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Ask HN: How to Make Passive Income?

• takiwatanga 4y ago
  A round up of previous discussions on hn was posted recently. You might find it useful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29855402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29855402
  • notRobot 4y ago
    Very useful, thank you!
• russdpale 4y ago
  Get someone rich to give you a bunch of money.
  • enos_feedler 4y ago
    Ironic how this gets downvoted on a site operated by a company that facilitates this very practice.
• _han 4y ago
  For this question to be answered, it would help to know your area(s) of expertise.
• mickael-kerjean 4y ago
  The theory is simple: 1. find a profitable niche 2. solve a problem for that niche 3. do marketing in that niche to get people to pay for what you've done In practice, making a passive income is tough and it's way easier and faster to be working for someone else. If 0.1% of my users would be customer I would be doing much better than my day job, until then I'm in the marathon of bootstrapping my business. Good luck!
  • prox 4y ago
    So I went to look at your website, but there is nowhere where I could see what your business is, it would help. I noticed the blog items mostly.
  • jsdevtom 4y ago
    I would change this to: 1. Find a profitable niche 2. See if you could market to said niche in a way where you have an unfair advantage. 3. If yes to 2, market and sell the product before you have it to ensure demand 4. Build the product.
    • swframe2 4y ago
      I would change this to. Find a project you would love to do (software, hardware, art; anything you love to be really good at). Make sure other people would like to see that project (ask your friends and see what others have done). Then create the project and blog about it, create tiktok/youtube videos. It can take a year or more . Also this project can be used to get you a job. It is possible your project will fail; try to figure out why. Pick a new project and try again.
• xyzzy4747 4y ago
  Make a lot of money and buy stocks. This is the easiest approach.
  • enos_feedler 4y ago
    This is what I’ve been doing. I own high dividend yield stocks with a bit of leverage. I also sell call options against the position for more income. If the stock gets called away I sell put options to buy it back. This is called “the wheel” or triple income strategy. Of course you need to find the right stock and sell the right options. Works great when it works. For true passive though you would need to simply collect dividend with no leverage. Set it and forget it. Of course, depending on your lifestyle this can require lots of capital
• shp0ngle 4y ago
  Money don’t grow on trees. If there was a magic way to make money without work, everyone would be doing it.
  • pcbro141 4y ago
    There are people who make passive income. Not everyone makes passive income. Your reply is meaningless.
    • CharlesW 4y ago
      > Your reply is meaningless. I think the parent commenter's point (and apologies if this is a mis-read, shp0ngle) is that passive income is a fantasy unless you're just stashing extra money in investment vehicles. That doesn't sound like the situation nada_ss finds themselves in.
      • the_lonely_road 4y ago
        I bought a fantasy novel recently that was written in 1998. Turns out the author wrote 11 more novels in this series which was a big part of why I chose it. The most recent novel came out in 2021. She no doubt will receive a tiny amount of income in 2022 from my purchase in 2022 stemming from work she completed in 1998. I would classify that as passive income but of course is it really? Would the book have even been on the shelf at Books A Million if she has stopped writing in 2000? Hard to say but I think most people would consider that passive income earned this year.
        • antifa 4y ago
          CharlesW's interpretation was off, but still it's not truly passive until she stops writing books. Continuously writing books for 20 years is work. The first book would probably have significantly less sales if the author didn't invest time or money in marketing and sequels for 20 years. The root comment would still hold true: > If there was a magic way to make money without work
  • 4y ago
• devoutsalsa 4y ago
  Having been super broke in the past, I’d recommend increasing your primary income first. It’s infinitely easier to have one good paying jobs than two low paying jobs.
  • septimus111 4y ago
    Any time I’ve looked into passive income, I’ve come to the same conclusion: the simplest and most effective way to increase my income is to focus my energy on improving my main career.
  • alexknowshtml 4y ago
    This is the best answer. Passive income (in the forms that it actually exists, and isn't a scam being sold by someone who makes their "helping" people create passive income) requires long-term thinking, and it's nearly impossible to make good long-term decisions when you're worrying about rent money or your next meal. If you work full time, focus on getting a raise, a new job, or changing industries. If you're a freelancer or consultant, raise your rates, or fire a shitty client to make room for a good one. If you don't know how to do these things, you're not alone, and there's no shame in asking for help. _Reliable_ income isn't necessarily a pre-requisite for passive income, but it's emotional leverage that most people try to skip past and never achieve either.
    • PainfullyNormal 4y ago
    • nada_ss 4y ago
      I have a job but not good salary and I can't change or ask for a raise right now because it is not possible. That's why I'm trying to find another source of income in addition to my current job. Thanks for taking the time to answer
      • devoutsalsa 4y ago
        If you’re willing to share, what is preventing you from finding additional work? You obviously feel married to a job that isn’t really working for you, and I’m wondering if you’re really stuck or just feeling stuck.
• IAmEveryone 4y ago
  It's hard to get into a position where you get money for nothing. I'd gladly tell you exactly how to do it, but unfortunately I am just as lazy. Maybe try feudalism, though.
  • joejerryronnie 4y ago
    My peasants do net fairly sizable tax revenue (largely in sheep, some gold as well) but I would hardly call that “passive”, what with all the galloping around the countryside with my pikemen and all!
• Mustache 4y ago
  Real estate is one of the most common ways
  • Tabular-Iceberg 4y ago
    Managing rental properties sounds all but passive. Even if you outsource everything, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Unless of course you're talking about investing in a REIT.
• Mikeb85 4y ago
  Either have capital and invest. Or start a low-maintenance business (but it needs to actually work).
• rambambram 4y ago
  You're struggling with your current income? I guess that means there's more going out then coming in? Any income would solve that. Or cutting costs, which might work even quicker. If you want passive income without any type of upfront work, you might look into renting stuff out that you possess. House? Why not rent a part to someone? A car, or other tools? Maybe you can rent them to somebody.
• New_California 4y ago
  Get a better job ASAP. Passive income, to large extent, is self-help bullshit. Any business or investment requires attention. Once you secure "normal" income, save up in Bitcoin. This will at the very least protect your purchasing power against inflation. With a little bit of luck your purchasing power will grow as Bitcoin gets adopted.
  • New_California 4y ago
    To the person who downvoted, we will come back to this thread in a few years to see who was right about Bitcoin. Brace yourself.
    • QuadrupleA 4y ago
      You sound quite confident in predicting the future. Also, is it very ethical to promote these environment-destroying distributed database entries?
  • googlerx 4y ago
    Any asset that you can resell (Real estate, commodities) is a hedge against inflation. Bitcoin isn't special. Putting all your eggs in the Bitcoin basket is risky because it will likely collapse because it's a less than zero-sum Ponzi scheme. It's arguably good for short term speculation but not long term investment.
• teej 4y ago
  Get a high-paying job in FAANG and invest your savings.
• pabe 4y ago
  Substantial passive income requires a bigger financial invest, e.g. if you can buy 1,000,000 ADA and stake those, you'll get round about 50,000 ADA rewards per year (39,000 USD, currently). Same with stocks, buying an apartment/ house to rent it to others etc. So, you'll have to maximize income and reduce cost as much as possible to fill that "investment bag". One way to do that is to become self-employed, win a corporate customer that is okay with remote work and move to a lower-income / cost country for 10 years. A lot of people today try to build traction for their digital product in a large enough niche. Never ever underestimate the effort needed for that! That hasn't much to do with passive income. If you've got a talent for writing, you could write 9.99€ Kindle books for high margins.
• honopu 4y ago
  A lot of people work a part time job, or work 2 remote jobs at the same time. Not necessarily recommending this approach, but i've worked with people that were doing it, including one right now.
• wombat-man 4y ago
  If you're fine with living with others I know a few people that bought houses with more bedrooms than they needed and they'd just rent out the spare rooms. Everything is cool as long as you have good tenants and don't mind the constant company. When things are good, this means a much reduced mortgage expense.
• tarr11 4y ago
  There are 6 pages of questions and thousands of comments on this topic. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ask+hn+passive+income https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ask+hn+passive+income
• vmception 4y ago
  You need capital to make passive income. And you need to be willing to risk that capital. If you dont have those things, dont bother. Fortunately if you are a software developer, you can make things that other people require a lot of capital to do. So you can make your software vending machine of some sort and have passive income from that. Advertising it requires capital, and you have to design the system that has low infrastructure costs.
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• cjhazard 4y ago
  I live comfortably on passive income at 34 years old with my diverse portfolio of income producing assets, which include but are not limited to: 1. Businesses I founded & own that are managed & operated by my employees. 2. REITs & other dividend paying stocks. 3. Real property that I own that is managed by property managers. 4. Music that I have published and receive streaming royalties on. 5. Personal loans (this is risky and I don't recommend it, but I do make some passive income this way). 6. Crypto lending (I use Stablegains which is currently paying 15%(!). Use my referral code to get $25 FREE when you sign up: https://app.stablegains.com/signup?ref=SWKDN4UXUG https://app.stablegains.com/signup?ref=SWKDN4UXUG 7. Asset trade-ups to capture capital gains (such as in real estate). 8. Leveraging credit card cash back rewards by using these types of cards for ALL of my purchases, business and personal. These are my primary income earners, and when added together, they make quite a sum of passive income for me. I started at zero like many of you here. It is possible to build a diverse portfolio of passive income with relatively low risk, without starting with a ton of capital. It just takes some good ideas, excellent execution of those ideas, self-control over your spending, and smart decision making. Don't lease the new Tesla when you can get by with the $5k SUV you already own. Those kind of things.
  • jessetemp 4y ago
    So basically, be wealthy. All of your solutions require money up front, except maybe #4 if you're skilled and lucky, and #8 but the cc rewards for day to day spending is like 1 or 2 bowls of raman.
    • antifa 4y ago
      I read a long list of side hustle ideas. The enumeration was great and very useful, but 90% of the list was essentially really obvious things I would already have started doing if I owned specific non-trivial assets. Most advice and success stories are too vague, unreproducable, and/or obvious to be useful. I understand some people need to be told not to spend $5000/year on coffee, but it's exhausting when I've never spent money on coffee in my entire life and 99% of personal finance advice is on that level of unhelpful.
    • 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
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• rozenmd 4y ago
  Get a high paying job -> invest your savings well -> work on side projects if you feel like it. "Passive income" as it's sold to people on social media frankly doesn't exist. You work hard, build something other people want, and people pay you for it.
• rufus_foreman 4y ago
  Just buy some more money.
• peppustimbus 4y ago
• adultSwim 4y ago
  Buy property and rent it out
• adultSwim 4y ago
  Live below your means, save up money, put it into something where you can just pick up the checks. Save up to buy a home. Then save up to buy a second one. Rent out the second one while paying someone to manage it for you. Rinse and repeat.
• ipaddr 4y ago
  The only way is to automatic active income. Find a way to make money and than find a way to automatic that activity.
• u2077 4y ago
  I think it’s important to note that there’s no such thing as passive income, there are plenty of things that require a ton of time upfront, but no time to maintain. The key is to find something you can create once and sell multiple times. Be prepared for the amount of time you’ll have to spend to start making “passive” income
• sifar 4y ago
  I would recommend you to read the Richest Man In Babylon. It is a small book that explains how one can go about building wealth. Briefly, 1) Save some money regularly (min 10%). 2) If 1) seems difficult, figure out a way to increase your earnings or reduce your expenses till you can do 1). 3) Invest the surplus wisely. Trust it to people who are trustworthy and seem to know their stuff. Overtime, you will have enough passive income.
  • gutitout 4y ago
    At this inflation rate saving money makes no sense.
    • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Yet, those who put their entire savings in the stock market last year are now significantly worse off than if they had just left it in cash. Sure, their portfolios might bounce back at one point, but who knows when. Just because we had a 13 year bull run thanks to printing money and dumping it in the stock market, does not always guarantee this can go on forever. The war certainly didn't help either. Sometimes stocks are just gambling, and it's best to only gamble what you're not afraid to lose, instead of your entire life savings.
      • deleted 4y ago
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    • sifar 4y ago
      Stress leads to bad decisions reducing your options. What I have experienced is that savings help you tide over life's uncertainties. Yes I am letting go of a few % in returns, but I gain something far more valuable - peace of mind and optionality.
• mettamage 4y ago
  I don't know much, but I'd try 10 different things as rapidly as possible and see what sticks. You're in Berlin. Why not have some tutoring business specifically to Berliners? Then after you've done some tutoring, anticipate whatever next-level skill they need and upsell those online courses. Just brainstorming
• amai 4y ago
  You live in Berlin? By an apartment and rent it out! But given the prices nowadays in Berlin this is probably unrealistic for you. You might want to have a look at Magdeburg though. Intel is going to build a huge factory there and probably 10000 employees will soon search for some place to live there: https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-anhalt/magdeburg/magdeburg/intel-chip-fabrik-eulenberg-arbeitsplaetze-100.html https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-anhalt/magdeburg/magd...
  • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >You live in Berlin? By an apartment and rent it out! How the hell can OP buy an apartment if he's already struggling to get by?! I swear, sometimes I feel like the HN userbase live on another plane of entitlement.