29 ms·

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

86 points by doppp 4y ago

Previously asked here → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29995152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29995152

karaokeyoga 4y ago
Real Kana (for learning hiragana and katakana), https://realkana.com/ https://realkana.com/ Monetization is ads (AdMetricsPro) and an iOS app. Seasonal popularity but it probably averages around $500/month. I would love to replace the ad engine with something less invasive (e.g. sponsors), but don't have the time or expertise.
kouteiheika 4y ago
I'm running a website for people learning Japanese (a dictionary and an SRS/Anki replacement, among other things) and currently making ~$1300/month from Patreon donations, up from ~$590/month the last time this show and tell was posted. Link to the website: https://jpdb.io/ https://jpdb.io/ Still only a side-project, and will probably stay that way for a long time still. 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
- torte 4y ago
  Nice. I am exploring something very similar, but for a different language. I am curious if you considered making this a business (as in paid features/subscription based) and if not why not?
  - kouteiheika 4y ago
    > I am exploring something very similar, but for a different language. Which language if I may ask? I'd like to branch out into other languages too in the future (preferably into something that's easier to parse than Japanese), but since I'm nowhere near done with Japanese at this point it's probably going to take many more years until I do so. > I am curious if you considered making this a business (as in paid features/subscription based) and if not why not? I do already have some Patron-only features. For example, normal users get access to two different voices for the audio files, while Patrons get access to four; Patrons get early access to work-in-progress new features, etc. But inherently I'd like to keep the base product, and in consequence the major essential features, free. It's probably a horrible business decision, but I recognize that not everyone can actually pay, and I want those people to be able to use my site too. I was once poor too, so I know how it is.
    - torte 4y ago
      > Which language if I may ask? Mandarin Chinese. I taught myself the basics (and a bit beyond) quite a while ago, but I am unhappy with either always having to start from scratch with every new tool I try or learn irrelevant things I am not interested in. Before I have seen your site I thought this to be quite a niche use-case, maybe it still is. Really just want to scratch my own itch, but if I can also add value for others and make this a well-rounded product, even better.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  Is Patreon a good way to finance your side projects? How do you take the next step from there?
  - kouteiheika 4y ago
    I used Patreon since it was a convenient way to 1) just get some money flowing without having to deal with all of the complexities of integrating a payment processor, e.g. without having to waste what little time I have on things like taxes (Patreon automatically handles the VAT), 2) I don't necessarily run this as I would run an actual business and most of the features are completely free, so it kinda fits Patreon's model of "supporting a creator" instead of your normal SaaS model of completely paywalling everything and giving you only a two weeks' worth of trial use, and 3) most people have already heard of Patreon, so when you're brand new and just starting out it's somewhat less sketchy than asking for people's credit card numbers directly. In the long-term I'll probably switch to using Stripe or something along those lines (while still keeping the option to use Patreon for those who prefer it), but at this income level it's not really worth my time. So to answer your question, I think that whether using Patreon is a good way to finance your side projects depends on what those projects are, and on what exactly you goals are. If you're trying to run a profitable business then what I'm doing is not a good example of what you should do. It might be totally obvious, but the more you give out for free and the more you rely on voluntary Patreon-like donations the less money you'll make. I know of other apps (using a fully paywalled financing model) in this space which have less users than I have and yet they're already hiring other people to work on them, while I can't even pay myself a livable wage to make this a full time job, never mind even thinking about paying someone else to help me out.
- jpdb 4y ago
  Cool project. Love the name.
camgas 4y ago
Running a service to manage remotely old phone-based intercoms (e.g DoorKing) without the need to change any hardware. We got some property managers in San Francisco and one locksmith reseller as customers. https://www.DropBy.io https://www.DropBy.io
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  That's a side project? The site looks very professional, congrats Anyway a bug report: https://dropby.io/privacy-policy/ https://dropby.io/privacy-policy/ is showing some CSS as text in the beginning and the end of the page
  - camgas 4y ago
    Thank you Will fix! I’m still doing it on the side, but I did get some help from others over the years. Mainly some friends put some $ and got 2 other great partners helping me also on the side. One is in the property management business which is very helpful. He came first as a customer.
- fanick 4y ago
  Can you elaborate how there is no need for hardware changes? Are you connecting through the earpiece somehow? Some time ago I hacked our flat intercom. I needed to have a text message delivered when the intercom rang (we use it to open door to the building), I had to tap to it with an arduino.
  - camgas 4y ago
    Cool. Always great to hear what people tried to do with these intercoms. I played with Arduino myself a lot for similar reasons. Thanks for sharing. It’s simple actually. We program all the units to call our cloud phone numbers. These numbers are shared among all US customers, so service is cheap to run. Also we got a patent in how we process these calls. We then process, record, forward, these calls to their destinations. And also we send text message updates for certain events.
- 4y ago
kumarmanket 4y ago
vladstudio 4y ago
I'm selling access to my collection of 500+ wallpapers I created over ~20 years. It is not $500/month every month, but sometimes I hit that number. Spent $0 on marketing ever (probably not a good thing, actually). After all these years, it still amazes me some people are ready to pay for pictures :-) https://vlad.studio/ https://vlad.studio/
- xmonkee 4y ago
  Long time fan, never thought of you as a person before this :)
  - vladstudio 4y ago
    I am quite a real person, with hopes and fears :-) Thank you!
- nexxer 4y ago
  Oh wow I had forgotten about your wallpapers... I loved the blue earth with tiny airplanes so much that I became a paid member back in...2009. And my account still works! Kudos. Nowadays my monitors are always full of full screen windows so I never get to see the wallpaper.
hknmtt 4y ago
I started investing in stocks couple of years ago. It is probably not what you wanted to hear but it makes me a lot of money and allowed me to retire in my 30s, as a minimalist. I am a long-term investor(I hold positions at least 1 year) so the time it requires is essentially none. Besides that I tried to run multiple project in my past but none took off. The problem is that the internet has been monopolized and it is no longer about the idea or being better than competition but it is 100% about money you spend on advertising. That's what killed all my projects. I still do them because I like to code but I don't expect to ever succeed. The goods times for the internet, around 2010s, are long gone.
- nixcraft 4y ago
  Out of curiosity, what stocks would you (or anyone reading my comment) recommend for someone in their late 40s? TIA.
  - markdown 4y ago
    This being the internet, the answer is going to be something useless like Gamestop.
    - djbusby 4y ago
      $GME and $AMC and other memes are gambling, treat them as such. That volatility is playing with fire.
  - firecall 4y ago
    For me, in my 40s and based in Australia, I am invested in Apple and a three different ETFs. There are plenty of investment forums and subreddits that discuss investment and FIRE strategies, and it depends on your country. It's never too late to begin. Generally an ETF or similar is worth looking into :-)
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Vanguard. Like VOO or VTWO - and once you have good savings in there, branch out to more divided payers if you'd like them to kick out some spending money. A 4-5% ARR is probable.
pokpokpok 4y ago
Adsense revenue on a simulation based web game, https://sandspiel.club https://sandspiel.club, Investing all of that money back into development though, it's a passion project.
- ljf 4y ago
  I love that site! My son and I used to play on it for hours when he was in train journeys with me.
- fileeditview 4y ago
  Wow that's really nice. Love these kinds of simulations. Well done!
- justsomeuser 4y ago
  How do you get your Adsense account approved for a SPA? I have similar apps, and the Adsense rejection is quite vague.
andersthue 4y ago
For 12 years my windows watermarking software has been making >500$ a month (lately just barely) https://www.watermark-image.com/ https://www.watermark-image.com/
- butz 4y ago
  Have you considered upgrading to web based solution? New users from other platforms, especially considering mobile devices support.
rozenmd 4y ago
I built OnlineOrNot (https://onlineornot.com https://onlineornot.com) - it's a hosted Status Page, with built-in Uptime Monitoring. It supports: * Custom domains * Private Status Pages (password protection) * Automatically posting incidents to your status page based on uptime monitoring (possible to BYO monitoring via Uptime Robot) * Subscribing to incident updates via Email The uptime monitoring itself supports websites, web apps, and APIs, and can send you alerts via: * Email * SMS (BYO Twilio account) * Webhooks * Slack/Discord
- jonwinstanley 4y ago
  Congrats on building up to that revenue! There seem to be a lot of these type of services, how do you differentiate yourself?
  - rozenmd 4y ago
    I started off as just another uptime monitor, and just kept adding features as my customers suggested them. Eventually I took stock of what I had built, and started building it into what it is now. Some more takeaways from the start of the year here: https://onlineornot.com/what-learned-running-saas-for-year https://onlineornot.com/what-learned-running-saas-for-year You'd also be surprised at how many competitors ceased to exist over the last 18 months.
margindash 4y ago
I run a site that helps retail investors manage the margin debt in their stock portfolios. - simulated stress tests to visualize precise sellout prices - configurable, real-time alerts based on stock margin maintenance https://margindash.com/ https://margindash.com/
mgz 4y ago
I built an iOS app to control what my kids watch on Youtube: https://kidstv.family https://kidstv.family Now it makes $1500/month.
- godmode2019 4y ago
  How do you deal with YouTube banning you from using their iframe api as this competes with their YouTube kids app?
- ElCapitanMarkla 4y ago
  Nice one, this looks great. The kids are old enough to work the remote here now so I was looking into how we block certain channels, my surprise when you can’t. Well not without totally gimping your YouTube account on the TV.
avinoth 4y ago
Running https://rosterbird.com https://rosterbird.com on the side for 2 years now. It's oscillating between $800-$900 mrr for the past 3 months. I originally wanted it to be a passive income project but it has grown in scope before I even realized. Building and maintaining a B2B SaaS on the side is pretty draining. There's always more features, support requests, etc. Wouldn't recommend unless it takes off immediately or it is within a nice niche or you're planning to take it full time. I've thought about either selling it (and start any other project) or properly growing it (launch in MS teams, shift capabilites, etc) for many months now. Would appreciate if anyone has any thoughts.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  I am not an expert by a long shot. My thoughts are the price is low. Maybe up the price and make $900 from fewer customers and therefore less support work.
  - avinoth 4y ago
    I've just changed into the per-user pricing (From fixed rate) to give better flexibility for organizations of all sizes. Would look into the pricing again in 6 months based on how it performs for now.
    - quickthrower2 4y ago
      Nice. If you don't mind me asking, how do you get customers? Do they find you via the Slack store? Or do you go out selling this? Or do you get people find you via search? Or ads? I am always tempted to make a slack app. Not this particular idea, likely something else.
      - avinoth 4y ago
        I don't mind. It's mostly via Slack app directory, sometimes I get through my links. I specifically wanted to build an idea in a marketplace to solve the discovery problem (as I suck at outbound marketing or any marketing in general). If you're looking to build in any marketplace, shopify is more strealimed as majority of the shopify's users spends on the apps (and the billing and stuff is integrated) compared to any other marketplace.
adithyasrin 4y ago
I'm running a job board in Germany called Arbeitnow - https://www.arbeitnow.com/ https://www.arbeitnow.com/ I launched it last January and it's been steady. I like working and learning new stuff through it, while it makes some money. Income fluctuates but overall I'm happy!
- Semaphor 4y ago
  Interesting, while usually job sites tend towards high-paying jobs, searching in Lübeck shows a huge percentage of retail jobs.
  - adithyasrin 4y ago
    yeah, it's not restricted to only high-paying jobs or tech jobs :)
mxstbr 4y ago
I make https://bedrock.mxstbr.com https://bedrock.mxstbr.com, selling a full-stack Next.js & GraphQL boilerplate for building SaaS products, which comes with: * A complete TypeScript toolchain with end-to-end typesafety from the database to the client * User authentication * Subscription payments * Teams * Invitations It's also completely unstyled, which is somewhat unusual in this space. I've found that most of the time, people would just delete all the styling anyway, so instead, the frontend only contains the minimal code necessary to make the functionality work. I originally launched it in February last year, and it's still going strong now!
- em1sar 4y ago
  Hi, big fan of Rebass, Theme UI..although sometimes Theme UI with Next.js doesn't work right out of the box, are you still the maintainer of these libraries? And how did you get the word out for your boilerplate product, just on Twitter? Do you have any tips on how to find a niche where a good, well maintained boilerplate is missing and how to make it profitable? Thanks
  - mxstbr 4y ago
    Thanks for the nice words! I stopped maintaining ThemeUI when I left Gatsby in 2021. In terms of getting the word out, it's really all based on my personal audience. I haven't found a repeatable marketing channel outside of just… tweeting about it, which is also visible in declining sales as I saturate that channel. Would love to hear your thoughts!
sonixier 4y ago
Ethereum Staking.
valryon 4y ago
I’ve released my game Flipon https://flipon.net https://flipon.net end of 2020 and while it’s not a huge success, it’s still quite a consistent flow of income (300-500€). Doesn’t require much maintenance, maybe some new content soon.
- woutr_be 4y ago
  I'd say that sounds like a huge success, 300-500 euro is a decent extra bid of money for most people.
sci_prog 4y ago
My wife and I made a small, word based multiplayer mobile game (gibberish game) in 2020 during first lockdowns. It's been making over $500 consistently ever since: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/guess-the-gibberish/id1513796144?ls=1 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/guess-the-gibberish/id15137961...
- jonwinstanley 4y ago
  Wow that’s great! There’s hundreds of word games on the App Store - do you do a lot of marketing and promotion to gain new users?
jsncbt 4y ago
Last month was the first time I got to $500/month with an app I have built for sports teams to manage their player of the season voting. https://getcontendo.com https://getcontendo.com
- em1sar 4y ago
  How did you get the word out? Did you approach different sports teams?
  - jsncbt 4y ago
    Yep, mainly focused on two sports soccer and rugby league (#1 sport in my country) which both have a culture of 3, 2, 1 voting system used in my app. I emailed the presidents or coaching staff of hundreds of clubs introducing the product.
DamnInteresting 4y ago
It kind of depends on what one means by 'making $500/month'. I operate damninteresting.com, and we receive a bit over $1600/month in donations. But a lot of that is used to pay authors for new submissions, pay editors, pay podcast narrators, pay residuals, pay for subscriptions to archives, pay for hosting fees, etc. As the founder my personal per-month profit is in the neighborhood of $600/month.
lee101 4y ago
Running https://text-generator.io https://text-generator.io which is a cheaper alternative to OpenAI text generation, with a few improvements like it also researches links and understands linked images via analysing any image content, also you can generate a set number of sentences or stop based on hitting low probability words (enables auto complete). Graphics cards cost do cost around 500 a month though right now which makes ml pretty tight margins... Hoping to sell it more to people wanting to self host in future for that reason
ptm 4y ago
I run https://mapfight.xyz https://mapfight.xyz It is a simple web app that displays map sizes without Mercator projection distortion. It hits 500$/month (google ads) on occasion.
Glench 4y ago
I made a service that lets developers take payments in browser extensions. I made it to monetize my own extensions but other devs have used it to make over $69k and counting which feels really cool. The API is open source, really easy to use, works across browsers, and doesn't cost anything until someone pays for the extension: https://extensionpay.com https://extensionpay.com Lib: https://github.com/glench/ExtPay https://github.com/glench/ExtPay
- rasulkireev 4y ago
  Thanks for making this, it's awesome!
outcoldman 4y ago
My main project was a side project 4-5 years ago. Now it pays as well as I would have salary+stock in FFANG at Principal+ levels. https://www.outcoldsolutions.com https://www.outcoldsolutions.com My current side project is Mac apps at https://loshadki.app https://loshadki.app making about $1,200 a month.
wolftickets 4y ago
https://wolftickets.ai/ https://wolftickets.ai/ , right now 1600ish MRR, started as a way to really dig into machine learning on a problem I found super interesting. Has evolved into me learning more and more about making products. Lots of work to do still!
- em1sar 4y ago
  do you place bets on your own predictions?
  - wolftickets 4y ago
    Absolutely! This has taken my 200 initial stake to bit over 5200 now.

86 points by doppp 4y ago

Previously asked here → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29995152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29995152

Real Kana (for learning hiragana and katakana), https://realkana.com/ https://realkana.com/ Monetization is ads (AdMetricsPro) and an iOS app. Seasonal popularity but it probably averages around $500/month. I would love to replace the ad engine with something less invasive (e.g. sponsors), but don't have the time or expertise.

kouteiheika 4y ago

I'm running a website for people learning Japanese (a dictionary and an SRS/Anki replacement, among other things) and currently making ~$1300/month from Patreon donations, up from ~$590/month the last time this show and tell was posted. Link to the website: https://jpdb.io/ https://jpdb.io/ Still only a side-project, and will probably stay that way for a long time still. 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

torte 4y ago
Nice. I am exploring something very similar, but for a different language. I am curious if you considered making this a business (as in paid features/subscription based) and if not why not?
- kouteiheika 4y ago
  > I am exploring something very similar, but for a different language. Which language if I may ask? I'd like to branch out into other languages too in the future (preferably into something that's easier to parse than Japanese), but since I'm nowhere near done with Japanese at this point it's probably going to take many more years until I do so. > I am curious if you considered making this a business (as in paid features/subscription based) and if not why not? I do already have some Patron-only features. For example, normal users get access to two different voices for the audio files, while Patrons get access to four; Patrons get early access to work-in-progress new features, etc. But inherently I'd like to keep the base product, and in consequence the major essential features, free. It's probably a horrible business decision, but I recognize that not everyone can actually pay, and I want those people to be able to use my site too. I was once poor too, so I know how it is.
  - torte 4y ago
    > Which language if I may ask? Mandarin Chinese. I taught myself the basics (and a bit beyond) quite a while ago, but I am unhappy with either always having to start from scratch with every new tool I try or learn irrelevant things I am not interested in. Before I have seen your site I thought this to be quite a niche use-case, maybe it still is. Really just want to scratch my own itch, but if I can also add value for others and make this a well-rounded product, even better.
2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
Is Patreon a good way to finance your side projects? How do you take the next step from there?
- kouteiheika 4y ago
  I used Patreon since it was a convenient way to 1) just get some money flowing without having to deal with all of the complexities of integrating a payment processor, e.g. without having to waste what little time I have on things like taxes (Patreon automatically handles the VAT), 2) I don't necessarily run this as I would run an actual business and most of the features are completely free, so it kinda fits Patreon's model of "supporting a creator" instead of your normal SaaS model of completely paywalling everything and giving you only a two weeks' worth of trial use, and 3) most people have already heard of Patreon, so when you're brand new and just starting out it's somewhat less sketchy than asking for people's credit card numbers directly. In the long-term I'll probably switch to using Stripe or something along those lines (while still keeping the option to use Patreon for those who prefer it), but at this income level it's not really worth my time. So to answer your question, I think that whether using Patreon is a good way to finance your side projects depends on what those projects are, and on what exactly you goals are. If you're trying to run a profitable business then what I'm doing is not a good example of what you should do. It might be totally obvious, but the more you give out for free and the more you rely on voluntary Patreon-like donations the less money you'll make. I know of other apps (using a fully paywalled financing model) in this space which have less users than I have and yet they're already hiring other people to work on them, while I can't even pay myself a livable wage to make this a full time job, never mind even thinking about paying someone else to help me out.
jpdb 4y ago
Cool project. Love the name.

camgas 4y ago

Running a service to manage remotely old phone-based intercoms (e.g DoorKing) without the need to change any hardware. We got some property managers in San Francisco and one locksmith reseller as customers. https://www.DropBy.io https://www.DropBy.io

nextaccountic 4y ago
That's a side project? The site looks very professional, congrats Anyway a bug report: https://dropby.io/privacy-policy/ https://dropby.io/privacy-policy/ is showing some CSS as text in the beginning and the end of the page
- camgas 4y ago
  Thank you Will fix! I’m still doing it on the side, but I did get some help from others over the years. Mainly some friends put some $ and got 2 other great partners helping me also on the side. One is in the property management business which is very helpful. He came first as a customer.
fanick 4y ago
Can you elaborate how there is no need for hardware changes? Are you connecting through the earpiece somehow? Some time ago I hacked our flat intercom. I needed to have a text message delivered when the intercom rang (we use it to open door to the building), I had to tap to it with an arduino.
- camgas 4y ago
  Cool. Always great to hear what people tried to do with these intercoms. I played with Arduino myself a lot for similar reasons. Thanks for sharing. It’s simple actually. We program all the units to call our cloud phone numbers. These numbers are shared among all US customers, so service is cheap to run. Also we got a patent in how we process these calls. We then process, record, forward, these calls to their destinations. And also we send text message updates for certain events.
4y ago

kumarmanket 4y ago

vladstudio 4y ago

I'm selling access to my collection of 500+ wallpapers I created over ~20 years. It is not $500/month every month, but sometimes I hit that number. Spent $0 on marketing ever (probably not a good thing, actually). After all these years, it still amazes me some people are ready to pay for pictures :-) https://vlad.studio/ https://vlad.studio/

xmonkee 4y ago
Long time fan, never thought of you as a person before this :)
- vladstudio 4y ago
  I am quite a real person, with hopes and fears :-) Thank you!
nexxer 4y ago
Oh wow I had forgotten about your wallpapers... I loved the blue earth with tiny airplanes so much that I became a paid member back in...2009. And my account still works! Kudos. Nowadays my monitors are always full of full screen windows so I never get to see the wallpaper.

hknmtt 4y ago

I started investing in stocks couple of years ago. It is probably not what you wanted to hear but it makes me a lot of money and allowed me to retire in my 30s, as a minimalist. I am a long-term investor(I hold positions at least 1 year) so the time it requires is essentially none. Besides that I tried to run multiple project in my past but none took off. The problem is that the internet has been monopolized and it is no longer about the idea or being better than competition but it is 100% about money you spend on advertising. That's what killed all my projects. I still do them because I like to code but I don't expect to ever succeed. The goods times for the internet, around 2010s, are long gone.

nixcraft 4y ago
Out of curiosity, what stocks would you (or anyone reading my comment) recommend for someone in their late 40s? TIA.
- markdown 4y ago
  This being the internet, the answer is going to be something useless like Gamestop.
  - djbusby 4y ago
    $GME and $AMC and other memes are gambling, treat them as such. That volatility is playing with fire.
- firecall 4y ago
  For me, in my 40s and based in Australia, I am invested in Apple and a three different ETFs. There are plenty of investment forums and subreddits that discuss investment and FIRE strategies, and it depends on your country. It's never too late to begin. Generally an ETF or similar is worth looking into :-)
- djbusby 4y ago
  Vanguard. Like VOO or VTWO - and once you have good savings in there, branch out to more divided payers if you'd like them to kick out some spending money. A 4-5% ARR is probable.

pokpokpok 4y ago

Adsense revenue on a simulation based web game, https://sandspiel.club https://sandspiel.club, Investing all of that money back into development though, it's a passion project.

ljf 4y ago
I love that site! My son and I used to play on it for hours when he was in train journeys with me.
fileeditview 4y ago
Wow that's really nice. Love these kinds of simulations. Well done!
justsomeuser 4y ago
How do you get your Adsense account approved for a SPA? I have similar apps, and the Adsense rejection is quite vague.

andersthue 4y ago

For 12 years my windows watermarking software has been making >500$ a month (lately just barely) https://www.watermark-image.com/ https://www.watermark-image.com/

butz 4y ago
Have you considered upgrading to web based solution? New users from other platforms, especially considering mobile devices support.

rozenmd 4y ago

I built OnlineOrNot (https://onlineornot.com https://onlineornot.com) - it's a hosted Status Page, with built-in Uptime Monitoring. It supports: * Custom domains * Private Status Pages (password protection) * Automatically posting incidents to your status page based on uptime monitoring (possible to BYO monitoring via Uptime Robot) * Subscribing to incident updates via Email The uptime monitoring itself supports websites, web apps, and APIs, and can send you alerts via: * Email * SMS (BYO Twilio account) * Webhooks * Slack/Discord

jonwinstanley 4y ago
Congrats on building up to that revenue! There seem to be a lot of these type of services, how do you differentiate yourself?
- rozenmd 4y ago
  I started off as just another uptime monitor, and just kept adding features as my customers suggested them. Eventually I took stock of what I had built, and started building it into what it is now. Some more takeaways from the start of the year here: https://onlineornot.com/what-learned-running-saas-for-year https://onlineornot.com/what-learned-running-saas-for-year You'd also be surprised at how many competitors ceased to exist over the last 18 months.

margindash 4y ago

I run a site that helps retail investors manage the margin debt in their stock portfolios. - simulated stress tests to visualize precise sellout prices - configurable, real-time alerts based on stock margin maintenance https://margindash.com/ https://margindash.com/

mgz 4y ago

I built an iOS app to control what my kids watch on Youtube: https://kidstv.family https://kidstv.family Now it makes $1500/month.

godmode2019 4y ago
How do you deal with YouTube banning you from using their iframe api as this competes with their YouTube kids app?
ElCapitanMarkla 4y ago
Nice one, this looks great. The kids are old enough to work the remote here now so I was looking into how we block certain channels, my surprise when you can’t. Well not without totally gimping your YouTube account on the TV.

avinoth 4y ago

Running https://rosterbird.com https://rosterbird.com on the side for 2 years now. It's oscillating between $800-$900 mrr for the past 3 months. I originally wanted it to be a passive income project but it has grown in scope before I even realized. Building and maintaining a B2B SaaS on the side is pretty draining. There's always more features, support requests, etc. Wouldn't recommend unless it takes off immediately or it is within a nice niche or you're planning to take it full time. I've thought about either selling it (and start any other project) or properly growing it (launch in MS teams, shift capabilites, etc) for many months now. Would appreciate if anyone has any thoughts.

quickthrower2 4y ago
I am not an expert by a long shot. My thoughts are the price is low. Maybe up the price and make $900 from fewer customers and therefore less support work.
- avinoth 4y ago
  I've just changed into the per-user pricing (From fixed rate) to give better flexibility for organizations of all sizes. Would look into the pricing again in 6 months based on how it performs for now.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Nice. If you don't mind me asking, how do you get customers? Do they find you via the Slack store? Or do you go out selling this? Or do you get people find you via search? Or ads? I am always tempted to make a slack app. Not this particular idea, likely something else.
    - avinoth 4y ago
      I don't mind. It's mostly via Slack app directory, sometimes I get through my links. I specifically wanted to build an idea in a marketplace to solve the discovery problem (as I suck at outbound marketing or any marketing in general). If you're looking to build in any marketplace, shopify is more strealimed as majority of the shopify's users spends on the apps (and the billing and stuff is integrated) compared to any other marketplace.

adithyasrin 4y ago

I'm running a job board in Germany called Arbeitnow - https://www.arbeitnow.com/ https://www.arbeitnow.com/ I launched it last January and it's been steady. I like working and learning new stuff through it, while it makes some money. Income fluctuates but overall I'm happy!

Semaphor 4y ago
Interesting, while usually job sites tend towards high-paying jobs, searching in Lübeck shows a huge percentage of retail jobs.
- adithyasrin 4y ago
  yeah, it's not restricted to only high-paying jobs or tech jobs :)

mxstbr 4y ago

I make https://bedrock.mxstbr.com https://bedrock.mxstbr.com, selling a full-stack Next.js & GraphQL boilerplate for building SaaS products, which comes with: * A complete TypeScript toolchain with end-to-end typesafety from the database to the client * User authentication * Subscription payments * Teams * Invitations It's also completely unstyled, which is somewhat unusual in this space. I've found that most of the time, people would just delete all the styling anyway, so instead, the frontend only contains the minimal code necessary to make the functionality work. I originally launched it in February last year, and it's still going strong now!

em1sar 4y ago
Hi, big fan of Rebass, Theme UI..although sometimes Theme UI with Next.js doesn't work right out of the box, are you still the maintainer of these libraries? And how did you get the word out for your boilerplate product, just on Twitter? Do you have any tips on how to find a niche where a good, well maintained boilerplate is missing and how to make it profitable? Thanks
- mxstbr 4y ago
  Thanks for the nice words! I stopped maintaining ThemeUI when I left Gatsby in 2021. In terms of getting the word out, it's really all based on my personal audience. I haven't found a repeatable marketing channel outside of just… tweeting about it, which is also visible in declining sales as I saturate that channel. Would love to hear your thoughts!

sonixier 4y ago

Ethereum Staking.

valryon 4y ago

I’ve released my game Flipon https://flipon.net https://flipon.net end of 2020 and while it’s not a huge success, it’s still quite a consistent flow of income (300-500€). Doesn’t require much maintenance, maybe some new content soon.

woutr_be 4y ago
I'd say that sounds like a huge success, 300-500 euro is a decent extra bid of money for most people.

sci_prog 4y ago

My wife and I made a small, word based multiplayer mobile game (gibberish game) in 2020 during first lockdowns. It's been making over $500 consistently ever since: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/guess-the-gibberish/id1513796144?ls=1 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/guess-the-gibberish/id15137961...

jonwinstanley 4y ago
Wow that’s great! There’s hundreds of word games on the App Store - do you do a lot of marketing and promotion to gain new users?

jsncbt 4y ago

Last month was the first time I got to $500/month with an app I have built for sports teams to manage their player of the season voting. https://getcontendo.com https://getcontendo.com

em1sar 4y ago
How did you get the word out? Did you approach different sports teams?
- jsncbt 4y ago
  Yep, mainly focused on two sports soccer and rugby league (#1 sport in my country) which both have a culture of 3, 2, 1 voting system used in my app. I emailed the presidents or coaching staff of hundreds of clubs introducing the product.

DamnInteresting 4y ago

It kind of depends on what one means by 'making $500/month'. I operate damninteresting.com, and we receive a bit over $1600/month in donations. But a lot of that is used to pay authors for new submissions, pay editors, pay podcast narrators, pay residuals, pay for subscriptions to archives, pay for hosting fees, etc. As the founder my personal per-month profit is in the neighborhood of $600/month.

lee101 4y ago

Running https://text-generator.io https://text-generator.io which is a cheaper alternative to OpenAI text generation, with a few improvements like it also researches links and understands linked images via analysing any image content, also you can generate a set number of sentences or stop based on hitting low probability words (enables auto complete). Graphics cards cost do cost around 500 a month though right now which makes ml pretty tight margins... Hoping to sell it more to people wanting to self host in future for that reason

ptm 4y ago

I run https://mapfight.xyz https://mapfight.xyz It is a simple web app that displays map sizes without Mercator projection distortion. It hits 500$/month (google ads) on occasion.

Glench 4y ago

I made a service that lets developers take payments in browser extensions. I made it to monetize my own extensions but other devs have used it to make over $69k and counting which feels really cool. The API is open source, really easy to use, works across browsers, and doesn't cost anything until someone pays for the extension: https://extensionpay.com https://extensionpay.com Lib: https://github.com/glench/ExtPay https://github.com/glench/ExtPay

rasulkireev 4y ago
Thanks for making this, it's awesome!

outcoldman 4y ago

My main project was a side project 4-5 years ago. Now it pays as well as I would have salary+stock in FFANG at Principal+ levels. https://www.outcoldsolutions.com https://www.outcoldsolutions.com My current side project is Mac apps at https://loshadki.app https://loshadki.app making about $1,200 a month.

wolftickets 4y ago

https://wolftickets.ai/ https://wolftickets.ai/ , right now 1600ish MRR, started as a way to really dig into machine learning on a problem I found super interesting. Has evolved into me learning more and more about making products. Lots of work to do still!

em1sar 4y ago
do you place bets on your own predictions?
- wolftickets 4y ago
  Absolutely! This has taken my 200 initial stake to bit over 5200 now.