google account, but I spent a long while trying to "sign up" with my email only to be given an message about failing to meet the password requirements (no mention of character limit and no special characters allowed). At first I thought I just needed to adjust my password generator to get a valid password (usually 64 chars with alpha-numerics and special characters), but even the simplest passwords failed with the same error message.
    • kouteiheika 5y ago
      > I ended up linking to my Google account, but I spent a long while trying to "sign up" with my email only to be given an message about failing to meet the password requirements (no mention of character limit and no special characters allowed). This is strange; I don't really have any special password requirements. What's the exact error message you were getting? The only requirements are that it's at least 6 characters long and different than your username, and in each case it should tell you exactly what's wrong.
  • jjice 5y ago
    Looks fantastic, and I especially love the simple tech stack. How do you handle updates out of curiosity? scp and rerun?
    • kouteiheika 5y ago
      Yep. Copy the executable (plus another file which is a big blob containing the dictionary, examples, etc.), and then just do `systemctl restart`. There's nothing extra running on the server; no reverse proxy (the app itself automatically fetches/renews the HTTPS cert), no database, nothing. Just the app, the SSH server and the default system services.
• niftylettuce 5y ago
  Forward Email - Email Forwarding Service We're the only service that respects your privacy and never stores your emails. https://forwardemail.net https://forwardemail.net
  • kerryritter 5y ago
    i <3 forwardemail. thank you for building this!
• Jack5500 5y ago
  [snip]
  • 2pir 5y ago
    Be honest, were you inspired by Drawful?
• careersaas 5y ago
  We have built a remote job search https://app.careersaas.com/portal https://app.careersaas.com/portal that scrapes and indexes more than 2 million jobs. Currently offering sponsored listings - lets a user define a location for their job and whomever is searching near that geocode will see the result, according to their job experience, etc.
• data4lyfe 5y ago
  Originally a side project two years ago, now I'm full time on it: https://www.interviewquery.com/ https://www.interviewquery.com/ We help data scientists land jobs by being the Leetcode for data science.
• dana_janssen 5y ago
  We built https://tadum.app https://tadum.app, an online meeting agenda that rolls forward incomplete agenda items to the next agenda. This ends up creating a low effort paper trail, saves on meeting prep time, and keeps agendas consistently formatted/organized. It's intended for recurring weekly/monthly/quarterly meetings--we built it based on how we run meetings with our clients and are happy to see other teams jump in and have success with it.
• StayTrue 5y ago
  I make visualization tools for bicycle wheelbuilding and I'm making >$500 profit but not enough to live on. My site is https://www.islandix.com https://www.islandix.com
• davidkuennen 5y ago
  I'm working on an event based stock portfolio/investment tracker. Currently at 10k MRR. https://stockevents.app https://stockevents.app Edit: Just noticed this thread was merged/resubmerged? Now I have a duplicate answer here. :-/
  • throwawayffffas 5y ago
    How do you monetize? Ads? Subscriptions?
    • klohto 5y ago
      IAP
    • davidkuennen 5y ago
      Yearly subscription. Some users asked me to make it free and serve ads, but I refused. I wanted to make it ad free with regards to privacy.
  • superphil0 5y ago
    How do you get the data?
• cushychicken 5y ago
  I launched www.rtljobs.com in October and had my first month of $500 in revenue in December. It's a job board that caters to a very specific subset of electrical engineers - specifically, ones that work with FPGAs and logic design for chips. Need help hiring FPGA or RTL engineers? Let's talk. fpga.rtl.jobs@gmail.com
  • 1thrasher 5y ago
    How do you generate revenue if you only aggregate jobs or post them for free?
    • cushychicken 5y ago
      By selling Featured Posts, which get prime real estate on the site for 30 days, and a blast out to our mailing list.
  • kmetan 5y ago
    Thanks for sharing this... How did your paying customers became aware of you?
    • cushychicken 5y ago
      Almost entirely thru word of mouth from an engineer at their company, or thru posting on Reddit.
  • Lord_Zero 5y ago
    Whats an RTL job?
    • cushychicken 5y ago
      RTL is shorthand for "register transfer logic". It's a term of art for "digital design at the gate level".
  • specialist 5y ago
    Cool. I predict (hope) specialized jobs boards will become more the norm.
• hansy 5y ago
  Web comic newsletter: https://funnies.page https://funnies.page Full disclosure - $500+/month in revenue, but not profit. The majority (95%) goes to the creators I work with.
  • agentdrtran 5y ago
    Wow, you only take about 2%? (assuming 3% for processing?)
    • hansy 5y ago
      Yup that's about right. I don't mind though; I view this project as a labor of love.
  • andkon 5y ago
    Oh man, you gotta charge more! This is insanely cheap. The average substack charges $5 a month, and you usually get an email a week at best.
    • hansy 5y ago
      Ha I appreciate the thought, but it's hard to compare novel writing from thought leaders to funny images. I wish I could charge more, but I don't think the value is quite there yet. Maybe if I was strict about exclusive content (which I don't want to be; I like giving artists flexibility on where/how they distribute their work), I could get away with charging higher as well.
• tr3ntg 5y ago
  I'm building a journaling app for couples (iOS): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/twig-journal-for-couples/id1453545808 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/twig-journal-for-couples/id145... I originally made it for my long distance girlfriend (now wife) and myself. It averages $450 - $550 monthly.
  • hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
    Very nice, I think there is a great future betweeen social and private.
• mjaques 5y ago
  A friend and I made a repository for high-quality, affordable language learning flashcards around a year ago. https://deckmill.com https://deckmill.com Made using a mix of ML (translation and TTS) and human translators.
  • hobo_mark 5y ago
    Cool, but I can't seem to find the pricing anywhere? Edit: there it is, I must have gone blind.
    • Ostrogodsky 5y ago
      Get access to all our decks for just €14.99. All our content for one low price - buy it and it's yours forever. Forget trivial badges, locked levels and guilt-tripping owls, and say hello to actual language skills.
    • undefined_user6 5y ago
      FWIW, I also couldn't find it at first. Took me like a minute to find it.
• dirtyhand 5y ago
  Stock market and crypto currency bot for Slack and Discord https://beeper.fyi/ https://beeper.fyi/
  • davidsawyer 5y ago
    How does this make money? I don't see any pricing info on the site.
  • elliottcarlson 5y ago
    How are you earning revenue on this? Don't see any pricing or signup requirements
• par 5y ago
  I built Meta Meme, an iPhone meme making app. It nets approx $3-5k monthly. https://metameme.app/ https://metameme.app/
  • typon 5y ago
    A really good app and generally adding positivity to the world :)
    • par 5y ago
      wow thank you so much :)
• ryanyl 5y ago
  Working on a few projects, but the ones that actually took off and make money are: Commotion (https://commotion.page https://commotion.page), Forms + Mail Merge for Notion Reslant (https://reslant.com https://reslant.com), Discussion Boards for Customer Feedback
• camgas 5y ago
  I retrofit old phone-based intercoms with software-only solution: https://www.DropBy.io https://www.DropBy.io a bit above $500/month ARR, stable and sticky. Started a few years ago, now have 2 other partners.
  • FlyingAvatar 5y ago
    Your pricing page seems to have no prices on it and your sign up page doesn't load for me.
    • camgas 5y ago
      We removed pricing, one reseller wanted that out. But good point, I think we should add it again and be transparent since his business is good but not good enough to do so. What happened when you git Sign up? Thanks a bunch for the feedback!
      • FlyingAvatar 5y ago
        Your signup page still loads to a blank gray page for me in Chrome and Firefox. uBlock Origin, which is installed by my IT department, seems to be blocking the load of a JavaScript file from fast.appcues.com, not sure if that's the cause or not.
      • camgas 5y ago
        Added pricing back, thanks again for the feedback!
  • sambroner 5y ago
    Wow... this is so validating. I worked on a project I called "Buzz Me Up Scotty" (Or something like that) to do a very similar thing. Just glad someone proved the vision.
• Melatonic 5y ago
  I used to have a decent side hustle making this much money but the tax changes this year have de-incentivized my work ethic
  • UncleOxidant 5y ago
    What tax changes?
    • Melatonic 5y ago
      Previously companies like eBay, Venmo, Paypal, etc were not required to officially report transfers to the IRS. A few years ago they changed that rule where if you appear to be making more than $20,000 dollars in a year period then they send forms to the IRS directly. If it is only for personal use (like say you are sending money via Venmo to a roomate) there is no tax to pay. But for actual sales you would be. This year they lowered that $20,000 to $600. So anyone who receives more than $600 in one calendar year will trigger Venmo/Paypal or whoever to send the IRS the proper tax forms. If it is for personal use of course you are still not required to pay any tax. As far as I know none of the loopholes for taxing the uber rich have been changed so this is really just going along with the IRS' current policy of increasing revenue from small time outfits vs going after the bigger fish (who can often afford to hire expensive accountants and lawyers to fight the IRS) I am not against paying taxes but having to wrangle the info from a bunch of different sources and then also deal with manually adjusting for other factors just makes this whole thing a huge pain.
      • MisterSandman 5y ago
        I agree with your point of it being a hassle, but I never understood the huge outcry about this. If I work part-time at Burger King and make $10,000/year, I would pay taxes on that. Why should the IRS not be taxing side-hustles that make 10k/year? The argument of them not taxing the rich is sad, but also irrelevant; they didn't add a new tax on side-hustles, just re-inforced an existing one. You technically should've been paying this anyway.
• x13pixels 5y ago
  RemedyBG, a from-scratch Windows debugger. https://remedybg.itch.io/remedybg https://remedybg.itch.io/remedybg
• dheera 5y ago
  I do a lot of landscape astrophotography which involves a TON of signal processing to get rid of various sources of noise. https://instagram.com/dheeranet https://instagram.com/dheeranet People ask to buy prints from time to time. Not quite $500/month just yet but getting there. Then there's this web-based function plotter I made in 2007: http://fooplot.com/ http://fooplot.com/ It once made upto $900/month but since then, mobile apps have gotten better, and today it makes about $100-150/month in ad revenue.
  • Melatonic 5y ago
    I have seen your astro work for awhile now and it is awesome - had no idea you could reliably make anything close to that money wise. Sounds like I need to actually take my processing a bit more seriously and actually create the new site I have been meaning to work on. Personally I am going to probably focus less on getting the perfect processing (generally I just do a few stacks for noise and sometimes combine with a star tracker) and more on getting to unique locations most people do not have the skills to get to. That is more my personal preference though given I really enjoy backpacking and mountaineering already. Have you ever messed around with the automated pano heads? I was recently looking at buying a used gigapan (one of the smallest ones) given that mirrorless cameras are so much lighter now. Shooting stacks + a manual pano head can get a bit tedious when you are already far out into the backcountry and tired and just want to relax. I believe Daniel Stein uses them and his work is pretty spectacular! What I really want though is something that is both a star tracker AND can automate the panos themselves. As far as I know that does not exist and one basically has to put something like a gigapan on top of a star tracker and of course make sure that its all capable of controlling the camera itself. edit: Now that I think about it you might even be able to make a decent side hustle providing a "processing as a service" type thing to other astrophotographers
    • dheera 5y ago
      I haven't played with automated pano heads, but I made a DIY scanning digital back for a 4x5: https://dheera.net/projects/4x5/ https://dheera.net/projects/4x5/ My original intention for this is gigapixel images, but I ran into some issues cancelling the CRA correction that the Pi HQ cam does, and also, my newly bought Sony A7R4 can shoot 240 MP shots with pixel shift so it's suddenly less interesting again since it's already within an order of magnitude of a gigapixel, and if I got a shift adapter mount and shot with a medium format lens I could probably easily exceed a gigapixel with the A7R4. I might try to shoot 4x5 film some time though.
• matthall28 5y ago
  A tiny API for embedding weather forecasts as an image: https://weatherembed.com/ https://weatherembed.com/ Makes around $500/month from various subscriptions through RapidAPI. Built on a whim during the pandemic. Uses Google Cloud Run + NodeJS.
  • kevingrahl 5y ago
    FYI; The example image currently only shows its alt text.
  • xd1936 5y ago
    Excellent idea!
  • ajitgoel 5y ago
    subscribed to the (free) service through RapidAPI and tried testing it, getting { "message":"This endpoint is disabled for your subscription" } for all the three endpoints.
• yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
  I run a B2B lead generation SaaS for the UK market. It provides up-to-date data from Companies House, but also allows you to sort and filter businesses by: - where they are located - when they registered - what SIC (standard industrial classification) code they use - their operational status - their accounts category Businesses typically use this to find new businesses to try and market/sell their services to. It’s written in Haskell and Elm, and it’s been running for about five years now. Several businesses have been happily paying to use the service every month. https://newbusinessmonitor.co.uk/ https://newbusinessmonitor.co.uk/ If you’d like to sell your services to UK businesses then do write to me; I’d love to hear from you :)
  • usgroup 5y ago
    You know it’s illegal to use CH data for direct marketing right?
    • yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
      To the best of my understanding, that is not true. It is illegal to directly market to consumers without their prior consent. It is not illegal to market to businesses, though it is illegal to send marketing communication that is misleading, and it is not permitted to send direct mail to businesses who have indicated they wish to not receive marketing communication through the Mail Preference Service. Do you have a source to support your perspective?
  • akudha 5y ago
    I wonder if it is possible to do this in other countries? I am not aware of any API or data downloads for the U.S that is available on a daily basis.
  • Nilef 5y ago
    That's really interesting - Do you do all the letter-sending yourself or outsource that?
    • yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
• montenegrohugo 5y ago
  I start tons of projects, and it's always a bother naming them. I didn't find existing domain generators at all useful, and since my background is in AI, I made my own. → https://www.namy.ai https://www.namy.ai It currently has a modest but pretty consistent 200-300 users daily, almost all of it direct traffic (my SEO skills are very lacking). I'm assuming people recommend it to their friends, and that's where the traffic is coming from. It's not yet at $500/mo, but it's getting close. Server costs are significant though, since running an AI model is a bit expensive. Ideas and feedback are welcome.
  • RobKohr 5y ago
    Cool, I made one called https://mixmatchdomains.com https://mixmatchdomains.com but it never really got much traffic (single digits per day). Maybe the AI thing makes it more marketable, or just being able to type in an open textbox for pure simplicity.
  • ramoz 5y ago
    Love it. Explainability would be a nice feature. I.e word definitions, origins, etc.
  • adamddev1 5y ago
    That is fantastic, I wish I knew about it earlier. I used another popular name-finding site (can't remember what it was) but it wasn't nearly as intelligent and the results were not that good. It also would be great to check for the availability of the name in Twitter/YouTube/etc.
  • hooande 5y ago
    great site, well made. congrats
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • coder543 5y ago
    "Only show available" doesn't seem to work except on the homepage... but I think it's because the homepage is the only place where any domains are actually marked as already being registered. (when most of the suggested domains on search results seem to be registered already, based on a quick sampling.) On the same line of thought, it would be awesome (but probably difficult/expensive) if you could show the price of each domain directly in the results. Otherwise, it seems like a neat tool!
• sippndipp 5y ago
  We're doing an newsletter dedicated for Android developers: https://androidweekly.net/ https://androidweekly.net/ - it was four years without making any money - with ~100k subs it's generating money - everything grew organically
  • catonmylap 5y ago
    How much is the revenue with 100k subs?
• waterside81 5y ago
  Personalized kid's e-books http://www.littleheroes.com http://www.littleheroes.com Web + app store purchases Up for sale if anyone's interested
• henning 5y ago
  I sell covered calls on Robinhood.
  • chillel 5y ago
    how much does that make you?
    • bradwood 5y ago
      Getting rekt mostly?
      • henning 5y ago
        I have unrealized losses on the collateral shares in the current market correction, but that makes my call options tank like rocks and helps me get them to a satisfactory level for buying to close much faster.
  • showbufire 5y ago
    one of us :)
    • henning 5y ago
      #thetagang
  • mailjenil 5y ago
    I do Put Credit Spreads. More riskier but rewarding
• AwkwardPanda 5y ago
  Built Shopping Saga: Real-time Online Shopping Deals by Product Category | Thoughtful Gifts for Every Occasion, Recipient, Category Gifts: 1. Daily-updated gift products catalog 2. Direct Amazon and Etsy product links for gifts and deals 3. Browse and filter by price, category, recipient, occasion, popularity Shopping Deals: 1. Grab online shopping deals as soon as they are available 2. Category-wise segregation of deals 3. Deals updated half-hourly Initially, it was only web and android, but now I have released iOS app as well. Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mysticpeaks.shoppingsaga https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mysticpeak... iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1604578567#?platform=iphone https://apps.apple.com/app/id1604578567#?platform=iphone The web version was pretty basic, so I've taken it down currently. Learning Vue JS to enhance the frontend/UI. The apps have pretty clean UI.
• ChrisArchitect 5y ago
  800+ comments recently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29667095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29667095
• nonrecursive 5y ago
  https://jobs.braveclojure.com/ https://jobs.braveclojure.com/ - a Clojure job board! Usually #1 search result for "clojure jobs"
• jason_zig 5y ago
  I build products to help improve my main e-commerce businesses so I think this counts as a side-hustle. The latest (earliest stage one is): https://www.zigpoll.com https://www.zigpoll.com "Bite sized" polling software as a service that I use for post purchase surveys, contact us forms, and email campaigns when I want feedback on what to do next. Most customers are currently through our Shopify App but have a few SaaS businesses that integrated it independently.
• nakodari 5y ago
  https://jumpshare.com https://jumpshare.com Visual communication tool with screen recording, screenshots and GIFs for macOS and Windows. Fully native apps without using Electron. I started Jumpshare as a side project many years ago and turned it into a full-time job.
• brandnamehq 5y ago
• thedangler 5y ago
  I have a side business that does payment processing. I clear an extra $2k-$3k a month. Currently looking for outside sales reps while I develop open source payment options that aren't available yet. If you are a developer, good at sales, or want to try it, let me know.
  • gisho 5y ago
    link please
  • techsin101 5y ago
    Isn't payment processing highly complex?
  • jasondigitized 5y ago
    Do you have a link?
• qnk 5y ago
  I've been working on Newsletterss, a newsletter reader for web, iOS and Android. I'm making about $2k/m with about 30% of that going to ads and infrastructure costs. You can check it out at https://newsletterss.com https://newsletterss.com
  • lucasfdacunha 5y ago
    Is there a way to submit my newsletter to your database of newsletters? I run a curated gaming content newsletter(https://www.thegamingpub.com/ https://www.thegamingpub.com/) and being part of those databases it's what help people find my newsletter. Let me know if that's possible, thanks!
• buf 5y ago
  I make about $50k/mo on https://www.closingcredits.com https://www.closingcredits.com I found that most teaching platforms for voice actors out there are run by a bunch of celebrities who are pushing edutainment, not education. So I wanted to make something specific for voice actors. I will try to branch it out to other creators later.
  • moneywoes 5y ago
    How did you land your first 5 customers and validate your idea?
  • lifeplusplus 5y ago
    As an ESL person I wanted to sign up for this to improve enunciation but price was bit too much
  • jckahn 5y ago
    Wow, congrats on the success! Is this a solo project for you, or are you working with a team?
    • buf 5y ago
      Just me, but I do revshare with the instructors and I have a support staff on contract to handle tickets.
  • nati0n 5y ago
    Dug a little into your background, read some of your posts. Appreciate the different perspective with "Choose Money First." I think a piece of that will stick with me forever now, just because it hit a little different. So I guess just.. thanks for the thoughts.
    • buf 5y ago
      Thank you! In person I'm a bag of laughs, but on text I really come off as aloof, so it feels good to read that someone was impacted by something I wrote. I've got so much more that I'm afraid to publish. Might have to reconsider.
• daibo 5y ago
  Not really a side project, but I haven't quit my job for it so.. I'm building a Search as a Service like Algolia. Currently earning $700 a month from an early customer. Anvere.net
  • elikoga 5y ago
    CORS apparently breaks the site for me
• shtack 5y ago
  I've run http://olodolo.com http://olodolo.com (it mostly runs itself) since 2018, which lets people buy things on AliExpress using crypto. I often describe it as the only non-scam crypto website :) It's badly in need of fixes and updates, but I still do about $1500-2000 in sales and $300-400 in profit monthly.
  • ctrlaltdylan 5y ago
    What's the biggest cost? The disparity between the rev and net are pretty big
    • chossenger 5y ago
      That sales number would likely be the value of goods bought through the platform, not total revenue
  • no_time 5y ago
    Back in the day(2014-2015) I regularly used a service that does the same thing but for steam games. I try not to think about the exchange rate difference compared to now :^)
• mgz 5y ago
  I built an app to control what my kids watch on Youtube: https://kidstv.family https://kidstv.family Makes $1500/month
  • ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
    How long did it take you to build this? Do you do any advertising?
    • mgz 5y ago
      It is a hobby project for 3 or 4 years. No advertising except for $20/month for Apple Search Ads… I guess I should advertise more.
  • vbcr 5y ago
    Interesting product. Do you play the videos from YouTube, if yes how do you embed them in your app. If no, do you host these videos on your end and how are they licensed from those content creators.
  • leros 5y ago
    Fyi - The image under your Aaron Francis quote is broken.
• qrohlf 5y ago
  I run a design asset generator based on my open source library, Trianglify: https://trianglify.io/ https://trianglify.io/ It currently does about $500/mo from a combination of asset purchases and ethical (Carbon Ads) non-tracking advertising.
• TheJoeMan 5y ago
  I went super niche with an iOS vehicle counting board for civil engineers to conduct intersection studies, https://apps.apple.com/us/app/traffic-count-tmc/id1553635289 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/traffic-count-tmc/id1553635289 I never did any advertising and it was gaining traction, but lately plateaued at a handful of downloads / day. Not sure where would be a good place to spread the word haha.
• strzibny 5y ago
  I wrote an ebook on web application deployment. It does over $1000/month, but obviously it's not recurring revenue. https://deploymentfromscratch.com/ https://deploymentfromscratch.com/ I did a SHOW HN awhile ago which sold 100+ copies in a single day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29540808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29540808
• porsager 5y ago
  I created an enhanced multilingual T9 keyboard[1][2] for iOS in 2014 to play around with Swift. It's been doing 600$ on average since then, still going strong. Still use it everyday myself and can't live without it [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/typenine-ultimate-t9-style-keyboard/id926008509?ls=1&mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/typenine-ultimate-t9-style-k... [2] https://medium.com/porsager/a-better-iphone-typing-experience-77c6da52131 https://medium.com/porsager/a-better-iphone-typing-experienc...
• adamcao 5y ago
  I started making Power-Ups (add-ons/plugins) for Trello in July last year: https://www.tinypowerups.com https://www.tinypowerups.com It just hit $500/month on Monday and it seems to be increasing by $100 in MRR per week. I'm only charging $1 per user per month for unlimited access to all of my Power-Ups. I'm thinking about increasing this price to $2 or $3 next month (existing customers get to keep the $1 price tag). Some of the Power-Ups I offer: - File Manager: lets you search through and bulk download files on a board. - Board Chat: adds a simple chatroom to your Trello board - External Share: creates a link and snapshot of a Trello board that you can send to clients so they don't need to sign up for Trello to see the board. - Office File Viewer: lets you preview .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx files directly in Trello - Card Approvals: adds a "approve" and "decline" section to a Trello card
  • launchiterate 5y ago
    Nice! :D
• rozenmd 5y ago
  I'm not quite there yet, but I'm up to $300/mo iteratively building an uptime checker: https://onlineornot.com/ https://onlineornot.com/ I started with literally just a Lambda function that checks if static websites were still online, added an email alert if it's offline, wrapped authentication around it, integrated Stripe, and shipped it. Eventually, I added Slack/Discord/SMS alerts, team invites, support for checking APIs for both uptime and correctness, support for checking JavaScript apps, and more. My trick for launching into 200 competitors providing the "same" service and still getting customers? - I work two hours a day, every weekday on OnlineOrNot, and no other side projects. I've had this streak going for about nine months now. - I focus particularly on features that solve my customer's pain (and I ask my customers what that pain is) - I'm ruthlessly iterative. If I can't get a feature done in two hours, I figure out how to cut scope down to a two hour block, and ship that. Then iterate on it.
  • nahtnam 5y ago
    Do you use any tools like Linear, Notion, and/or Github Projects to keep track and organize new features?
    • rozenmd 5y ago
      I've tried a few tools, the only one I kept using habitually was Trello.
  • Lord_Zero 5y ago
    > My trick for launching into 200 competitors providing the "same" service and still getting customers I feel like this wasn't really answered. I think its just a big space and you market well and have a solid landing page.
    • rozenmd 5y ago
      I look at it from the perspective of having a successful React blog, having started writing consistently in 2020. I have different experiences to others on the market, thus I resonate with some more than others.
• astroalex 5y ago
  I made ~$1000 in earnings in a weekend selling algorithmically generated posters of my art: https://spacefiller.space/prints https://spacefiller.space/prints This was a test run that went surprisingly well. I paused sales so that I can focus on reworking my process (it was very manual, hoping to make it completely automated) and design more posters.
  • yumaikas 5y ago
    These are a amazing pieces of computational art! Might I ask what you built it with?
    • astroalex 5y ago
      Thank you! They're made with Java-based Processing (https://processing.org/ https://processing.org/), although I have a new JavaScript/WebGL version in the works.
  • nati0n 5y ago
    Curious what the rough process is to generate art algorithmically... I've heard of ML that attempts to generate art based on its training pool. What concepts does this sort of art use?
    • astroalex 5y ago
      Thanks for your question! I began writing a technical explanation of the art here: https://notes.spacefiller.space/living-wall/ https://notes.spacefiller.space/living-wall/ It's a very early draft, but hopefully provides a glimpse into the techniques I use. (tl;dr: it's way more low-tech than ML generated art.)
  • idiotsecant 5y ago
    If you want to restart with someone to do the grunt work let me know :P
    • astroalex 5y ago
• d33k4y 5y ago
  Does it count as a side project if I have been in grad school full time while I proposed and developed this application?: Environmental flow monitoring application: https://dkhydrotech.com/entry/11/ https://dkhydrotech.com/entry/11/. I wish I could share more info / visuals but alas.
• squaregrouper 5y ago
  im an embedded software developer, and would love to get a side hustle going. does anyone on here do embedded development freelance? are there any embedded developers that have a side hustle going, that wouldnt mind sharing what they do?
  • techsin101 5y ago
    if you can build a small watch circle like thing that vibrates every 30 mins if you haven't moved it'd be great
  • chasd00 5y ago
    I know the guy (well know online) who made these altimeters for the rocketry hobby. https://flightsketch.com/store/catalog/flightsketch-mini_1/ https://flightsketch.com/store/catalog/flightsketch-mini_1/ he went from idea to prototype in 6 months i think. Pretty amazing if you ask me. Edit: oh i was just looking at the images scroll by and saw a screenshot. I did a rework of the mobile app for him, i totally forgot about that. (i used ionic)
  • zh3 5y ago
    Really common to do it in spare time as an intro to doing it as a consultant. Esp. if you have electronics skills it's not hard to find work. As a "side hustle" though, it's generally about selling a hardware product, a tool, or your skills (SkillaaS). Embedded is a broad term though, say a bit more about your experience and interests and maybe someone will pop up with pointers.
• jdlshore 5y ago
  My JavaScript screencast, letscodejavascript.com, made over $10K net profit per month at its peak. It costs $25/month for unlimited access to over 600 videos. I stopped producing videos in April 2018, but the site is still up, and still gets occasional new subscribers. (There's been an influx lately, in fact, and I have no idea why. Maybe because I have a new book out.) It's still netting more than $500/month, although not by a lot. But it requires nearly zero effort from me, so I'm happy with it. Edit: To clarify, it wasn't a side project when I was producing the videos. But now it's passive income.
  • techsin101 5y ago
    I'd really would like to know how do you go from video idea to a finished video, especially audio part. I tried making tutorials and just ended mumbling 70% correct facts and rest wasn't actually correct.
    • jdlshore 5y ago
      The main channel was the “Recorded Live” series, which was basically livecoding with me thinking out loud. That didn’t require any real prep, as I had enough experience with a previous livecoding show that it came out pretty well. The main thing I did was edit out pauses and gaps while I was thinking so that it flowed nicely. I would also announce a pause when I needed to go research something (which was fairly common) and edit a “fade to black” into the video. The “Lessons Learned” channel was more elaborate. The video at objectplayground.com [1] is my most popular example. For those, I would make slides and animations in Keynote, then record while playing the slides. I had an outline, but not a script, as I felt that made the narration less stilted. Sometimes that resulted in minor mistakes going into the video. For more serious ones, I would record a new line and edit it into the video. In all cases, I would edit out pauses, and if I misspoke or stumbled over my words, I’d just repeat myself and edit out the mistake. I got pretty good at editing—because there was no video of my face, I could make cuts that were basically invisible. My livecoding videos each had hundreds of cuts, typically just half a second or so. It would take a 20 minute recording down to a 15 minute final video. It took about 4 minutes of editing per minute of final video. [1] The video on objectplayground.com isn’t showing up on my phone for some reason. You can find it here instead: http://www.letscodejavascript.com/v3/comments/lessons_learned/12 http://www.letscodejavascript.com/v3/comments/lessons_learne...
• mmmmkay 5y ago
• antonhag 5y ago
  I built https://blunders.io https://blunders.io, a profiling tool for JVM applications. I think that I have a decent product but I'm not a great salesman :)
• joelrunyon 5y ago
  15 minute mobility routines - https://movewellapp.com https://movewellapp.com Basically - everyone has a foam roller. No one knows how to use it. Pick a routine based on what your goals are (working out, recovery, general low back pain) and we show you the movements to guide you through a routine in 15 minutes or less.
  • noja 5y ago
    I like this, but I am reluctant to start paying for it without a trial. There are a few non-pro workouts, but could you consider a day pass or three day trial?
    • joelrunyon 5y ago
      The app is free to download and you can try a bunch of the free workouts (?) no questions asked. Is that not enough of a trial?
      • noja 5y ago
        No, because none of the free workouts are workouts I am interested in. Just my 2 cents.
        • joelrunyon 5y ago
          You can try the free workouts and then pay for the ones you're interested in. It's $5/month. We've found this works well and lets us get everyone some routines at least.
          • noja 5y ago
            Okay. Your app. I was just explaining to you why the conversion didn't work for me.
• DanHulton 5y ago
  I make Nodewood: https://nodewood.com/ https://nodewood.com/ It's a SaaS starter kit/boilerplate written in Node.js and Vue 3. Made almost _exactly_ $500/month last year. Would have/should have made more with proper marketing, but I've been doing probably too much engineering instead. The next release should be the one to take it out of "beta" (honestly, an arbitrarily-chosen label, especially compared to some competitors with fewer features/work put into them), and then it'll be a bit easier to work with some potential partners who would prefer to promote non-beta software.
  • hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
    That is very nice, maybe in future you can have a non-commercial use version for a lower free / fee?
• justsocrateasin 5y ago
  I have a fondness of writing summary articles on to cap off a big work project (for instance, completing a database migration). A few of them get 'traction', but mainly I like the challenge of eloquently describing my problem/solution and giving myself a zitgeist of work I've done. It's satisfying. Recently, I had an old colleague of mine reach out and ask if I had the time to be a part-time contractor/advisor for his tech consulting start-up, since their client needed to do a database migration. He had remembered me because of the articles I wrote. It's a nice bit of money on the side ($500-$2.5k a month depending on how much I work) and I'm always learning something new.
• traverseda 5y ago
  I just sell this calendar puzzle online: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1012906584/wooden-calendar-puzzle https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1012906584/wooden-calendar-p...
• pranjal_soni 5y ago
  This is literally gold
• oleksii88 5y ago
  Working on https://folge.me https://folge.me - desktop app for creating step by step tutorials and guides. Unlike modern SaaS businesses I decided to charge one time price, which makes revenue very unpredictable, but usually keeping around 400-500 USD per month
  • robtherobber 5y ago
    Although I see the benefits of SaaS, I very much like this model.
• nyellin 5y ago
  If anyone has a devops/Kubernetes related project that isn't making money but has decent traffic/users, please consider messaging me! We (http://robusta.dev http://robusta.dev) are interested in sponsoring open source projects and popular Kubernetes bloggers to raise awareness about what we do. It's a rare win-win. We're mostly open source and extremely flexible if you have any special requirements.
• vittor1o 5y ago
  I've launched a couple months ago https://linkz.ai https://linkz.ai Linkz.ai is hyperlink auto-previews that keep visitors on your website. It's heavily inspired by Wikipedia & Google Docs link preview popups with special extras. For example, when you click on a YouTube hyperlink, it does not take you to Youtube website, instead it opens lightbox with Youtube video on your website. All with just one line of code. $500+/m in a first month Demo page: https://linkz-ai.webflow.io https://linkz-ai.webflow.io
  • sambroner 5y ago
    Super interesting, I added this (albeit way less pretty) to my personal site and generally got poor reviews. That being said, I'm really enthusiastic about the idea. Example here: https://blog-545pd1vjp-sambroner.vercel.app/ https://blog-545pd1vjp-sambroner.vercel.app/
    • vittor1o 5y ago
      Try adding Linkz.ai previews on your blog posts, and get another round of feedback :)
  • asadlionpk 5y ago
    how do you get your users?
    • vittor1o 5y ago
      A few channels right now: - Participating in the web dev communities - "Powered by Linkz.ai" footer in the Link preview popups - Campaigns on Product Hunt, Reddit & similar - Soon: Affiliate, LTD, targeted ads for Webflow/Squarespace ecosystems
  • vasilakisfil 5y ago
    this is really good idea, how comes not many sites/companies/people use it?
    • 5y ago
• robmerki 5y ago
  I wrote a book about adult ADHD last year & make ~$500/mo from it between Amazon, Audible, & Gumroad: https://adhdpro.xyz/ https://adhdpro.xyz/ Recorded the audiobook myself too.
  • jason_riddle 5y ago
    The site looks very polished! What did you use to build it? Also, what did you use to write your book? And how long did it take to write?
    • robmerki 5y ago
      Thanks! I built it with Gatsby + TailwindCSS. Sent a lot of time tinkering & editing copy over and over. I wrote it with Microsoft Word. I initially tried a few different apps but all of the organizational tools they provided got in the way. I broke most conventions and just wrote the book straight from start to finish, and re-read it countless times until I felt satisfied. Then I sent it to a ton of friends who helped me edit. A professional editor would've been a better idea, but I didn't really have the money for that at the time.
  • metadaemon 5y ago
    Do you by chance sell the audiobook outside of the Audible pro subscription?
  • swiftsalary 5y ago
    Nice idea. How did you go about marketing the book/getting reviews?
• maxencecornet 5y ago
  My side project https://playtoearn.one/ https://playtoearn.one/ is not making $500/month yet, but it's getting there: a tiny bit more than $400 for this month It's getting around 250-300 visitors a day, and in a high paying niche I started using "classic" ads - which were/are making next to nothing - but just signed a deal with a direct client for 400$ for 3 weeks of displaying his game on the site, on the top banner There are so many play-to-earn games popping up at the same time that projects are fighting for visibility, which playtoearn.one can bring So now, I've hired a designer to make a great looking UI and I'm getting motivated to turn this side project into something more than this EDIT: Traffic for the past month: https://simpleanalytics.com/playtoearn.one?period=month&count=1 https://simpleanalytics.com/playtoearn.one?period=month&coun...
  • ternaryJimbo 5y ago
    How are you getting visitors, are you putting up google ads?
    • maxencecornet 5y ago
      No it's mostly organic google traffic
• HEHENE 5y ago
  My side project currently grosses close to $1,400 per month through Patreon. I run a modded Grand Theft Auto: V roleplaying server with around 1,500 members (around 300 really dedicated MAU.) If you're not familiar with GTA RP, it tries to emulate real life as closely as possible while still recognizing that GTA is an arcade game. Players live lives as if they were real people, buying cars and houses, holding jobs, opening businesses, receiving medical treatment, being arrested, etc. I've spent around three years working on the gamemode and spend, on average, 30-60 hours per week on it. It's really a pure passion project. Players support the project through Patreon in exchange for priority queue access (when the server is full, players are held in a queue until a slot opens up for them), custom license plates on their vehicles, custom phone numbers, and other cosmetic perks.
  • krat0sprakhar 5y ago
    Wow, this sounds really interesting. As someone who used to be an avid GTA V player, I can imagine how much fun this can be. Do you have any videos on the mod and/or on the playing experience?
    • HEHENE 5y ago
      FiveM is the most popular platform for this type of modding, and is the one I use. nopixel is the most popular server on the platform and usually a good place to start getting a feel for what's possible on a modded GTA server. If you check out https://nopixel.hasroot.com/ https://nopixel.hasroot.com/, they maintain a list of all Twitch streamers currently streaming nopixel. nb: I have no affiliation with nopixel.
  • Drblessing 5y ago
    This is so cool! In my free time I love watching GTA RP, especially NoPixel.
  • mrbad101 5y ago
    My son plays FiveM almost exclusively when he is on the computer gaming. He has been enamored with it for years now. As a parent who is also a gamer, I can't help but chuckle when I hear the conversations going on between everyone. Although it is not my cup of tea now, when I was that age, I would have killed to have such a world available for me to engage with. Thank you for such a killer "side" project!
• crazypython 5y ago
  AI that explains code, at a high business logic level. I originally designed it while working on a complex physics system for a game engine, and needed to understand it myself and also explain it to non-technical people. Try it on your own code: https://denigma.app https://denigma.app
• Fermat963 5y ago
  Twitter Archive Eraser https://delete.tweets.app/ https://delete.tweets.app/, allows users to reliably delete old tweets. Makes around $5k/month now (down from $7k/mo previously), fully passive income as I haven't worked on any new features in the app for the past 1.5 years or so.
  • 2bitencryption 5y ago
    Wow, this is kind of the ultimate side project for passive income. It does one thing, that people need, and does it well, for a fair price. I assume it requires minimal maintenance, except to keep up with Twitter's API (honestly I don't know if this requires much work, I guess it depends on how much the API fluctuates).
  • pbowyer 5y ago
    Nice work, this looks like something I need.
  • baristavibes 5y ago
    In the EU don't they have an obligation to let you remove all posts due to GDPR?
    • nokya 5y ago
      No, you are entitled to request to "have your data deleted" but the interpretation is basically left to the data controller. In practice this means that the controller as many options to make your life as miserable as it can/wants when you try removing your data from its systems, and more particularly when you want to remove specific portions of your data. Twitter is a perfect example: removing "some" of your tweets is purposefully made cumbersome for users so that they get discouraged to manage their tweets. Searching through your tweets by date range or by keyword, and a button to delete all results? "Nah, too complicated for us silicon valleyers" :) One thing to remember with GDPR is that it is not a law that protects customers. It is a legal framework that specifies a set of requirements, which companies must abide to in order to do whatever they need/want with your data. Once you understand this, GDPR becomes much clearer :)
  • 5y ago
• anilshanbhag 5y ago
  I run Dictanote (https://dictanote.co https://dictanote.co) and Voice In (https://dictanote.co/voicein/ https://dictanote.co/voicein/) Dictanote is a note-taking app with built-in voice-to-text integration. Writers use it to write their books, students use it to take notes, etc. Dictanote automatically syncs your notes to the cloud and makes them available on all your devices. Voice In is a chrome extension that lets you use dictation to type on any website in Chrome. Use it to type emails in Gmail, enter data into Teladoc, write blogs in WordPress, etc. Think of it like budget Dragon Dictation. Currently makes about $7000/m net - somewhere between a full-time job and a hobby project. Figuring out how to grow it.
  • jasondigitized 5y ago
    What does your stack look like? Curious how you don’t go broke while offering a free plan.
• jimaek 5y ago
  https://anycasted.io/ https://anycasted.io/ A niche product, I gather data about anycasted IP addresses and sell the database. No idea how to market it but it makes more than $500/month
  • ade5hmukh 5y ago
    naice! curious about the customers/target audience though?
• dawiddr 5y ago
  I've been making $500-1000/month on an iOS app for work time tracking – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flexishift-work-hours-pay/id1146576087 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flexishift-work-hours-pay/id11... When I started the project, the category seemed quite crowded already, but I couldn't find anything good for tracking my hours in a flextime arrangement. I had no iOS experience at that time (I was a C++ developer) and now I do iOS development as my full-time job too.
  • MisterSandman 5y ago
    How long ago did you start this project?
• nice_scott 5y ago
  I built an iOS sex tracking app, Nice. https://nicetracker.app/ https://nicetracker.app/ There were no sex tracking apps on the App Store that weren't focused the menstrual cycle, so I built my own. It now includes cool features such as syncing across iCloud devices, location recording, STD/STI tests, and most importantly, stats!
  • ronyfadel 5y ago
    I thought it was cute, then saw the number of reviews which blew my mind! Is monthly revenue as low (<$5k) as SensorTower suggests?
    • nice_scott 5y ago
      On average it brings in about 3k monthly, and then it always doubles for the month of January. I suspect people set new years goals/resolutions to have more sex.
  • xvector 5y ago
    Wait, people have enough sex with enough different people to make this worthwhile? Damn, I'm missing out.
    • hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
      you don't need the STI checker either, oh well ;)
  • ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
    The real question.... are you having more sex since it was released?
    • nice_scott 5y ago
      funny enough, yeah! My wife loves trying to keep up a high score and keep the 'longest streak' stat going.
• askhn000 5y ago
  I sell repackaged open source software on AWS Marketplace and Azure Marketplace and offer support as part of the monthly software cost. It's the same software but the Azure offer sells a lot better. Monthly income is about $1000 from both. Very few support requests come in, so it feels like mostly passive income. All I have to do is answer the occasional ticket and keep the images up to date.
  • cooldrcool3 5y ago
    Thats awesome! Do you just rebrand the opensource software?
    • ThomasRedstone 5y ago
      I don't believe there is any rebranding. Ultimately somebody needs to provide these images and if nobody else does it I guess you can make okay money from it! It's probably automatable with some effort!
  • gremlinsinc 5y ago
    What sort of open source software are you repackaging? Like odoo, or more like laravel stuff like invoice ninja?
• anon1094 5y ago
  My side business, Freelancer's Handbook, currently does about $10,700 ARR. I've documented many of the stats here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QrN9ya-t7Vr42T-wL9q1-HX654nzPrhBeZAFGjBpGPk/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QrN9ya-t7Vr42T-wL9q1-HX6... It's a blog, community, and newsletter focused on useful and practical content for remote freelancers. I'm looking to pass over the mantle to someone passionate about the freelance space and have been passively searching for a buyer. Contact information in the Google Doc above.
• dools 5y ago
  I have 2: BenkoBot is like wayscript but with a focus on making Trello automations (although you can use it for generic HTTP API interaction): https://app.benkobot.com/ https://app.benkobot.com/ And BenkoPhone is the only virtual mobile number outside of North America that does voice, TXT and pictures: https://www.benkophone.com/ https://www.benkophone.com/
• sergei_ws 5y ago
  I'm working on http://talevideo.com http://talevideo.com - The easiest way to create a video of your SaaS or website. It's not subscription, but got about 300$ in revenue from January. Talevideo - is a desktop application where you can create video directly from website, without screen recording. And animate any element on page, like fadeIn and etc. Example result of video/gif at my github: https://github.com/ssleptsov https://github.com/ssleptsov Example_2 video directly from reddit website: https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/ra7inj/app_to_create_a_website_videos/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/ra7inj/app_to_...
  • challenger-derp 5y ago
    Looks cool!
    • sergei_ws 5y ago
      Thank you so much!
  • 0x008 5y ago
    Great job! Any hints what technologies you are using?
    • sergei_ws 5y ago
      Thanks! Yea, sure. It's Electronjs with vue3/typescript, threejs, tailwind2 and konvajs for timeliner(because canvas render much faster then html update, so it's keep high FPS on edit mode). And vitejs for tooling.
• jonkratz 5y ago
  My side project, FormTester 365 https://www.formtester365.com https://www.formtester365.com has been doing a little over $700/mo now. Many customers are agencies who want to be alerted if a client's web forms stop working. It tests website forms daily (currently as a Gravity Forms plugin add on) and confirms that they were successfully submitted. I'm working to add support for general web forms in the next few months. Feel free to send me an email if you're interested in being notified when that feature rolls out — jon (at) creativeculturemedia.com
  • snailmail2 5y ago
    This is offered as a service? How do you find customers?
• sarora27 5y ago
  We launched this last year: https://kbee.app https://kbee.app Kbee turns a Google Drive folder into a searchable wiki for you and your team. We're currently doing ~$1500/month in MRR
  • 0x4a42 5y ago
    What is MRR?
    • gregorkas 5y ago
      Monthly recurring revenue.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• perakojotgenije 5y ago
  sshreach.me - a Zero-Configuration, remote-controlled, secure tunnels to your computers. https://sshreach.me/ https://sshreach.me/
• ryangilbert 5y ago
  I am currently making >$1,000 per month with sponsorships for my twice-weekly newsletter https://www.workspaces.xyz/ https://www.workspaces.xyz/ Workspaces brings you inside the workspaces of entrepreneurs, designers, developers, etc. Currently a mix of inbound and outbound work to gather the sponsors for each edition.
  • boeingUH60 5y ago
    May I ask how you get sponsors? I have a newsletter/blog with reasonable traffic (>100k page views per month) but can’t seem to find any direct advertisers..
    • ryangilbert 5y ago
      Definitely! I recently added a "call for sponsors" blurb in the intro of one of my newsletters once I felt I hit a level of subscribers where it made sense. I immediately had a few readers reply with interest that ultimately led to my first few sponsors. From there, I did some cold outreach via Twitter DMs and email. My newsletter is very workspace item/tools centered so I put thought into what sort of sponsors made sense there and it led to the next batch. Think: companies who would organically be featured by a guest anyway... show them the value. I'm pretty transparent with the growth/numbers on Twitter as well so I think that helps when doing the Twitter outreach for sponsors. They are easily able to look back at the Twitter engagement if they don't already know what Workspaces is.
• kalev 5y ago
  Offtopic: funny to see the first five or so links I followed were all marketing websites made with TailwindUI. It’s a bit like a decade ago when all websites looked like a Bootstrap website.
• brandonhorst 5y ago
  I wrote and maintain Lacona, a Mac productivity App (https://lacona.app https://lacona.app). The majority of my revenue comes from being a part of the Setapp subscription service.
• c_ma_gee 5y ago
  My wife always compained that there was no suitable time tracking app for breastfeeding our little baby. Within three weeks I developed a simple app with proposals from her which fits her needs. After a few weeks using it we were suddenly overwhelmed with inquiries from our friends searching for such an app as well.. Within another week, I made it ready for the AppStore and the PlayStore and now it does around 400 € a month :-) https://www.stillapp.de https://www.stillapp.de - although the page is in german the app is translated into english as well.
  • AussieWog93 5y ago
    Any reason you haven't translated the page into English? Sounds like you've got a popular app!
    • c_ma_gee 5y ago
      Just didn't find the time to do it :-) But you are right - I should do it!
      • AussieWog93 5y ago
        Haha, I'm in the same boat. Have needed to set up a VAT number in the UK for almost a year, still haven't done it!
        • c_ma_gee 5y ago
          Your comment was a good reminder: I just translated the page into english as well :-) - Thank you for your comment!
          • AussieWog93 5y ago
            Oh no. Now I need to get a VAT number! Thanks for the kick up the arse. :)
• puregram 5y ago
  This feeling when only I make zero profit projects without success :-)
  • gisho 5y ago
    you are not alone
• pyrrhotech 5y ago
  Monetizing the algotrading models I've built over the last 2+ years: https://grizzlybulls.com https://grizzlybulls.com I've traded them with my own capital successfully since April, 2020, and I've averaged 75%+ annual returns with much lower volatility than the overall market. My starting capital was small (500k) so in addition to growing with my own capital, I'm now providing the signals (3 free, 4 premium). 105 total members, MRR is currently $1397/month, just launched exactly 1 month ago today. Still in the google sandbox so I'm not seeing much organic traffic. We have a small community on reddit, rest of users from social media, Seeking Alpha and Stock Twits.
  • RyanShook 5y ago
    Just curious, why sell your model if it's working so well for you?
    • pyrrhotech 5y ago
      I've thought about this a lot, and to answer 100% honestly, I'm not sure I always will, but for now: 1. These are not HFT models. They trade once every 2-4 weeks on average. They scale to billions in capital, so selling them does not inhibit my own returns. 2. There's a lot of demand. Part of the reason I decided to launch is I had some friends IRL begging me to let them use my models as well. Seeking Alpha has over 15M MAU and hundreds of thousands of premium subscribers, and in my opinion this service provides more direct value and wastes less of your time with noise. 3. All the money I make from this goes back into my own bot and compounds. Sure the $1400/month doesn't add up to much right now, but 1000+ premium subscribers one day would make a huge difference to me financially. 4. I believe we are at a precipice with passive investing, and the next bear market which could be right around the corner will dishearten a lot of folks. The more money investing smartly in the market at a reasonable fee makes the markets and overall economy less fragile. More automated smart investing saves society the drag of lots of suits on wall street mostly playing a big marketing game without producing much alpha or liquidity or any other measurable benefit in contrast. Also, on a lighter note, running a business is just a lot of fun. I love seeing people use my product and get value from it.
• heneryville 5y ago
  I've made about 50 Amazon Alexa skills. The most popular 5 earn rewards: https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/grow-your-business/rewards https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/gr... At first it was around $2500 per month, but has slowly ramped down over the past 4 years to about $900 per month. Totally passive income at this point.
  • jacobrussell 5y ago
    Do you mind sharing what some of them do?
    • heneryville 5y ago
      Sure. Some of my most successful are: Bark Like a Dog -- https://www.amazon.com/Iguana-ASD-Bark-Like-Dog/dp/B07C1BKWKJ https://www.amazon.com/Iguana-ASD-Bark-Like-Dog/dp/B07C1BKWK... Truth or Dare -- https://www.amazon.com/Mitchell-Harris-Truth-or-Dare/dp/B0735FTZMZ https://www.amazon.com/Mitchell-Harris-Truth-or-Dare/dp/B073... The Song that Never Ends -- https://www.amazon.com/The-Song-That-Never-Ends https://www.amazon.com/The-Song-That-Never-Ends and my personal favorite, but doesn't make much is Rap Battle -- https://www.amazon.com/Mitchell-Harris-Rap-Battle/dp/B0742JQQBC https://www.amazon.com/Mitchell-Harris-Rap-Battle/dp/B0742JQ...
• nunez 5y ago
  I made two LinkedIn courses. One has paid off its royalties; the other is on its way there. Should be >$500/month combined soon! I'm also working on an app that allows you to set a universal status across multiple platforms. I use it to automate my Slack statuses from my TripIt trips, but I want to add integrations for Google Calendar and WhatsApp. It's really rough right now but my future intent is to find a way to monetize it when it's cleaner.
  • bmitc 5y ago
    What does it mean that one has "paid off its royalties"? Do you have any description or advice for the general process for teaching a LinkedIn course?
    • nunez 5y ago
      I meant “paid off its advance through royalties”. Sorry! Everyone’s path is different, but generally speaking, if you publish enough blog posts (especially on LinkedIn), someone from a content shop will notice and ask you to write a book or create a course. Both flows are similar, but I’ve only done courses and can speak to that in detail. You propose a course. The content manager you work with decides if it fits their learning plan or whether there is demand for that kind of material. If they think people will view the course, you’ll be asked to come up with a course summary. DevOps and Kubernetes are super hot right now, so these were easy for me to think up. Here, you’ll pitch the course. What is it? Who’s meant to view it? What will you cover? This gets reviewed. If it looks good, you’ll be given a producer, and they will ask you to write scripts. Sometimes the content manager will ask for a demo of how you’d present a course. Here, they want to see whether you have enough “presence” to instruct. Sometimes they’ll provide feedback for you to fix, but this didn’t happen in my case. You’ll also get an advance, with the first half being paid out around this time. These advances aren’t like the music industry where you use the money to pay for production and marketing. It’s literally money in your pocket. Script writing can take FOREVER. especially the first time. It took me three months to write enough scripts for a two hour course. There’s a lot of back and forth. Since my courses are very hands-on, I also write lots of code and test everything while putting the scripts together. Very difficult to do all of this with a full-time job, doubly so when that job is demanding! Once the scripts are cleared, you’ll be asked to record. There are lots of different ways this can go. Mine are audio-only with a terminal walkthrough, so I just recorded and screen capped everything. Some courses have live-action and acting. These require studios. I haven’t done one of these yet, so I can’t speak to it. Beta testing happens after recording. People internally go through your course and make sure that everything gels. Sometimes you’ll need to fix stuff after this. Once beta tests complete, your course goes live and starts racking views! You also get the other half of your advance. You get paid royalties for every learner who views your course. I don’t know the specifics of this, but it’s kind of like YouTube’s ad platform. However, you don’t earn anything until the grand sum of your royalties exceeds the advance you were given. Depending on how your course performs, this can either never happen or it can happen very quickly.
• qecez 5y ago
  I'm trying to dispel the myth that all good dotcoms are already taken and/or unaffordable with https://zlipa.com https://zlipa.com It's passive income in the sense that I add new brands in the weekend and mostly doing this for fun.
  • dionidium 5y ago
    This looks really cool! Nice job.
• enraged_camel 5y ago
  I previously posted about PriceTable (https://pricetable.io https://pricetable.io), where I’m the cofounder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26855726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26855726 Since then we’ve gotten up to $3,500/mo. and will be hiring our first salesperson soon. Exciting and nerve-racking at the same time! (If you know anyone, please have them reach out to me at ege@pricetable.io)
• outcoldman 5y ago
  https://loshadki.app https://loshadki.app, between $800 to $2000 a month. Year ago decided to learn macos development. Made 4 apps, two of them make the most OpenIn and ShellHistory.
• funksta 5y ago
  Made around $1500 in a month from https://hyperpaper.me/ https://hyperpaper.me/ It's a customized dayplanner pdf for large eInk devices like the reMarkable 2. I built it for myself initially but realized I could provide a customized build for other folks. There's still a small amount of manual work to generate them, but I should be able to automate it end-to-end soon. I don't expect it to make much at all over the next 10 months, but I'm already excited about other things I'm planning to add for the 2023 version
• ahmed_ds 5y ago
  Not a product or something exciting, it is a service. I run a VA firm (tbh I work as the VA) and I kinda almost make $500/month. https://www.ITNAdigital.com https://www.ITNAdigital.com Trying to scale up the business to cater to data and software businesses. But working in real estate industry for a while now.
• arilotter 5y ago
  I made a p2p NFT trading webapp that's totally free & open-source over the course of a month or so of evenings and weekends, and I've received a couple thousand $ in various cryptos as donations from my in-site donation link. https://vaportrade.net/ https://vaportrade.net/
• XCSme 5y ago
  I make between $500 and $2000 per month with UXWizz[0], a self-hosted analytics platform that I have been working on for around 9 years. Hopefully I can grow it more this year as all the Google Analytics related news should make more people consider self-hosting their analytics. I stopped providing any cloud-hosted version and focus purely on self-hosting. [0]: https://www.uxwizz.com https://www.uxwizz.com
• syngrog66 5y ago
  beware of copycats, folks. this post can be a trap for the gullible
• consultantrhys 5y ago
  I run getrhys.com I productized myself and operate as an on-demand marketing consultant for SaaS businesses. Currently do $5K+ per month working one day a week taking short 30 minute calls with my clients.
• BorisTheBrave 5y ago
  I sell an game development tool on the Unity Asset store. Since the peak died down, it's now somewhat under $500/mo, but still does well in occasional sales.
• ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
  I make a little under $500 selling sunglasses for Dogs and Cats.
• _w6y3 5y ago
  I make around $500 per month running a gaming VPN service - [link redacted] I initially built it to route PUBG players in Australia (myself included!) onto the fastest links to overseas servers as the Australian servers did not have enough players. It was strung together with OpenVPN and a Discord bot as I never expected more than around 20 people would use it... mostly figured it would be me and my squad mates. Within three months I had around 350 users by word of mouth paying $5 per month. Most of my users came from established competitors as my service was a lot simpler to use. The user numbers died down over the following year mostly due to competitors offering an aggressive referral system and I was focused on other projects. Last year I decided to expand to other games and regions. I rebuilt it as a standalone Electron based Windows app using a kernel network driver that can route individual Windows apps through my WireGuard VPN servers. I built everything except the network driver which was done by a Windows networking specialist - https://ntkernel.com https://ntkernel.com I currently support PUBG, DOTA 2, iRacing, Apex Legends, Rocket League, Final Fantasy XIV, Super People in Australia/New Zealand and PUBG and Rocket League in North America. The service is stable and relatively scalable so this year I'm hoping to focus on the marketing in between other projects. Part of that will probably include a name change as I figure it doesn't make a lot of sense to people outside Australia
  • zakki 5y ago
    I am curious, how is a VPN solving a latency issue?
    • asadlionpk 5y ago
      take the shortest path instead of cheapest-to-ISP path I am guessing?
      • _w6y3 5y ago
        Yes pretty much. Most ISP's just buy access to the cheapest routes which are not always the fastest. I rent servers that are connected to the fastest routes and send the customers game traffic through them. This often results in lowering the latency by a significant amount. The other thing the VPN does is allows people to choose which region they want to play on. For example, in PUBG, when you launch the game it pings all of the different available regions and selects the one with the lowest latency. This is not always ideal as there may not be any players on the closest servers and you end up playing against a bunch of bots.
• goatherders 5y ago
  I'm not an engineer outside of the occasional WP site, but that's enough. Cold email is my bag and I'm a good (and proficient) writer. In October I started cold emailing internet, marketing, and SW companies asking if they needed any help with their blogs. In the intervening months I've added 7 clients that pay, on average, $700/month for various help with content. MOst of it is blog posts but I also do press releases, eBooks, etc.
• techyes23 5y ago
  Recently launched a website where users can design their own Desktop Garden. Only a few sales so far but hoping to slowly scale for some decent side income :) Please check it out http://gardensofkyoto.design http://gardensofkyoto.design and open to any feedback!
  • pryelluw 5y ago
    Beautiful yet heavy on my iOS device. Couldn’t get through process of purchase.
• akudha 5y ago
  It might be a good idea to make this a monthly thread? There is intense interest in the topic
• h4t 5y ago
  I got something better. Trade crypto derivatives after learning elliot wave. Turn 500 into 50,000 in 3 months. Quit day job. Do it full time now. High 6 figures 10 months later.
  • akudha 5y ago
    What is elliot wave?
  • joshuaheard 5y ago
    I'm building a crypto-trading bot right now. Care to share any details?
• mark_story 5y ago
  I run https://stickler-ci.com https://stickler-ci.com While it is not currently at 500/month but it has been there in the past. I started this as a way to improve review speed at a previous position and it was well received, so I converted the prototype into a it's current form and have been running it for a few years now.
• mattmar96 5y ago
  Https://htwins.net/sotu2 I ported the flash app Scale of the Universe to WebGL. I asked for payment as a portion of ad revenue and make about $500 a month.
• nevster 5y ago
  Make between $500-$1000 per month from http://www.auctionsieve.com/ http://www.auctionsieve.com/ - old school desktop app I started in 2003. It's a front-end for eBay to quickly filter search results. I have all sorts of interesting collectors using it - some guy who buys old porsche parts, a famous comic book artist who collects comics, etc etc
• josecastillo 5y ago
  I made an Apple Watch app and complication a few years ago that averages $800 a month. I don't put any money into marketing or search ads, and it's been feature-complete since 2019: https://www.betterday.app/ https://www.betterday.app/ The app is built around two small, simple features: today's date with a customizable format, and a three-year calendar so you can see what weekday dates fall on outside of the current month. It also supports several alternative calendar systems including the Islamic and Hebrew religious calendars, which I think may be another use case that drives sales. Anyway: it's a one-time, two-dollar purchase that lots of folks are still finding and finding useful.
• p3rls 5y ago
  My team makes this https://kpopping.com https://kpopping.com It's a platform for following what's happening in kpop that we've been building for five years. It makes about $1500 a month through advertisements and subscriptions these days, but we want to expand and experiment with other revenue sources.
• slappin_basses 5y ago
  I made an incredibly simple Safari content blocking app for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/liberate-website-blocker/id1214636633 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/liberate-website-blocker/id121... ~$750/month lately. $32.5k lifetime and have spent <40 hours conceiving, implementing, and updating it.
• pipewrench 5y ago
  A quarterly magazine — $2K/mo: pipewrenchmag.com Two membership tiers, one paid, one barter: pipewrenchmag.com/backer-barter We publish one longform nonfiction feature every quarter, surrounded by a constellation of reactions, asides, and art inspired by the core story. Our latest issue is about bringing in "outside food," and the art of smuggling snacks into movie theaters: https://pipewrenchmag.com/making-concessions-movies-and-popcorn/ https://pipewrenchmag.com/making-concessions-movies-and-popc...
• semireg 5y ago
  This year marks 3 years working on Label LIVE, an electron app for designing and printing labels. Think: import a spreadsheet and print barcodes to a zebra printer. In 2021 the profit eclipsed my consulting income. My 2020 goal is to double revenue. Today it’s making mid 4-figure MRR but adding in one-time-license-sales the annual revenue is healthy 6-figure. The last few months I’ve been focusing on marketing and integrations. Today you can trigger label print jobs via the command line, MQTT, and now HTTP. If label printers are your jam you can read more here: https://label.live/features https://label.live/features
• insaider 5y ago
  I make $3-5k a month with my golf betting algorithm: https://www.golfforecast.co.uk https://www.golfforecast.co.uk I'm a data scientist/software engineer and I started the project 5 years ago as part of my masters thesis. Never intended for it to be gambling-oriented but that's just the best way to monetise! Questions/feedback appreciated - cheers
  • msaharia 5y ago
    Looks cool! What kind of models are you using? I would have thought this is a very tight space. Did you develop the models yourself?
    • insaider 5y ago
      Thanks! Yea there's lots of competition for sure. It was originally just XGBoost and ARIMA, now it's an ensemble of several.
  • riantogo 5y ago
    In the UK are you able to straight up create a gambling website/app? As an example, could I create a blackjack app and accept/payout money using, say, paypal or stripe? No other hoops to jump through?
    • zeepzeep 5y ago
      As long as you don't have a UK company...
    • insaider 5y ago
      You would need a gambling license for that which is quite expensive. My site doesn't facilitate gambling, I'm not a bookmaker, I just give tips.
  • Loocid 5y ago
    I'm always skeptical about these sorts of products. If the edge you have is real, why not just bet yourself? Theoretically each client you get lowers the edge of all other clients. If you have enough people following your tips, the lines will move. Sports betting is just another market after all.
• s-xyz 5y ago
  Just launched https://umbrellatoday.app https://umbrellatoday.app, which is inspired from my personal frustration with umbrellas. The tool allows you to create alerts for rainy days, warning you to bring an umbrella. The assumption is that we want to minimize our interaction with umbrellas; if you buy a big umbrella, it is a hassle to drag along and you will most likely loose it after a few afterwork drinks. Other way around, a small and cheap umbrella does not cover you enough, and breaks easily. As said, just launched, lets see how it goes. Happy to hear your feedback.
• ezl 5y ago
  I started a wholesale bakery. It does about 20k/mo in revenue (we are not profitable). It's been super fun and rewarding. It's much more like building a software / tech startup than I expected it to be.
  • suls 5y ago
    Amazing. I am at the stage of thinking/dreaming about a weekend-bakery .. but I am completely lost when trying to work out the economics of this. How did you tackle this at the beginning? What were your demand/cost projections when you started out?
  • aprdm 5y ago
    How much did you invest?
• popfastful 5y ago
  I made two webapp: https://www.alovez.com https://www.alovez.com and https://www.snapfeel.com https://www.snapfeel.com about $300~600/month
• terrancem 5y ago
  https://www.goodbooks.io https://www.goodbooks.io Books recommended by successful and inspirational people.
  • grwthckrmstr 5y ago
    Always curious about book recommendation sites. If you don't mind sharing, how much revenue and traffic does your site generate?
• grwthckrmstr 5y ago
  I have two such side projects that run almost passively, neither is an app though. 1- An extremely simple habit tracker spreadsheet template that I also use myself - https://www.preetamnath.com/habit-tracker-template https://www.preetamnath.com/habit-tracker-template Makes ~$100/mo but this month it's on track to make $200, probably due to new year's enthusiasm? 2- Learn Programmatic SEO, a straightforward course to help people identify repeatable keyword patterns and use that to drive traffic to their business, website, projects etc. SEO beginner-friendly - https://www.preetamnath.com/programmatic-seo https://www.preetamnath.com/programmatic-seo The course makes between $300-$500/mo. I don't have any costs other than website hosting and Gumroad fees. I do think these projects have scope to improve and grow. Would love feedback from anyone who finds them interesting!
  • ohlookcake 5y ago
    These are both really unique and interesting! Curious to know how you've publicised it so far, and if you think spending more time/money on publicity can get them to grow a lot more
    • grwthckrmstr 5y ago
      All sales comes via organic search traffic. I plan to try and drive more traffic this year through content.
• boaten743 5y ago
• sudoit 5y ago
  I made a platform for publishing and purchasing photoshop files/effects, music, high res images etc. https://crate.as/ https://crate.as/ The main gimmick is that it’s a native Mac (and very soon Windows) app, so once you buy a file, you can drag it directly out of the app and into other programs as if it were file explorer. I’m not at $500/month yet, but the project is well over 1k a month and I have a percentage of the income.
• a5y 5y ago
  www.bini.vision made us a few hundred quid before we went fulltime on it
• Coxa 5y ago
  I am currently at around $300/mo so still a bit off the $500 unfortunately. My side project, ErgStudio[0], allows people to use their rowing machine to do remote workouts together. I had the idea already a while before the pandemic started but when it hit I finally pushed myself to implement a MVP. My wife helped a lot doing the admin and as a photographer (we took all the promotion pictures ourselves to save money). This was also the first project for me which I took from greenfield to people-can-pay-for-this, which I am pretty thrilled about. At the moment, a bunch of university clubs in the US and smaller rowing clubs in Europe are using it. As a gimmick, when you see the meters rowed counter changing on the website, someone is actually working out somewhere in the world, using our app. [0] https://erg.studio/ https://erg.studio/
• gettingcreative 5y ago
  I launched Vilke (https://vilke.co/ https://vilke.co/) back in 2018. It's an anonymous, adult-oriented, NSFW website where people can post teasing pictures or videos of themselves, and engage with others. Think Jodel or Yik Yak with an adult twist. Originally I wanted to learn PWAs. At the same time, people were posting teasers on Jodel but suggestive material is banned according to Jodel's community guidelines. Hence, I decided to smash two flies at the same time by building something that people wanted. Currently it's Finnish-only but it's making around ~200 $ / month. Have wanted to internationalize it for a while now but my day job is taking too much time.
• haensi 5y ago
  I currently teach computer science at a local high school. Topics range from algorithms and data structures to AI and societal impact. I do it to encourage young people to use software to make a change in their and other’s lives. Currently making $500 with 90min/week effort. I already got the syllabus material ready so I do not necessarily have to invest time here. Right now they’re writing an exam.
• philo01 5y ago
  https://apps.shopify.com/quotify https://apps.shopify.com/quotify nearing $1k, earnings increase every month without doing any advertising. I also launched https://unlock.sh/ https://unlock.sh/ earlier this month.
  • gremlinsinc 5y ago
    on the demo app/store... if you click "request quote" it gets a 401 error.
    • philo01 5y ago
      Thanks for letting me know. It works fine for me but will investigate. Would you mind sharing which browser and OS you are using? Thanks!
• lewisflude 5y ago
  I design and sell ultra-high end mechanical keyboards https://instagram.com/handengineering https://instagram.com/handengineering, https://hand.engineering https://hand.engineering
• eg312 5y ago
  Time is money and https://reactivedoc.com/ https://reactivedoc.com/ saves me ~500 minutes/month and I also have a paying user. I made it because I needed a simple, self-hosted tool to create documentation with "parameters". The output is a self-contained html file. Coupled with an external runner, it's a great automation tool for simple tasks.
• abareplace 5y ago
  I wrote a tool for replacing text in multiple files with regular expressions under Windows. Currently, it's making less than $500/month, but there were months when it made more. It's one of the first regex tools that displays the search results immediately, without pressing a Search button. https://www.abareplace.com/ https://www.abareplace.com/
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• lucas03 5y ago
  I have a $200 in MRR side project. It coded that website 8 years ago as a master's degree thesis. I am an investor myself, trying to achieve financial independence before retirement, so I kept using the site myself and hopefully will never stop. Stripe is there for the past year, I try to keep costs as low as possible. Only pay for a domain, hosting, and an affiliate program. It's a dividend growth investing tracker - digrin.com
• palidanx 5y ago
  I make about $1,000 - $1,500 a month passive income with https://www.menutail.com https://www.menutail.com It is a website to make US nutrition facts label which had a huge pivot from a website on learning how to cook. Website is only updated when new government regulations come out which is pretty rare considering how long it takes (in the years really)
• notanextrovert 5y ago
  I went from 0->40k+ followers on TikTok this year with NO prior social media experience. Most people see it as a teenage dance app type thing, but for techies wanting to build a personal brand or teach people it's a killer tool to rapidly grow. I consistently make ~600/mo selling a 'newbie' TikTok course on appsumo. It's a no-frills recorded presentation and associated set of slides that I do very little marketing for with the goal of getting people to 1k followers on tiktok in 30 days or less. https://appsumo.com/products/your-first-1000-tiktok-followers/ https://appsumo.com/products/your-first-1000-tiktok-follower...
• black_13 5y ago
• sandeep1338 5y ago
  That's pretty cool and love to see more information on it.
• doaki 5y ago
  Made an WordPress based affiliate site couple of years ago (took couple of evenings) with no additional upkeep. The affiliate deal brings in money as long the customers who registered through me use it. Thanks to one big customer made avg $720 last year.
• jborak 5y ago
  I build a secure tunneling service called Packetriot ($2k/mo) https://packetriot.com https://packetriot.com. Similar to ngrok with our own differences and approach. I also publish another product called Spokes Gateway which builds on the tunneling server and includes support for service meshes, high-availability, clusters and some other features. I'm building a separate website for Spokes and its related software, hoping to publish it soon. It's eventual home will be https://spokes.network https://spokes.network.
• momciloo 5y ago
  I make this video to printed flipbook online shop. flpbk.io: https://flpbk.io https://flpbk.io I've done nothing to promote it (except posting this comment) for more than a year. It's around $500/m revenue