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Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

• dave333 4y ago
  Free daily sudoku websites monetized with (a few) ads have provided steady income for nearly 20 years now and require very little maintenance: https://samurai-sudoku.com https://samurai-sudoku.com https://sudokuprintables.org https://sudokuprintables.org https://fiendishsudoku.com https://fiendishsudoku.com https://extremesudoku.info https://extremesudoku.info For a while after the dot com bust I sold music CDs via Amazon and also refurbished docking stations and power adapters for laptops.
• erhosen 4y ago
  https://apps.apple.com/app/tactris-tactical-puzzle/id1537306366?platform=iphone https://apps.apple.com/app/tactris-tactical-puzzle/id1537306... Simple IOS game, that I wrote during COVID. IDK how, but it's pays for itself (apple subscriptions is 100$/year, game revenue 100$/year)
• qxxx 4y ago
  In the 2000 I used to write a windows tool. It was making me some pocket money until I stopped it in 2015.. I stopped it because it was in the end kinda high maintenance (support mails = time) and I needed to pay taxes, so I basically got 0 or needed even to pay to keep this alive. But until then it was a nice source of passive income. I wish I could make more of these tools. It was nothing big but I spent at least 1 year developing it (I was still learning so I think I could make this in 6 months or less nowadays)
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• jusdifferent 4y ago
• Gortal278 4y ago
  Working at a FANG in software development has been pretty outstanding income wise. Much better than hustling a few different freelance/contracts/side hustles for me at this point in my life.
  • giaour 4y ago
    Same. The amount of overhead involved in any side hustle is just too high compared to getting stuff done as an employee. even volunteering as anything but unskilled labor is a hassle.
    • amazon_illegal 4y ago
    • to1y 4y ago
      There's no overheads as a employee but too many in solo endeavours? Did you get that the right way around?
      • scubbo 4y ago
        Replying to remind myself to check back here, because I agree with giaour and I'm curious where the misunderstanding is. Being an employee is simple - do (good-enough-to-not-get-fired) work, get paid. Entrepreneurship requires you to identify a target market, figure out a product that would work for it, create that product, market it, actually sell it, ship it, do the associated financial admin, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm not thinking of. The amount of potential gain-per-effort is higher than in employment - but the amount of work you have to go through in order to get to that point is also higher.
      • nonethewiser 4y ago
        No extra overhead as an employee.
      • giaour 4y ago
        Yep! To contract, I have to find clients, solicit project work, write invoices, keep after clients for payment; in general, I have to do all the extroverted business shit I became a software developer to avoid doing. As an employee, I can work on problems I identify, invest time in mentoring colleagues, spend time building a skill that will be of long term but not immediate benefit to my employer, etc: stuff nobody would pay a contractor to do.
• ThalesX 4y ago
  Working full time. I haven't been able in a decade to get anywhere near close to living wage with my 'side gigs'.
• recursivedoubts 4y ago
  this is like asking a fisherman where his best fishing spots are
  • unsupp0rted 4y ago
    It might be like asking a fisherman what fish he catches most
  • bloodyplonker22 4y ago
    The mentality of your statement is the same as when college kids refuse to tell VCs their ideas because they think VCs will steal it.
    • svnt 4y ago
      They won’t steal it but they will float it to their networks for validation and if any of them are looking to pick something up and run with it, now they’ve got the same idea from a known-quantity team. It absolutely happens.
      • nlh 4y ago
        It may happen but the benefits of being secretive are lower than the benefits of sharing an idea and getting constructive feedback. One of the earliest fallacies I learned as an entrepreneur is that ideas need to be protected lest someone "steal" them or "beat me to the punch." It's just not true. The benefits of sharing an idea and getting feedback far far far outweigh the minuscule risk that sharing an idea will spark a competitor that will end up outcompeting me. Now - having said that - posting your ideas in detail on a public thread on Hacker News doesn't necessarily have the same benefits, so I can see the hesitation ;)
        • svnt 4y ago
          Yeah there is a level of paranoia that can be problematically isolating. In my experience it really depends on the type of idea, the other types of validation you already have, and your existing relationship to the funding network. The more moonshot the idea, the more validation you can get outside of funding pitches, and the less cozy your relationship with the (well-networked) money, the more risk you get from sharing. Many of these companies will pitch the big-picture what and why but not disclose the how, which is the magic. On the other hand, if the what and why are all the value and you share them before you’ve at least somewhat captured them then you risk giving away the opportunity, because the how is just what you’re asking for: the resources.
• dglass 4y ago
  Aside from my full time career as a programmer, the best side income stream I've built has been my book I wrote[0] to help software engineers develop the soft-skills that are necessary to reach a senior level position. I spent 4 years on and off writing and preparing the book for publication, and it's been bringing in a steady stream of income since it was published in October 2022. [0]: https://www.holloway.com/b/junior-to-senior https://www.holloway.com/b/junior-to-senior
  • codethief 4y ago
    Does the purchase also include an offline/PDF version?
• ZenMasterThis 4y ago
  Aside from my regular job, life modeling. Not a huge income generator (around $19,000 total over the last 5 years), but the pose research, networking, booking sessions, actually doing the modeling, and reporting on / posting the artwork from my sessions on my social media is pretty much a "sole passion" for me.
  • hartator 4y ago
    That’s awesome. Do you have a link to your social media?
    • ZenMasterThis 4y ago
      Yes! ... https://sites.google.com/view/brian-life-model/home https://sites.google.com/view/brian-life-model/home
  • totetsu 4y ago
    pose research?
    • ZenMasterThis 4y ago
      Yes! The human body has the potential to do a tremendous variety of poses. To keep it interesting for me and my artists, I regularly scan the Instagram posters I follow, as well as other sources (like classical art sites), and save interesting ones I'd like to try. Then I run a slideshow of the poses on my home TV. I'll take a moment to look as I pass by while doing chores, or I'll spend some dedicated time actually doing the poses for timed intervals.
• sarora27 4y ago
  My cofounder and I have bootstrapped two software products that are generating revenue today with minimal involvement on our side. The first product is a B2B onboarding platform. This product generates approx. $100k/year. Our second product is a microsaas that turns google drive folders into a hosted, searchable wiki with one click. This product is making $2k/month. Both products require minimum support and continue to sustain themselves. One thing to note is that we did work full time on both of these products for like 1.5 years during the pandemic. At the time, it was definitely not the best income stream we had created but became so after we both got "real" jobs again.
  • scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
    What’s the name of the Google drive folders product?
    • sarora27 4y ago
      https://kbee.app https://kbee.app Please let me know if you have any feedback on it!
      • dicriseg 4y ago
        Great landing page. Did you create that yourselves? The one thing I seem to struggle with is creating a nice looking landing page - it's just not something I'm good at. If you used a third party, any chance you'd say who that was?
        • thesandlord 4y ago
          Co-founder here. We originally made the landing page in Webflow. This worked ok but had some negative SEO benefits because our main app was forced to be on a subdomain. We remade the page using a Tailwind template, which coincided with migrating our app to Tailwind. I highly recommend just using a template unless you are a designer, plenty of free or low cost ones out there. I like these: https://cruip.com/ https://cruip.com/ Most important thing is having a good CTA, value props, and testimonials. Took us a lot of work to refine these. We also worked with a graphic designer to make the art assets / logo / etc. I'm sure she would be happy to have more clients, DM me (see bio) for info.
• vlaxx 4y ago
  Got a job and then married someone who also has a job. We go to work, make our money, come home and relax.
  • devoutsalsa 4y ago
    Next level house hacking.
  • maria2 4y ago
    If you have kids, you lose "come home and relax" unfortunately.
    • mistercheph 4y ago
      Yes, unless you love your kids.
      • maria2 4y ago
        Even when you love your kids, I don’t think caring for them can be described as relaxing.
      • edanm 4y ago
        No, that's completely false. You can love your kids but still find it non-relaxing to take care of them. Just ask... literally any parent.
        • fortysixdegrees 4y ago
          Don't ask me... Spending time with the kids, looking after them or not is super relaxing. It's the best bit of life.
          • edanm 4y ago
            I agree that it's the best bit of life. But how on earth you manage to find a crying baby that decides to wake you up in the middle of the night relaxing is beyond me :)
• scrumbledober 4y ago
  definitely my paycheck from being a full time software engineer
• pianoben 4y ago
  Exercising options in a startup that I was convinced wasn't going anywhere but had great tech, and would be a decent acquisition within a year or two. Turns out, they shook off both their doldrums and their VC-fueled overambition and started throwing off cash. The first dividend check alone quadrupled my investment cost, and they're still going strong.
  • HPMOR 4y ago
    Since most tech companies don't pay dividends, I'm very curious as to which company you're referring to.
    • pianoben 4y ago
      A small tech company whose founders decided that they preferred to take cash out of their startup rather than pursue a VC-desired exit. In other words, they converted their startup into what is sometimes known as a "small business".
• Mushhh 4y ago
  My partner and I created a very successful business in the UK out of selling mushroom grow kits and microscopy spores. We didn’t think there would be any market here because there weren’t any UK shops doing it. Then a couple of years later it took off and growing mushrooms became cool. In this time we learned how to run a webshop and navigate an industry where every payment processor dropped us - to the point where we only accept cash, bank transfer and crypto. Our Woocommerce shop was built on pure passion for mushrooms and a crazy late night idea. The kinds you usually just leave as an idea. Now it has consumed our lives and we have multiple employees. Our business continues to grow with recent months bringing in around £60K/month in revenue. I had never known what it was like going to a supermarket and not having to add the cost of everything in my head. But with the money, I learned the most valuable lesson - it could all go tomorrow and I would be totally fine with it.
  • mikeodds 4y ago
    what’s the site?
  • 10000truths 4y ago
    I’m curious, why did every payment processor drop you? Did they see “mushroom” and assume you were selling psilocybin mushrooms or something?
    • OJFord 4y ago
      They make £60k pcm in cash, bank transfer, and crypto from it - they must be?
      • Mushhh 4y ago
        No. Absolutely not.
        • MagicMoonlight 4y ago
          But you literally are, you just said you sell them. You sell magic mushroom spores and kits for growing them
• marpstar 4y ago
  I had partnering with a marketing agency for awhile doing implementation of their designs in WordPress. After a few years of clients breaking their sites doing upgrades and other ad-hoc questions/enhancement requests coming via email, I got tired of sending $100-200 invoices, so I started selling "WordPress Maintenance" as a product. It's not fun or sexy, but don't underestimate the number of organizations willing to pay $3K/year to be able to email you for advice, install plugins, add custom post types, and keep things up to date. I've got ~12 clients now (started with 4 in 2017) and it's an "easy" $30K every year. FWIW, I work exclusively with local clients. Local clients, in my experience, are more willing to pay more to local people.
  • dhdhhdd 4y ago
    What's your responsibility of things go south and the wordpress gets hacked? Do you have liability insurance or any other protections in place?
    • BjoernKW 4y ago
      Anyone providing professional services should have liability insurance. Furthermore, unless a service provider has been acting negligently or has given some sort of guarantee like "With my services, your WordPress instance won't be hacked.", they usually can't be held responsible for actions and outcomes that are out of their control.
      • zdragnar 4y ago
        Specifically, I believe you are looking for E&O (errors and omissions) insurance. Make a mistake doing something, or mistakenly not do something, and it will cover your liability up to whatever coverage you buy. As you say, willful negligence, malicious acts, false advertising and fraud are of course not covered.
  • wnolens 4y ago
    For kicks I once saved a local company I was working at about $30k by installing a wordpress caching plugin. Their website went down when they got some international attention, and the consultants they hired designed a "solution" which involved big dedicated machines to host their (essentially text+image) wordpress site. The site wasn't my job at all, but when I overheard the price (and read their engineering plan) I asked for admin access and told them 10mins later to fire the consultants. The director of engineering (an awesome guy) advised that I register a business and not use my name, then he hired me under pseudonym as their new consultant and I billed them at twice the rate they were paying me during the day for a few hours here and there at night (in retrospect, a total steal for them as I was an intern..)
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• deanmoriarty 4y ago
  Most lucrative: my FAANG job Most satisfying: my investment portfolio of passive index funds
  • danbrooks 4y ago
    This is my income situation as well. Career investments have a higher ROI than side hustles for me.
    • OJFord 4y ago
      That's surely the case for everybody? I can't imagine bothering to go to work for less money than I'm making in the evenings/weekends - why not do the 'side hustle' full time instead, or use the time for something new, or family, or whatever.
  • mycall 4y ago
    Do you still think index funds like Vanguard Total World is good to invest in now, as you watch stock market slowly losing steam this year?
    • deanmoriarty 4y ago
      I do not know, but I am not changing strategy. This year, just like I did for the past 10, I invested all my paycheck savings into VTI/VXUS despite suffering 6 figures unrealized losses from them. I plan on doing the same next year, and for as long as I am employed/have disposable income. Every spare dollar I find, outside of my emergency fund, gets immediately invested.
      • HPMOR 4y ago
        Investing if like being a batter where you get to choose when to swing and have an unlimited number of pitches. Just wait for that slow easy one, and hit a home run. -- poorly paraphrased Buffett quote
    • lotsofpulp 4y ago
• margindash 4y ago
  starting a micro SAAS on the side (https://margindash.com/ https://margindash.com/)
• jawns 4y ago
  Wrote a book, published nine years ago. I earned back my advance after about five years and have been receiving royalty checks ever since. This year, it surpassed 100,000 copies sold. Just a little note for other would-be authors ... it's never been easier to self-publish -- but getting a book deal with a traditional publisher still has substantial upsides, particularly on the distribution side. There are exceptions (e.g. if you expect digital versions to constitute the vast majority of sales). But by and large, you're better off getting a book deal if you can.
  • jobs_throwaway 4y ago
    what kind of book?
    • ojbyrne 4y ago
      Presumably the first one on his profile page.
    • jawns 4y ago
      Details are in my bio, but it's a pop-science book for new parents. It got a big publicity boost when Parents magazine ran excerpts, and a gigantic publicity boost when "The Big Bang Theory" wrote an episode where my book was a central plot element.
      • nsxwolf 4y ago
        The title is fantastic.
      • barbs 4y ago
        Hah! I saw your comment and was intrigued since I have been looking for a Christmas present for my brother and his 7-month old son. Then I looked at your bio and realised it was the book I'd bought for him last Christmas. Thanks, it's such a great book!
      • edanm 4y ago
        Oh I got your book years ago based off of an HN comment. What a fun book. Got it for baby #1 but I'm on baby #3 now :)
• scarface74 4y ago
  Being able to go work everyday and exchange labor for money. When the pay/shit factor starts going in the wrong direction, getting another job. When the company disappears from under me, calling people in my network and finding someplace else that will give me money for my skillset and experience. There is way too much emphasis on trying to find a “side hustle” and starting a company when the best statistical path forward for most developers is to “grind LeetCode and work for a $techCompany” (tm r/cscareerquestions) I’m old enough and experienced enough to make FAANG money without having to jump through those hoops. But I still give that advice to anyone in the field.
  • makestuff 4y ago
    Out of curiosity, what industry do you work in that doesn't require the leetcode hoops but still pays as well as FAANG? Or is it just due to your experience and network?
    • scarface74 4y ago
      I was a long time (18 year) journeyman enterprise software developer until 2014 by trade. I then started getting “architect” type jobs as far as responsibility. Where I was brought in when the companies needed to mature their processes. But I was still hands on. I belatedly discovered the “cloud” in 2017 and in 2018 I was hired at a startup where the then new CTO wanted to be cloud native and was envisioning pivoting the company to selling micro services to support large health care companies apps and websites (that came in handy post Covid). I led the efforts. Two years later a recruiter called me from Amazon Retail about a software developer position. I had no interest in either working for any large company as a software developer or doing the leetCode monkey dance at 46. We kept talking and she suggested that I apply for a role in AWS Professional Services consulting in “application modernization” - full stack app dev + cloud + “Devops” + a lot of customer facing/presentation responsibilities. The rest is history. I don’t recommend this statistically unlikely route to anyone. 99% of developers should “grind leetCode” and get a good at coding interviews. Working for small companies, I just happen to have experience from pre-sales all the way to implementation down the stack to cloud infrastructure. Not bragging, I’m just old /s.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• spacemark 4y ago
  I'm a mechanical engineer (satellites currently, launch vehicles and satellite payloads previously). On the side I sell budget star tracking astrophotography mounts I designed and build in my basement. I also do a few consulting gigs each year. These efforts combined bring in an extra ~25k annually. My plan is to develop two more space-related products, hire a tech, and transition to more of an oversight and design role rather than the one guy running the whole thing. For the record I don't think most people should do this, it is not a balanced life to work this much, generally speaking. But for me it's a worthy discomfort to relieve financial pressures from student debt and being the only breadwinner of a young family. Plus it's fun stuff, I get to design cool products which is what I do for fun anyway, I just usually stop at the level of prototype when it's just for me. ;)
  • clay-dreidels 4y ago
    I'm in the same situation that you were in, and I'm looking for an extra revenue stream.
• nsxwolf 4y ago
  I made about $10,000 over a few years on Fiverr doing voiceover work. Then the algorithm changed and poof, no more orders, ever again.
  • zumafan 4y ago
    Interesting, can you elaborate?
    • tehwebguy 4y ago
      Yeah would love to hear about when + how it changed
    • nsxwolf 4y ago
      When I started my "gig", I just kind of threw it out there. I fairly quickly started getting a lot of orders every week. Over time I had a few really good regular customers, my orders were about half from them and half from random one-offs. A couple years into it I started reading in the forums about changes to the search algorithm and how it was hammering people and killing their existing gigs. It was all speculation since it's not transparent. Shortly after that, I started to notice the random one off orders completely stopped. I was still getting orders from my regulars, but over time their business started to drop off. A lot of those customers were using my services to fulfill orders on their own gigs (lots of whiteboard animation videos, things like that). So I imagine some of them also dropped off due to the algorithm and I went with it. When they were gone, it was over. I'm left with a gig with over 500 completed orders with a perfect 5 star rating, that never gets seen by anyone. There isn't much in the way of SEO you can do - you have your gig description and you can add some keywords. There is a system for buying ads - I tried that out, but it didn't lead to any clicks.
      • timbucktoo 4y ago
        >I'm left with a gig with over 500 completed orders with a perfect 5 star rating, that never gets seen by anyone. So if you're not getting orders with what seems like a very strong rating, who is?
• darkwizard42 4y ago
  My fiancee sells self-made art somewhat successfully for the last 9 months. I contribute by managing communication with buyers through FB Marketplace, Craigslist, and while we tried Etsy, it didn't do that well. We specifically target the mid-range market which means we price below top artists on Etsy/Instagram, but above cheap prints and generic Ikea style art. It definitely requires a lot of physical work on her part and our spare bedroom is basically a pile of canvas, paint, plaster, and other supplies, but it has generated over $10,000 in revenue. We could optimize more and she could make prints of some of her better paintings, but she does it for fun and most of the money she uses for shopping (and I spend my share on triathlon gear!)
  • RedditKon 4y ago
    I have a friend who sells Christmas ornaments on Etsy and makes ~$5k every holiday season.
  • klondike_klive 4y ago
    That's awesome! Good on you both.
• tru3_power 4y ago
  Main Hustle: FAANG Side Hustle: Rental income
• imafish 4y ago
  I developed a Shopify app that solves a niche problem. It has grown slowly over 4 years. Current income at 80k/year with relatively low maintenance. I have a full time job as a software engineer on the side.
  • iamlolz 4y ago
    I've recently been considering building a Shopify app(product renting) but I can't figure out if there is a demand. A similar app has <10 reviews. Do you have any advice?
    • bag_boy 4y ago
      Reddit has a good Shopify community - ask them if they’re familiar with the concept. You can also do a 7 day trial of SEMRush and do some competitive research on the app’s domain. See if they’re ranking for any keywords/how much search traffic the keywords have.
  • artemonster 4y ago
    How have you stumbled upon this niche and recognized a need for this?
    • xcubic 4y ago
      That was also my question
• ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  I have businesses which gave me a taxable income of $4 million. Mostly passive. All of them are tech businesses. Started off with a few foundational ideas I came up with through trial and error over 10 years.
  • xcubic 4y ago
    All are Saas?
  • spaceman_2020 4y ago
    Amazing! Care to elaborate more?
    • ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
      I won't give away the exact niches but they are in the universal, evergreen problems: wealth, health and love. I charge really high around $300 per month. That way you cut through the b.s. and it is clear you are delivering value or not. Also helps with the marketing as I can get more per customer than I spend on acquiring them. Usually saas businesses all seem to charge really low like $10 / month for some reason. That is a mistake in my opinion. There are lot of wealthy people in the world for whom $300 and even higher is nothing if it totally solves a problem. I also provide human customer support because of that high price point so they like it if they have a problem. Then I hired managers for each business who manage it for me and now it is almost a replicable model that I can use when starting any business.
      • spaceman_2020 4y ago
        Thanks for sharing. Seems like you've found your product-market fit! I do agree that many SaaS services are underpriced (and many overpriced). SaaS entrepreneurs should take a bit more risk and try pricing their products at the higher end - even if its for an experimental duration.
      • mmcconnell1618 4y ago
        Are the manager roles full time positions or is it something that I could do on the side to learn from your experience?
• dt3ft 4y ago
  Starting https://pdf2qrcode.com https://pdf2qrcode.com It does not bring in a whole lot, but I like having a side hustle.
  • masukomi 4y ago
    That site's awesome. Simple focused product. It's clear what it does. It's clear what it costs. only thing i'd suggest is that you add more examples of what where people can put those QR codes. I think most folks in the US don't "get" QR codes, or how they could benefit from them. Also it'd be good google food. probably a description of how easy it is to scan them on iOS and android. I think a bunch of folks still don't know it's built into the phone apps.
  • chasd00 4y ago
    i really like this, great example of a small side hustle.
• powvans 4y ago
  When I was in college I sold discarded text books on half.com. This isn’t my best income stream, but in many ways it was my favorite. After the Spring 2000 semester, I noticed that the bookstores had junk book bins. Students would dump into the bins any books that the bookstore would not buy back. Anyone was welcome to rummage through the bin and if they found something interesting they could keep it. The bookstores wouldn’t buy books back if they knew that a new version had been released. They of course wanted to avoid being stuck with useless inventory. I wondered if these books had residual value elsewhere. I collected a few and took them home and started looking up them up on half.com. Sure enough, all of them had listings and lots of them were listed for 10’s of dollars! For the next few days I made a continuous circuit around all the bookstores, loading my car with any books I found in the bins, and dumping them in my living room. At night I would list the day’s haul. Because my inventory was free, I always listed $1 lower than the cheapest listing. I now had an inventory of several thousand books and a very irritated set of roommates, including my future wife. All I had to do was sit back and wait for classes to start somewhere in the world where one of these books might still be in use. Within a week orders started to roll in. Soon I was heading to the post office daily with a huge load of books. Things would quiet down whenever a there was a lull in sessions starting. I’d replenish inventory as the various summer sessions completed. Fall semester generated a huge bump sales and I was able to get a huge inventory of books when the semester ended. Unfortunately that proved to be the last semester of junk book bins. The stores got wise to what the kid in the beat up Honda was up to and started collecting the junk books for themselves. I continued to sell what books I had and that went on for the rest of the time I was in school. After graduation my wife demanded that I chuck the rest. She’d had enough of random stacks of old textbooks.
  • ozfive 4y ago
    Wow, what a scrappy story! Thank you for sharing and happy that you got rid of the remaining books to marry your wife!
  • oefnak 4y ago
    Yes, take the free books meant for poor students and sell them! (It's smart, but I think it is morally wrong.)
• XCSme 4y ago
  I built a license-based self-hosted analytics platform (https://uxwizz.com https://uxwizz.com), the revenue varies, earning around $1500/mo on average without any real marketing, I like building it more than marketing it. Started it 9 years ago, still working on it.
• chasd00 4y ago
  To date the best one i created was a specialized billing/inventory system for an injectable class of mental health drugs for community clinics in Mississippi. I did it on the side while fully employed (heh the advantages of youth and no family). Mississippi's medicaid system couldn't handle the coding and so it was paper and it took forever for pharmacies to be reimbursed and so no pharmacy would dispense the drugs. I developed it with a pharmacist friend of mine (former boss) who took on the expensive risk of stocking the drugs and then he paid me probably $75k over about a year to work on it with him. It made him a lot of money and when he eventually sold his pharmacy he wrote me a check for $50k. I have the email i sent to him announcing the system was live framed and hung on my wall. i was pretty naive then, i wish i could do the whole thing over.
  • TMWNN 4y ago
    >i was pretty naive then, i wish i could do the whole thing over. Do you mean that you would have done the financial details differently? Like, be paid per filled prescription?
    • chasd00 4y ago
      The rxs were $4-5k a pop so we couldn’t let the clinics lose anything. I came with an idea of putting nfc stickers on the boxes and then we distributed android small form factor tablets with a mobile app I wrote to all the clinics. They would use those and check in/out of inventory and recording an administration was all done through touching the box to the tablet. Now I have the connections and know how to apply that to a much larger audience. At the time I was just like “this is pretty cool right?” with no idea of how much money the setup was worth to other industries. (This was like 8 years ago or so)
• femto113 4y ago
  My favorite so far was a company I founded about 20 years ago with a friend who worked in the film sound industry. He had an idea for a hyper-niche tool for automatically syncing changes from video to sound (industry term is "conforming"). He'd approached a couple people/companies he knew that made tools in adjacent spaces but got turned down with "that's impossible" or "it's not worth it". I had no experience in the space but I got intrigued just from a "can it be done" perspective and coded it up. Once written it required very little maintenance, it was just available on our website for download and we used a shareware service to deal with licensing and sales. Only marketing was word of mouth. Every time someone bought a copy the shareware service would send a text, so I set the text alert sound for their number to be the cash register sound. It was a small addressable market so didn't sell all that often but it was always a little dopamine boost to hear the "ka-ching" come out of my phone. Most sales only netted me a couple hundred bucks, but every once in a while a big player (like a movie studio) would pick up a bunch of copies at once. Eventually sold it off to a competitor and collected a small royalty stream for another few years.
• fm2606 4y ago
  My current job that I started in August of this year. It is a huge health care org Happy with the pay Benefits are top notch: insurance is less than half of what I was paying at previous job. Traditional pension plan (no monetary input from me) along with retirement health insurance (huge, huge for me since I have chronic health issues) 401K option + matching tuition reimbursement (I am stoked about this but not sure of when I will take advantage of it) Lots of free resources (OReilly books, Udemy and Pluralsight)
• mtnGoat 4y ago
  Not spammy but actually useful SEO optimized informational websites. Easy long term revenue, some have paid out well over $5k an hour, in income for the amount of time I put into them. And apps on various app stores.
  • ta_u 4y ago
    How do you monetise the informational websites?
    • mtnGoat 4y ago
      Ads, unfortunately.
  • xcubic 4y ago
    Where do you source your content from?
    • mtnGoat 4y ago
      Create it. Otherwise it’s just SEO spam, IMHO.
      • xcubic 4y ago
        Never meant in that way. Do you create it? Got someone to do it for you? Also, how do you pick topics for websites?
        • mtnGoat 4y ago
          I usually write it myself based on topics I am learning about or already know about. Or topics where good qualities of reference data is available for free use that can be spun or joined. Review sites also do very well. Build enough of them, create a PBN and sell links as a secondary revenue source.
• 65 4y ago
  The easiest money I ever made was doing affiliate marketing for a domain name registrar. They would pay you $20 every time someone signed up for their free domain name promotion. I just posted on /r/freebies every week for two months. Made a few thousand dollars until the registrar realized how much they were overpaying the affiliate marketers, and they stopped doing the free domain name promotion.
• kebsup 4y ago
  I make around 200-300 USD per month through https://gifmemes.io https://gifmemes.io. Basically zero maintenance, but I'll add user generated templates one of these days. Will be nice to "automated" content generation in addition to "automated" income generation.
  • yurishimo 4y ago
    Just wanted to reply that I love your site. Every 6 months or so, I forget what it's called but the demo of Jack Sparrow and the rotoscoped chase sequence always brings me back! I'll scour HN for a while hope I remember. After my most recent forgotten event, I did bookmark it and now I have this comment. Hopefully I can remember now. :)
  • philsnow 4y ago
    Have you gotten bothered with any copyright issues (founded or unfounded) yet?
    • kebsup 4y ago
      Nothing yet.
• wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Surprised how few of these answers involve automating revenue, mostly selling continued labor Currently the best I've made is from iOS apps with little to no server backend, or async server-sync'd offline-first local DBs tolerant of downtime to minimize on-call requirements. I make money through recurring IAP, and offer student etc. discounted rates without any verification to capture more sales. These apps grow organically when I don't put time into them actively.
  • rd 4y ago
    I'm trying to get into this. Have a ton of ideas for apps that I know I would myself find useful, just don't know if they would ever be noticed by anyone else but me. any tips?
    • wahnfrieden 4y ago
      I targeted a niche (Japanese language learning) with communities that already exist and discuss resources intensively. Then I built what they're looking for (and what I could tell from other language communities that they would like but aren't actively asking for) and went to those existing communities where people already are to introduce it. I also actively respond on Twitter, Reddit, other niche forums etc. and plug my couple apps in non-intrusive ways when relevant. My users also recommend the apps within these communities. Some journalists and competitor publications also mentioned/reviewed my apps which helped, without me pitching them. I think the niche I chose to start with is particularly good because it is full of many tech-oriented people who already share and discuss resources, and has people who are fatigued with overly-configurable setups and are looking for easier solutions. I have plans for pushing this much further (getting people to spread word of mouth more actively, virality elements, interesting ways to share content) but this was enough to get going and quit my job. I also put keywords of some loosely competitive apps and former dead apps or Android-specific apps that people will still look for into iOS app store keywords so that my apps show up in search results. Technically not allowed but it is the norm and I see competitors do it with mine. I also try to leverage everything I do in multiple ways, so that I have features I can reuse across other apps, a common foundation, etc. I'll start documenting these practices in the open under indiedevstack.com but haven't set that up yet.
• spaceman_2020 4y ago
  I've had quite a few: 1. Selling domain names. This was when I was in college and somehow traded my way into mid-high five-figure domain names. I turned over $100k in profits in a year, and then 2008 happened and all markets collapsed. 2. Starting a D2C brand. Shipping is automated via a third-party provider. Sourcing is easy since I have a very reliable supplier. All marketing is through word of mouth. I get around 300 orders on Amazon monthly, some 100 on our website, and land the occassional business order that gets me around 2,000 orders extra per year. Not a huge money maker, but pays my mortgage for practically 2-3 hours of work/month. 3. I ran an informational website about music production (I produce as a hobby). Somehow, a few of my articles became popular and I landed a ton of good links. Google loved my website and I was pulling in mid four-figures in affiliate checks every month. That went on for years even when I stopped working on the site.
  • mapster 4y ago
    How do you stay engaged when ‘easy money’ rolls in nicely, month after month after month? I am in a similar situ and sometimes it feels easy to lose focus and play all the time.
  • godmode2019 4y ago
    How did you sell them? I have a bunch of domain names but never figured out a way to sell them.
    • Aromasin 4y ago
      https://sedo.com/us/ https://sedo.com/us/ is the largest listing site I know of, if you want to sell at a fixed price. https://uk.auctions.godaddy.com/ https://uk.auctions.godaddy.com/ is the largest auction site. If you're looking for a quick sell, this is the place.
    • spaceman_2020 4y ago
      Currently, I'm mostly using Dan.com. My earlier successes were largely trading on domain name forums (DNForum, NamePros) but they've been dead for quite a while.
• fxtentacle 4y ago
  https://www.newaudiotechnology.com/ https://www.newaudiotechnology.com/ A shared friend introduced me to someone who claimed to be a struggling Hollywood genius. We were all drinking at some university party. He told us about all the cool shit he would do if only technology wasn't so bad. So I built a tool to solve his issues. To my surprise, he used it on the Expendables 3 blurays. Later, the audio crew for George Lukas' Red Tails praised the tool in an interview. Hollywood guy got grammy nominated. I got paid first for development and then licensing fees. But I mostly like it not for the financials, but because this way my software made it onto a few magazine covers :) I collected all of them.
  • sudomatic 4y ago
    That's great that your software was able to help someone and that they were able to use it successfully in their work. But remember, the true value of what you've created goes beyond just the financial gain or the recognition you may have received. The real reward is the knowledge and satisfaction that comes from creating something that can have a positive impact on others!
  • jalino23 4y ago
    this is super cool! thanks for sharing!!
  • hypertexthero 4y ago
    Amazing! Is the Spatial Sound Card L a bit like a software version of the Sound Blaster 16bit cards? Does it affect performance much on Mac and PC? I played the original Thief using a Sound Blaster card and still remember the audio giving me goosebumps!
  • comprev 4y ago
    This is a great example of why I frequent HN. The vast range of users makes this site so rich.
  • mfrye0 4y ago
    fxtentacle, I remember chatting with you briefly earlier this year about all the projects you had worked on, and you didn't even mention this one. You are one interesting dude.
• InsOp 4y ago
  I have created a software agency 4 years ago. we are full remote and 5 fulltime and 7 partime workers (some working students included). I pay myself 70k p.a. and reinvest the rest into the company. it is growing around 100% in revenue each year. in the beginning I asked myself whether it's worth it not to just develop for a big company, but now it pays. I don't even have to work the full 8 hours a day.
  • artemonster 4y ago
    Quick question: what software „stack“ do you use to manage a fully remote team? What erp (if you have any), project tracking, cloud storage, chat, etc. I am really interested in logistics of running such a company. Thank you for your time!
    • InsOp 4y ago
      im glad you asked: we try to use Foss as much as possible. I have a Kubernetes cluster in hetzner with split horizon DNS (for DNS I use googles DNS solution), for VPN I use openvpn. for Chat we use Mattermost. for video chat First jitsi then discord (jitsi is hard to selfhost). for project management Gitlab professional. we use notion for documenting as much as possible but we want to switch to outlined soon. dockermail for email (but not yet automated forwarding and filtering). file transfer with Nextcloud. tracking time with toptals toptracker. docker remote workspaces with kasm (we require working with Linux OS only so if you don't bring Linux, then you have to use our docker workspace). we get that question a lot and are currently working on a simple solution to create such an environment with a few clicks (powered by helm and the cloud of your choice)
      • artemonster 4y ago
        Wow, thank you for such a detailed answer, much appreciated! Maybe, if you find a minute, a couple more: 1. why such a focus on foss? You like tinkering, supporting foss or its a money saver? 2. why switch from notion to outline?
• ktjalve 4y ago
  https://postcard.place/ https://postcard.place/
• rozenmd 4y ago
  https://maxrozen.com https://maxrozen.com I run a SaaS, and nothing makes money as easily as that React blog. Essentially, you write content once, and a single email can pitch it to a whole new group of potential customers at nearly zero additional cost to you. (of course, it took a year of blogging regularly to reach that point, but now if I write another book it gets additional sales at no additional cost to me, which feels wild compared to running a SaaS)
  • simpixelated 4y ago
    How do you get new contacts that you can pitch in a single email? Is it organic newsletter signups or something else?
• baby 4y ago
  Improving myself and changing jobs so far as proven to pay the most. Otherwise I wrote a book (real world cryptography) which is selling really well. Not going to replace a full time job though.
• giegs 4y ago
  Built a hobby informational web app back in 2005 related to a collectible item I was interested in. It basically tells you if your X is considered common or rare (potentially valuable). Determining that is nuanced and people don't want to figure stuff out on their own, so my web app became popular. At this point it has earned over $400k USD lifetime with 75% of that being in the last two years. 100% Adsense. The audience who find/use my site are good candidates for high-dollar ads, which is why it has done so well. New data (a few rows in a table) needs to be added once every few months, but it takes < 1hr. Realistically I should invest in blog/content but I don't really find it interesting any more. Following the "make niche complicated data easily parsable" concept I built another web app in 2018 for a different hobby. For example if the hobby was "phones" and the physical dimensions/specs of "phones" was very important to choosing it, my web app would let you visually compare any two "phones" side-by-side at the correct dimensional scale. It apparently solved a problem and traffic grew organically. After years of work this web app should get close to 6 figures annually in 2023 - earned via affiliate sales of "phones" and accessories. It's is a much more active endeavor, but if I walked away for 6 months I bet revenue would stay near flat. It fills my time and I find it interesting. I'm working on web app #3 now which is tangentially related to the "phones" concept.
  • lawkwok 4y ago
    May I know the name of the phone size comparing app? That sounds very interesting!
    • giegs 4y ago
      Sure if you give me a way to contact you.
      • mahin 4y ago
        I'd love to check out the web app too. My email is mahin1384@gmail.com.
      • DCodes1 4y ago
        Can you send this to me as well? Interested to see it. Email is zqdo.tech@gmail.com. Thanks.
• mfrye0 4y ago
  https://bigpicture.io/ https://bigpicture.io/ I was trying to build a B2B sales/marketing app and all the ML stuff we wanted to do required business data, which was too expensive for us. Long story, but after a cofounder blow up, a failed acquisition, then covid being the final straw, I started poking around during lockdown on how to get business data at scale. I ended up building an API to look up any business by domain/name, which has been particularly popular for fintechs. It's more or less fully automated now and is a nice income stream.
  • visox 4y ago
    very cool, how do you get the data, crawling or some external sources ? also how did your customers found you ?
• twodave 4y ago
  Software consulting. You’d be surprised how many little businesses out there have a need for custom software. I make about $60-70k/year in my spare time (maybe 10 hours/week) doing everything from adding features to legacy products, building brand new applications and even simply conducting technical interviews. It’s also pretty nice to work on something besides the usual thing at work, experiment with new/different tech and also get paid handsomely for it.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • itake 4y ago
    +1. JW what rate do you charge and whats your stack? I do about $60k/yr at 8-10hrs per week at $130/hr. Not sure if I am under charging. If you bill more than me, any advice on how to find bigger clients?
    • mrichman 4y ago
      Why on earth do you bill by the hour? You should be doing fixed fee based on value.
      • ipaddr 4y ago
        Good luck holding the bag when your client changes/misunderstands requirements.
        • lukevp 4y ago
          You just set milestones every couple weeks of effort and invoice at the end of each one, and withhold delivery of the finished product until full payment is received… if a client doesn’t want to pay or is too difficult, fire the client and move on. And don’t give clients net30 terms or something ridiculous if you’re a solo contractor. Invoice due on receipt.
          • 4y ago
• nichochar 4y ago
  HN will hate this, but I was curious about web3/crypto and wanted to build something to understand how it all worked. This was inspired by moxie's post [1] (don't echo other people's opinion because you see them repeatedly, rather build something and make your own opinion). Ended up being a very interesting project which also led to earnings around 10eth (~12k today). Took around 2 months. https://blockchainsmokers.xyz https://blockchainsmokers.xyz [1] https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
  • hstern 4y ago
    Love the moxie :b -- what did you learn? What parts of web3 deserve their day in the sun and which are utter BS?
• sidlls 4y ago
  None of my “passion projects” have paid nearly as well as my $dayjob’s IPO. Went from highly in debt to multi-millionaire over the course of about 6 hours one day last year. I published a few smutty short stories and a couple of apps that I’d made for my kids, all of which together might have netted me a few thousand in total. No marketing or anything.
  • dr_kiszonka 4y ago
    I am curious how your current life compares to the pre-IPO one. Is it universally better? Is there anything poor people don't know or misunderstand about being rich? (I am more in the poor camp.)
    • sidlls 4y ago
      I used to be in the poor camp. Like, frequently borderline homeless and living at my aunt’s house in a camper in their driveway. It’s not universally better than when I was merely well paid and affluent, even if heavily in debt. But not having to worry about whether to buy food or pay rent is quite a huge difference. My kids will never know the struggle I did. I can’t say whether that’s good or bad. I have a more well rounded perspective than most other techies
      • dr_kiszonka 4y ago
        Thanks for replying! If you don't mind sharing, do people (family, friends) ask you for money now more than before and is it a problem for you?
        • sidlls 4y ago
          Not really, but that's because most don't really know the extent of our wealth. They know we've purchased a couple of rental properties and have a wealth management account. One family member, my sister-in-law, has always been irresponsible with her money, and has always asked us to bail her out (e.g. to remove a tree and repair the roof it fell on, because she didn't have enough to cover it, in spite of the fact she earns nearly 6-figures in a very inexpensive part of the midwest). My brother has never asked me for money even though he is currently burning through his savings after having been laid off.
• ElijahLynn 4y ago
  I read all the comments, the most popular income stream in the comments is to get a FAANG gig. Pow. Done.
  • mmcconnell1618 4y ago
    FAANG jobs have some of the highest salaried positions available but even those will reach a cap because of limited leverage. One way to leverage salaried roles is to move into management where you can leverage your team's hours to accomplish more and move beyond a single IC salary. Otherwise, you have more leverage by owning a business of some kind.
    • aryamaan 4y ago
      I wish being on visa in the usa had this option
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
• phas0ruk 4y ago
  Built a qr code generator website 15 years ago and it paid me $750 a month in AdWords revenue. Gold.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• simonswords82 4y ago
  Active income Fundipedia.com Totally niche product Enterprise revenue
• roland35 4y ago
  Kept at embedded engineering personal projects through some years working as a backend web developer, and finally got a chance to interview for a big tech job and landed it! I am much happier now and I have no urge to do side projects as I scratch that itch at my day job. My desk is covered in electronics again!
  • polishdude20 4y ago
    What kind of embedded projects have you made in your personal time before? I'm a backend engineer and I like to build embedded stuff as well for fun. What are some differences between your two jobs? Do you think embedded stuff will get boring at some point where your hobby becomes a chore?
    • roland35 4y ago
      I have a few ongoing projects - one is a music block toy for my kids (assemble blocks together that makes a song), another is a IoT shelf which syncs inventory. Someday I'd like to also make a large scale pen plotter. Embedded software is obviously a lot like backend in the day to day, write code, design docs, etc, but instead of trying to keep up with all the things like serverless functions, Kubernetes, Cassandra, etc etc we get to think about things like microcontroller peripherals (timers, serial data, power management, interrupts) and supporting a variety of hardware configurations with testable code. It isn't a chore yet! My only problem is as a staff engineer only half my time is spent actually doing coding!
• gualang 4y ago
  Suing lawyers as side income. we all know most lawyers are scummy using all sorts of deceit to gain advantage. However in the increasing documented world, it is a matter of digging(using text search) to find fault with the offending lawyer's deceit and then file a DIY action in court. I am involved in estate litigation since 2016 where I discovered collusion by many lawyers with the estate administrator to defraud the estate. Our laws for anti corruption are stringent in my country where a lawyer causing a beneficiary damage as the estate's lawyer is liable for 20 yrs imprisonment and 5x penalty fine for the gratification received.
  • Mushhh 4y ago
    Wow. Did you go to uni to study law I take it? Or was this all DIY?
    • gualang 4y ago
      Logic 101, yes, CS,EE, yes, law no. Maybe I shall do night school on law. I started small win because forced into litigation but first appearance in court ever beat a 15yr exp litigation lawyer on rules of court(civil procedure). Some/many lawyers are amazed by ctrl-f in pdf reader or browser so I can search through entire rules of court in 1 second while they are still flipping pages. small wins fuel more research. I believe high cost of litigation is a life threatening risk so all must learn a bit of law. Or build a AI powered DIY tool for litigant in person.
  • mwerd 4y ago
    Don’t doxx yourself but can you link to an example, public case? One you weren’t involved in maybe?
  • leohart 4y ago
    Can you elaborate more how such fraud happens? Also, how would you even get access to court record for these estates? Would these records not be private to the party at hand?
    • gualang 4y ago
• yahelc 4y ago
  I built a social media analytics API. At its peak, it brought in about $23k/mo, with server costs at about $3k/mo. When I got a job at Instagram, they decided it was a conflict of interest and told me to sell it, which I did for a very healthy six figure sum.
  • mapster 4y ago
    You couldn’t sell it then accept the position?
  • holler 4y ago
    I know Meta pays a lot, but did you ever consider an alternate path where you didn't take that job and instead grew the service out further? $23k/month is good money.
    • yahelc 4y ago
      I thought about it, but I hadn't originally built it to make money. It was a weekend hack project that I never expected to do that well, and suddenly the prospect of centering my life around a product I didn't really feel passionate about felt like a nightmare. I had a lot of anxiety about whether my external dependencies I'd built on top of would continue to work, and reached the point where a large payoff was worth it to de-risk myself from $23k/mo becoming $0/mo with no exit.
      • whoIsYou 4y ago
        smart move
      • holler 4y ago
        gotcha, certainly a win so congrats! Would be interested to hear what it did.
• clay-dreidels 4y ago
  I created sportsweb.com in 1994 and was featured in the magazine Computer World.
• asicsp 4y ago
  Left my job in 2014. Tried a few things that didn't succeed before selling programming ebooks came to my rescue (2018). From the danger of draining out my savings completely, I'm now earning more than double my needs (which isn't really that much for my modest lifestyle, living alone in a developing nation - $150/month). What's more, my ebooks are all free to read online. Only PDF/EPUB are sold, and I've always given them away for free during launch week. List of my ebooks: https://learnbyexample.github.io/books/ https://learnbyexample.github.io/books/ (topics include Regular Expressions, Linux CLI tools, Python and Vim)
  • l33tc0de 4y ago
    Is this a side hustle or your main source of income? $150/month seems less even for a developing nation (I might be wrong though)
    • asicsp 4y ago
      Main source of income. I've now saved enough for 3 years if ebooks stop selling (which is a real possibility - most of my readers are from America/Europe/Australia and they would be able to subscribe to AI tools instead of learning from books). I'll probably try in-person local tutoring, look for other options, etc. And $150/month really provides a comfortable living for me in the outskirts of a city :)
    • Pawka 4y ago
      150$ from "thin air" every month is nice addition in developing nation. Not something what would change the lifestyle but something what you can easily spend on things you like - books, courses, etc.
      • porker 4y ago
        It can be enough to change the lifestyle. I'm working with a charity where we're increasing people's income by $90 a year and that makes a significant difference to their lives
  • key_stroker 4y ago
• xxEightyxx 4y ago
  I actually have a few: 1) Board member (advisor really) of a crypto/blockchain company. They pay me $5k per month to basically answer questions and help solve certain issues that might arise. There's also regular meetings but all in I spend 4 hours per week max. 2) Small contractor jobs. I was a contractor and home builder in a previous life. These days, I do side jobs both for the extra income and as a way to relax from my regular tech job. I build decks, sheds, small patios, and some indoor remodeling stuff. All of it is really basic because I have no interest in large jobs that would take a lot of time. A 10x12 shed will net me around $6k and I can build it in a weekend. A similar sized deck I'll charge $25k. Small patio pours I'll net $4k. During Christmas season (right now) I also hang lights. I'll charge between $1500 - $2500 and net most of that. Takes me around an hour for a normal two story house. 3) Tech consultant. I help administer various Wordpress and other sites for clients. Basic stuff like plugins, changing font, layouts, etc. Super easy and I get paid a monthly retainer. 4) I work two six-figure engineering jobs. Neither is super difficult which gives me time to do the other things and still have free-time to spend with my family, friends, and hobbies. 5) Rental income. I built a few single family homes and apartment buildings (12 units per building). Nets very good income but can also be demanding because I prefer to do most of the management work myself. Just sold one 12-plex for $1.6MM in August and am sitting on the others.
  • zdyn5 4y ago
    Regarding 3, are you interested in another client? If so let me know how you’d like to connect.
    • cccybernetic 4y ago
      Not OP, but also run a tech consulting firm. Email is in bio, happy to talk.
  • MobileVet 4y ago
    4) do your employers know that you are working another full time job? Have you found the magical eighth day of the week??
• steve76 4y ago
• lolive 4y ago
  Dealing MtG[1] cards on eBay. [1]: Magic: the Gathering.
  • rsync 4y ago
    What a coincidence - that is actually the worst income stream I ever created. I was working at Software Etc.[1][2] in 1995 and used my employee discount to buy 12 boxes of Fallen Empires. I was certain it would make me (relatively) rich. Five years later I sold them all on ebay for, basically, even money. FE was so overprinted that it had no value at all and I don't think I would have made any significant money until after 2010. [1] Southdale Mall in Edina, MN - the first shopping mall. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southdale_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southdale_Center
    • lolive 4y ago
      Fast forward to 2022: Hasbro is printing limited series of various qualities. For the juicy series, the price basically doubles right after the sold-out. That’s my definition of easy money. Hint: the next limited serie is « MtG meets The Lord of the Rings »
  • nlh 4y ago
    That's awesome! MtG didn't make me any money but it got me into MIT, so I love sharing this story: I was super into the game in my later high school years (1994-96), right when the market started going absolutely bonkers (relatively speaking). And I discovered a pattern - there was a price guide that got published on Usenet every week, and every card had "low", "average", and "high" prices. But people would only transact at the "high" level, so every week the price guide was updated with the new average and the loop began. Anyway I discovered this loop, started trading actively at tournaments, built up a huge portfolio of cards.....and then had the entire collection stolen from me while I was playing a match. Anyway, I told this story to my college interviewer who just so happened to be an early Algo trader at a large Wall Street bank, and he loved it and wrote me up a glowing interview recommendation. (Side note: At one point I had 9 Black Lotuses and was super proud of that...first page of my album. Few Alpha, few Beta, mostly Unlimited, one was signed by Christopher Rush, etc. Ahh memories.)
• neontomo 4y ago
  I'm justing starting out, but my book that I wrote about my psychedelic transformation sold quite well, even to people outside of my circle. I set the price low because I don't want money to be a hinderance to people reading it. https://neontomo.com/book https://neontomo.com/book
• xena 4y ago
  My blog is a fantastic income stream. It makes about $250 per month off of Patreon and ads. It's nowhere near enough to quit my day job, but after tax burdens it pays for the hosting costs and all my video games. It's pretty great!
• bryanmgreen 4y ago
  https://bennuaine.com/ https://bennuaine.com/ I was inspired by "do things that don't scale". My business creates European hand-blown titanium crystal stemware for whisky and spirits. This started as my quarantine project and has grown fairly rapidly relative to my expectations. The product is very expensive to produce because each glass is made entirely by hand in Europe but the results are pretty beautiful. It's not a golden ticket financially but it's very stable and healthy. Most rewarding is the community of spirits enthusiasts and professionals who I've been able to connect with.
  • starbugs 4y ago
    I love the video. I'm not into whisky, but you would have got me if I was. That's fantastic!
    • bryanmgreen 4y ago
      Thanks! I have a little video experience, but it was mostly my girlfriend. We wanted something just a bit kooky.
• cccybernetic 4y ago
  To make a long story short … I built a delivery service that unexpectedly went semi-viral. Within a matter of hours we went from 2-5 orders per day, to 10, 20, 30, 40 … I had a small crew, and it got to the point where I was ordering Ubers and handing the drivers wads of cash to make the deliveries. Somehow we managed, and I eventually shut the service down to pursue a more interesting opportunity. It was a wild ride, and I learned more about business in those 2 short months than the 10 years prior.
• LiquidPolymer 4y ago
  Probably not relevant to the younger set here on HN: I became obsessed in the late 90’s with using a camera to photograph subjects and events that are hard to observe with the naked eye. (Examples include: spotted bats photographed in flight, or red tree voles that only live at the tippy top of Doug fir trees, or nocturnal genets photographed in arboreal habitats). I loved the challenge of the work. I grew up poor. So I had to figure out how to finance this work up front. It was a true obsession and I would have probably gone completely broke if not for the fantastic interest my work generated. I was licensing the work for good $$$. Cut to now: I’m still fascinated with this type of photography. But my work these days involves social media content generation. Since I hate being the center of attention, I’m lucky that my clients just want content (and leave me out!). But this early work just keeps selling. The subjects were so difficult to capture that I guess others have not really pursued the same path? I’m probably just a lucky fool. If I were to die tomorrow, my family would still have good income from just this early work. I just can’t believe how this played out for me. I’d like to think it was a clever strategy. But no. Coming from a family riven with poverty, addiction, and early death - I’m just astounded. I’ve already outlived every male member of my family in the last three generations. I hope to set my child on a different path thanks to this lucky break of timing + opportunity.
  • jarbus 4y ago
    any links to your work?
    • pictureofabear 4y ago
      Probably this https://www.durmphoto.com/about https://www.durmphoto.com/about
  • srr1 4y ago
    You remind me of Maurice Frydman .. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Frydman https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Frydman
  • cccybernetic 4y ago
    This is so cool. How long did it take you to get some of highly sought after photos?
• sideproject 4y ago
  I have monetized ~50 of my unused domains via a tool I created called Newsy https://www.newsy.co https://www.newsy.co All the domains I've purchased over the years, I haven't had time to develop them, but also didn't like the traditional parking pages. Newsy generates a content-aggregation site for given set of keywords related to your domains. It's automated and you can add your own ads.
  • toastercat 4y ago
    I just realized something like this is probably what happened to my favorite band's website after they disbanded and lost the domain. I was so confused as to why the site became so generic looking. It didn't seem like a fan run page either. See: https://oceansize.co.uk https://oceansize.co.uk
  • sph 4y ago
    Basically domain parking under a fancy coat. Honestly, fuck that.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• JP_Watts 4y ago
  I sold my last side gig when it got too busy. Land clearing and forestry with heavy equipment- the last year we grossed 250k and 50% profit. Sold the company for 1x annual profit plus assets. Now I mine Bitcoin. Have iterated through a lot of the challenges mid-size miners face. I’m going to build an online course for others who want to build mining operations at my scale.
• SethKinast 4y ago
  I built a web-based game that integrated into a popular MMO. The game was free to play but I monetized through an affiliate agreement with the MMO company. Eventually they realized they could just copy the game and run it inside the MMO itself, so they terminated the partnership. At the end it was grossing 20k/month, but it literally consumed every moment of my free time so in some ways it was a relief to shut it down. This was early in my career so I learned an incredible amount about scaling, catching, etc. that I was able to leverage at future jobs.
  • drdunce 4y ago
    Can I ask which MMO?
    • gtaylor 4y ago
      Wondering whether it's EVE Online
• Pawka 4y ago
  Back in my studies a class mate asked to help him with coding assignment. I did and got 10 units of local money. Then another friend asked the same. The word started to spread, prices increased and algorithmic coding assignments become my source of income. After couple of years I have had all more than a half of assignments solved which were given by lecturers from 1st to 3rd years of studies. If anybody contacted me, there was a high chance I have already solved exactly that problem and simply needed just copy the code and collect money. It was a good life since I really enjoyed solving those tasks. That was a shady thing - I literally helped to cheat the system. But these were times in our market. Despite that this "job" lasted for couple of years only, the best income was that it pushed my coding experience years ahead compared to my peers. I was way more better than most of them. At least at coding :-)
• DarrenDev 4y ago
  I built an Add-In for Microsoft Word for creative writers that counts occurrences of different types of words and displays each occurrence next to the sentence it occurs in for context. The copy on the website describes it differently, but it's basically just a list of lists with a good UI - nothing complex about it, no AI or ML. It covers word and phrase frequency, adverbs, dialog tags, etc. I spent a good bit of time working on it years ago alongside my full time jobs, but haven't touched it in years. It still brings in about $1000 a month. I Google every one who buys it and they're all published writers or run editing shops.
• pawelkobojek 4y ago
  https://scrapingfish.com https://scrapingfish.com A SaaS we developed with my cofounder. Started at the beginning of this year and been growing steadily. We are involved daily in user support, marketing and development. We attribute the growth to a couple of very successful blog posts which made it to the front page of HN. Thank you HN!
• Delemono 4y ago
  My career. Not joking just another angle: I worked on that actively.
• c1c2c3 4y ago
  Not my highest paying role but I write material related to Computer Science. I've written chapters of books, online revision material, online CPD courses etc. So far it is all related to Computer Science education - the books are school textbooks, some CPD is aimed at trainee (or pre-trainee) teachers, whilst other bits are aimed at existing teachers to help upskill them. Most of the work is for well known publishers/training providers etc on a freelance basis. I enjoy the work. I'd love to start writing/creating CPD etc for other audiences but need to figure out how.
  • noisenotsignal 4y ago
    How did you get started in this kind of role? Did you first create your own content and then publishers reached out because of it?
    • c1c2c3 4y ago
      Many years ago I saw a fairly dodgy looking ad asking for someone to write revision material for GCSE IT. I emailed to find out more, found out it was for BBC Bitesize (very popular free internet based revision guide in the UK) and spent the summer writing it. Being able to name drop the BBC helped get further jobs and I've send some cheeky cold-calling emails to see if companies are looking for writers etc. Sometimes they are, often not. I'm always on the lookout for freelance work. Should anyone need a writer with technical knowledge then my email is in my profile!
• adv0r 4y ago
  bought a flat for 120k€ in city center, spent 60k€ to make it nice and cosy and split into 4 rooms. renting out for 1800€/month now.
• mattkevan 4y ago
  I sell public domain art prints on Etsy. Haven’t done anything on it beyond fulfilling orders for years - I found a really high-quality printers who do the production and shipping - but it’s probably good for an extra £100-300 a month, depending on how Etsy’s algorithm is feeling at the time. I could probably sell more if I put more effort into it, but it’s nice as a very low-effort, if small, income stream.
• adv0r 4y ago
  bought a flat for 120k€ in city center, spent 60k€ to make it nice and cosy and split into 4 rooms. renting out for 1800€/month now (4 individual rooms)
• michepriest 4y ago
  I spent last month trying as many things as possible to see what was most desirable. Best paying ended up being trading time for money. In order of most money made: • workshops • custom illustration packs • microcoaching • online courses • ebooks • merch on Etsy • Upwork gig I’ll be working on converting residue from time-for-money projects into products. For example, I’m turning my workshops into online courses, my illustration packs into icon bundles to sell as digital products, microcoaching as asynch videos, online courses transcribed into ebooks, and concepts from all of them into merch (coffee mugs, journals, t-shirts) with an ability to mix and match bundles I started all of this when I got laid off. I ended up needing flexibility to take time off to help my family so can’t see getting a full time job anytime soon. I’m also done working 60-80 hour weeks for startups and can’t figure out a job that pays enough that’s low stress. So scrambling to make this work
  • ecornflak 4y ago
    Curious about micro coaching - can you explain a bit more about how this works?
• grwthckrmstr 4y ago
  So glad you asked this question, thanks! One of my favorite projects and one that keeps bringing me joy is my online course on Programmatic SEO. Created in January 2021, after the initial 5-digit launch sales, i didn't work on the course or make any updates and just kinda left it. The course has been making >$500/mo in fully passive income. I love it more than the SaaS product I run even though that makes >50x more per month. Course landing page, for whoever is interested - https://preetamnath.com/programmatic-seo https://preetamnath.com/programmatic-seo
• iamflimflam1 4y ago
  My PhD was in image processing - never really got to use it in any day job, but I published an iPhone app that back in the day that would read a sudoku puzzle and solve it. That led to a few side gigs and I’ve done off and on consulting jobs in the image processing space over the years. Most problems tend to be amenable to “classic” techniques (eg OpenCV) and if you can get involved early enough there are a lot of affordances that can be added to make things a lot simpler (e.g registration marks). I’ve also got a small YouTube channel that brings in a bit of revenue from ads and sponsorship.
  • newsoul 4y ago
    Can you share the link to your youtube channel?
    • iamflimflam1 4y ago
      Sure - http://youtube.com/atomic14 http://youtube.com/atomic14 And if you want a cool demo, try this on your phone and point it at a sudoku puzzle: https://sudoku.cmgresearch.com/ https://sudoku.cmgresearch.com/
• dvko 4y ago
  It’s definitely not my passion but in 2013 I built a WordPress plugin around the API of a popular newsletter service and it’s been paying my bills ever since. Still going strong at €36K per month excluding VAT. There was (and still is) a huge market where non-technical people are looking for a GUI around something a programmer would find very simple (and usually too boring to work on). More so if the tech surrounding it is not particularly sexy, as is the case for WordPress and PHP. Ps. In case anyone is reading this, I am open to selling. I spent about 4 hours a week on it and the rest is handled by 2 freelance people costing about €1K / month each. Contact me for details if interested and willing to pay in the ballpark of €1.6M.
  • joelhaus 4y ago
    I'm interested! Email in my profile.
  • kirso 4y ago
    Second www.microacquire.com you might find more buyers there. Would snap it in a heartbeat!
    • dvko 4y ago
      Had never heard of it until it was mentioned here. Do you have any personal or even third-hand experiences with it?
  • xcubic 4y ago
    How did you came up with the idea?
    • dvko 4y ago
      Scratched my own itch. Was freelancing for clients back then, just putting together simple WordPress websites. A lot of them needed a newsletter sign-up form and wanted something that kept them on their own sites. So I built a generic "newsletter sign-up" plugin and then noticed that a lot of my users were using Mailchimp, so then I built one tailored for Mailchimp too.
• alin23 4y ago
  macOS apps which I share at https://lowtechguys.com/ https://lowtechguys.com/ bring me $7k/month on average at the moment, and it keeps growing. It started in 2017 when I shared the first free and open source version of Lunar (https://lunar.fyi/ https://lunar.fyi/), an app for controlling monitors. At that time, there was only a command line for doing this stuff (https://github.com/kfix/ddcctl https://github.com/kfix/ddcctl) and I wanted a more visual way of changing the brightness. So I learned Swift, learned how to bridge the ddcctl C code and call it from Swift, then made a rough interface and published it: https://www.producthunt.com/products/lunar#lunar-5 https://www.producthunt.com/products/lunar#lunar-5 It turned out people did have a need for this and asked if they could donate. I set up a Buy me a Coffee page and in 4 years collected about $5k in donations. That's a lot of money for a Romanian. When Apple Silicon appeared, Lunar didn't work anymore because the whole hardware arrangement and drivers were different, and there was no documentation on how to send I²C data. I took the plunge and quit my stressful job, bought an M1 MacBook and reverse engineered the I²C communication: https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/journey-to-ddc-on-m1-macs/ https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/journey-to-ddc-on-m1-macs/ Then published Lunar 4 as a Free version with a Pro paid upgrade. I was reluctant with this, didn't think anyone would buy it, but to this day I'm able to be unemployed and put my ideas into practice because of it.
• DennisL123 4y ago
  Started an open source project that was used by a fair number of startups. One of them eventually hired me for full-time dev work and others paid for short term consulting work. Also had an Amazon wishlist with token Items of appreciation (mostly beer). That generated a fair number of deliveries. Eventually bought a dedicated large fridge for it. Got out of it after after a few years tho.
• swyx 4y ago
  launched the Coding Career Handbook here on HN a couple years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23700486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23700486 got decent spike of initial sales but surprisingly it has continued to sell about 3-5k per month since then with not a lot of additional promo work
• pilom 4y ago
  Passive investing with savings from my tech job. My wife and I earned around 150k per year for 10-12 years but lived happily off of 40-60k per year for that time. The difference went into savings and retirement accounts and now we live off that nest egg and do what we want. I started a business teaching whitewater kayaking, packrafting, and swiftwater rescue which really took off during COVID but honestly the nest egg is what allowed me to do it pretty risk free.
• makeee 4y ago
  A few years ago I was frustrated with how difficult it was to setup a solid React.js stack with auth, payments, etc so I built a codebase generator at https://divjoy.com https://divjoy.com It does around $5-10k a month. Fairly passive. A few hours of support a week. Was full-time on it for the first few years, but decided to join a company recently and keep growing this on the side.
• Orthanc 4y ago
  My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/cgpgrey https://www.youtube.com/cgpgrey. Started it with the idea that it could bring attention to some other professional projects, but it turned out that YouTube was actually the career.
  • doctorwho42 4y ago
    As someone who has been subscribed for years and loves their top sneaky stamp. I really appreciate your content and content like yours, where you present interesting information that I am honestly curious about but don't have the time to do the deep dive myself. Keep it up, and enjoy some nature walks!
    • Orthanc 4y ago
      Thanks!
  • kilroy123 4y ago
    Wow, I didn't know you were on HN!
    • Orthanc 4y ago
      I (mostly) like it better than reddit, but _shhhhh_ don't tell reddit.
      • turbokatsu20 4y ago
        Once you go hack, you never go back. I do enjoy your videos, especially the rules for rulers one, which I often think about when I need to humanise politicians. It's inevitable that they end up compromising every moral fibre of their being on the way to power, so I shouldn't be surprised or outraged.
• yrgulation 4y ago
  Rental income. Liquidated all assets though. But that was by far the mist stable source of passive income. Minuscule maintenance cost and effort.
• tobinfekkes 4y ago
  Startups, and tech in general, are becoming more of a tax than a help. Just like North America (and largely Europe too) outsourced its manufacturing know-how to cheaper markets, labor, resources, and regulations, we're outsourcing all our business logic, day-to-day functions, and IP to cheaper and cheaper SaaS products. Sure, you can get setup quickly, but it will get torn down just as quickly with deprecations, no support, rising prices, mergers, discontinuations, buyouts, shutdowns etc. What's happened is that any small/medium business is required to be a mini-tech company to keep the doors open, but paying ever-increasing monthly rent to 15-30 SaaS companies. The tradeoff is that now they don't own or operate their own data, have little control over how it's queried, displayed, or accessed, all while basically getting zero support (i.e. Google, Shopify, SendGrid, Stripe, the list goes on). I spent 5 years developing an in-house system to run a coffee roaster. All the internal tools, reporting, organic certification, roast logs, traceability, customer service, shipping, wholesale, international, taxes, etc. You name it, any tool we needed, it was built. Prior to this, after 13 years of being in business, they were still wildly unprofitable and doing 600 orders a month. A few years after systematizing the company, now they're very profitable and doing >6,000 orders a month. Then I spent 5 years taking that knowledge and toolset and built a V2 for an organic farm to logistics and delivery of fresh produce. Again, after 15 years in business and doing 2500 deliveries a month, it was mildly profitable but struggling under the weight, rigidity, and complexity of an outsourced system. I replaced it with my own system and grew it to 2500 deliveries per week (4x). I then stepped down and started my own company to license out the system I built to run any small or medium organization. They get to own all their data, customize what they want, and I pick up the phone when they need help (crazy idea, I know). Most companies don't need bigger, better, flashier, cheaper software. They're actually happy to pay for systems that will be flexible when they need, and someone to call if required. All organizations are basically a set of people who need access to customers, addresses, payment methods, products, and orders, with functions to track communication via phone/email, make payment transactions, create/send PDFs, and report on what was/is/will be ordered. Running a company on outsourced SaaS is financially-cheap, but it's time-expensive, and brittle. My system now runs many multi-million dollars companies, small and medium scale, across many verticals. Whether it's shipping thousands of packages, delivering thousands of boxes, or running a local subscription bagel delivery service, or shed manufacturer, or running a Home Owner's Association, or running my own tech company, or a fertilizer company, or a youth sports team, or a malting company, or private chef/meal-planning service. They all have the same basic needs. For some companies, it's my active income, some it's maintenance income, some it's passive. They're all in different seasons, and it fluctuates throughout the year. A couple get busy in the summers, some need special stuff built in the fall for the holidays, some are quiet all year and chug along. But there's always someone to help, something to polish, or some JS dependency to remove :)