9 ms·

How Much I Money Made From Side Projects In 2008

190 points by hbien 18y ago

jreposa 18y ago
I'm a bit behind Matt in sales, but I just launched a site the other day that does something quite similar to RSStalker, but specific to best selling books: http://yowzas.com http://yowzas.com Best selling book lists are everywhere, but this one is near real-time due to AWS. I find myself browsing the site daily reading book reviews. I have category specific ones like http://business.yowzas.com http://business.yowzas.com and just like RSStalker, I have RSS feeds for each major category of best selling book lists.
- L1quid 18y ago
  Nice site! I dig the simplicity and usefulness of the design.
  - jreposa 18y ago
    thanks! i really got sick of trying to find books on amazon. i essentially removed everything that i didn't care about... so, really i made it in part because i had an itch to scratch. - list of best sellers - most helpful reviews - books i also might like
chops 18y ago
Everyone's gotta start somewhere, and eventually, maybe one of those projects will take off and start generating a decent amount of profit. A few years ago when I was a consultant, in my free time I worked on my World of Warcraft guild's website and after a year and a half, I realized it was better than the vast majority of other guild sites out there (imo), and thought, maybe I could charge for this if i made it a service. So I spent 6 months rewriting my own guild's site to make it "general purpose" allowing other guilds to create websites. The thought was, "maybe I can score a few extra bucks on the side." I launched in May of '06 and was profitable immediately, and by January '07, business was so good that I dropped consulting altogether to focus on the guild hosting site. So keep plugging away. I probably had 5 or 6 projects (Frozen Custard Stand CMS system anyone?) that I worked on "on the side" before this one actually turned into a profitable venture.
- palish 18y ago
  Wow. May I ask, how profitable was the WoW meta-guild site?
  - chops 18y ago
    I don't remember how profitable 2006 was (since the income was combined with consulting at the end for taxes), but for 2007 and 2008, it was something like $90k revenue each year. 2008 was on a course for a bigger year (March did $14k) and then it seemed all WoW interest dropped considerably after July (if you look at the alexa ratings for the main guild hosting services, they all took the same dive). It's nothing massive or anything, but it's a reasonable living for providing gaming service to folks who are pretty much just like me :)
    - palish 18y ago
      Hell. Yes. Way to go. One more: could you estimate how many total hours of work you've invested into the WoW meta-guild site?
      - chops 18y ago
        That one, I honestly couldn't estimate. Some weeks I do no coding and just answer support emails, phone calls, and forum posts. Other weeks, I'll code seemingly nonstop over 80-90 hours/week and won't do anything else (I won't even feel like gaming during those hard core weeks, all I care about, and all I dream about is coding).
        palish 18y ago
        Is much time lost due to burnout? E.g. periods when you don't feel like working on code, support emails, phone calls, or forum posts -- just on leveling your character. Have you developed any techniques to deal with those periods?
        chops 18y ago
patio11 18y ago
The great thing about side projects is that they only get better -- your code stays written, your marketing snowball gets better, age and inlinks bring your rankings higher, etc. (If your business plan does not have these features, for example if you are planning to sell iPhone applications which have a shelf-life of cut apples which have been soaked in agar[1], you may wish to reconsider.) 2006: $1k of bingo cards 2007: $10k of bingo cards 2008: $21k of bingo cards 2009: ... [1] Don't try this at home, kiddos.
- staticshock 18y ago
  $21k in bingo? kudos.
paulgb 18y ago
RSStalker is a great idea. Glad it's worked out well for him.
jbenz 18y ago
Thanks so much for posting this. Very cool. RSS Talker is sweet. Matt, if you're reading this, and if you don't mind, here are a couple critiques: The title of this page should really be the info in that bubble: "Track Amazon Price Changes With an RSS Feed". This should be the biggest, boldest font on the page. I don't think the average web user is very familiar with the terms ASIN and ISBN. It could be as simple as "Enter your email to track a specific product on Amazon." The How It Works section can explain more. Can you make it just an email service for people without RSS feeds? This site has a ton of potential. It's a shame that Amazon's commission rate is so low. It would be awesome to open it up to any web retailer that is signed up through a service like Commission Junction. Some of them offer 15% commission. I'm sure you've thought through all of this. Good luck!
- kirse 18y ago
  I use a similar site right now: http://camelcamelcamel.com/ http://camelcamelcamel.com/ I think their interface is a bit cleaner than RSSTalker and probably more developed right now.
  - L1quid 18y ago
    Thanks, I have put quite a lot of work into it since January 2008. The site has been very profitable since launching in April! Here's hoping that continues in 2009... Suggestions, feature requests, and bug reports are all welcome =)
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
  - WashburnCoustic 18y ago
    I like http://creditrabbit.com http://creditrabbit.com quite a bit better, it seems there's just less mess to deal with there.
- mattcurry 18y ago
  Hey jbenx, Thanks for the critiques. I will definitely take it into consideration. RE: ASIN and ISBN - I was torn on whether to include those, since I agree with you that it can be confusing. I also have the option of dropping the entire url in there and it will pick the ASIN out automatically. I figured that would be easiest for users. RE: email - I didn't want to do the email thing because then I'd have to deal w/ unsubscribe and spam issues. I like making services that don't require a signup.
joshwa 18y ago
I can't for the life of me figure out what planbookedu.com does, even after watching the screencast. It's a calendar? With only all-day events allowed? And with TinyMCE? What am I missing?
- gcheong 18y ago
  I had the same reaction. I think if he just spent some time in creating a clear message and then putting that message on the front page he might see an increase in users. If you think about the average user they need to have the selling point made a clear as possible, more so if we're talking about the average teacher ;^).
  - mattcurry 18y ago
    Thanks for the criticism...copywriting isn't my strong suit. In my defense I think the site makes sense if you're a teacher. At least that's what my wife (the teacher) tells me :)
    - rymngh 18y ago
      Your wife has some associated bias. I totally agree with them, you can increase your revenue like 5 times if you just made that clearer. But I guess you have some point since I'm guessing that the Edu website gets noticed not because of Web search but word of mouth of teachers. And probably the teachers who spread this website to other teachers have well explained the product's features enough already. But If you just upgrade the clarity of your site. The web searcher won't get trouble and know your site's purpose immediately.
    - gcheong 18y ago
      I have to say I admire your productivity. Bob Walsh (47hats.com) has an eBook called "Micro ISV Sites that Sell" that's gotten some good reviews that you may want to have a look at. Good luck with the sites!
  - rickd 18y ago
    I want to echo this as well, because I feel exactly the same - and because I left a comment on Matt's site saying i thought planbook could be MUCH more profitable, but I didn't go into elaborating on HOW it could be. gcheong nailed it.
fuzzmeister 18y ago
later.rsstalker.com looks very useful, I will definitely use it. Great alternative to tossing everything into my bookmarks.
- joshwa 18y ago
  Instapaper is the bomb. And you don't even have to register-- just pick a username (no password necessary). The iPhone app is also really killer.
- mattcurry 18y ago
  Thanks fuzzmeister. Let me know if you hit any issues. I coded and launched it in a weekend, so it may have some bugs. So far it's worked well for me though.
  - MaysonL 18y ago
    I clicked the bookmarklet a little before 3 PST for the Language Log page you should see in your db: it showed up on the webpage, but never made it to the feed (according to Google Reader).
    - mattcurry 18y ago
      The feeds are cached, so items may not appear right away. Plus there is an additional lag depending on how often Google pings the feed. Anyway, I checked out your case and I see the link in your feed now. I plan on dropping the cache time once I get off the shared hosting.
      - MaysonL 18y ago
        Great - got it now.
inovica 18y ago
We developed SourceGuardian.com as a side project from my main company (Inovica.com) as we had a need for PHP encryption and were not prepared to pay the thousands of dollars that one company was charging at the time. We developed it for our own sites and then packaged it up to sell it to others. We had some teething problems with the earlier versions, but we're still here a number of years later. It's still a side project (and we have a few of them!!) but it brings in revenues of around $70,000+ a year. There is a team of three people though that worked on this side project and which share on this. We also run: www.europeantenders.com - Around $20,000 a year www.ukscrap.com. This did amazingly well when scrap values were high (we were doing around $2000 a day) but they have become quite low at the moment so its only just covering its costs. Hope the above helps. Happy to provide more info or help to anyone who wants it
palehose 18y ago
I seriously don't see the point of advertising how much money I'm making off a given site. If someone else knows that putting together a site like RSSTalker will eventually bring in thousands of dollars annually with a minimum amount of maintenance, doesn't that increase the chance that my site is going to get cloned by someone else? If I were to visit RSSTalker and not know whether or not the site was profitable, I would be less likely to take the time to consider cloning the site.
- Tichy 18y ago
  Free publicity? I had never heard of RSSTalker - until now...
  - palehose 18y ago
    Its one thing to say 'rate my startup', but to say 'look how much I'm making' is something totally different.
    - Tichy 18y ago
      The latter will probably generate considerably more interest?
      - randallsquared 18y ago
        I notice that ending your statement with a question mark seems to help in avoiding downvotes?
        pg 18y ago
        Actually this was a big feature of the new PC intonation that appeared in the late 80s and early 90s. Undergrads started saying declarative sentences with interrogative intonation-- as if they were actually questions. This allowed one to disclaim some responsibility for whatever one was saying, and yet at the same time to compel a response from the other person. This way of speaking has now passed down to high school students and isn't associated with any specific sort of ideas (unless you count the empty set as a type of idea), but it was originally quite a nasty piece of conversational jiujitsu.
akshaye 18y ago
Ask HN: What's better: Having multiple side projects; or devoting all time to one single app? Which has better chance of bringing in more revenues?
- brianr 18y ago
  I'm a fan of the "throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks" approach. Build lots of different things until one starts to get traction, and when one does, focus your attention on that.
  - rs 18y ago
    That's good for well sized projects for the time frame that you're willing to commit to. However, from my experience in the past, I actually tried that on a number of BIG projects - knowing only a couple of things: 1. The ideas were big - thinking about 50k LOC at minimum. 2. I had too much ego to let them go Bad, bad mistake. Bad rs. I scaled back to just working on 1 big project, and maybe toying with 2-3 smaller projects, and it has worked out better. But the essence of your advice is right - work on a number of projects, and focus on one that works.
- njharman 18y ago
  What does YC do? One startup or many?
jwesley 18y ago
"All I did for marketing in 2008 was email existing users" Seriously? That does not make any sense. Why not try a paid search campaign? Or networking with teachers via twitter? What is the purpose of building a business and then not doing anything to market it?
- rymngh 18y ago
  Google actually did just that. They didn't engage any marketing activities on their early days.
- mattcurry 18y ago
  Frankly the old version of the site sucked. I finally got around to launching the new version this past summer. I was hesitant to push it considering I had no real QA other then myself. It would have sucked to spent a ton of time/money to market it and then find a huge bug that drove all those users away. Now that it's half way through the school year and there haven't been any issues I'm more confident. But it doesn't make sense to market it now, since teachers are already in their routine for the year. Next August I plan on making a bigger push.

190 points by hbien 18y ago

I'm a bit behind Matt in sales, but I just launched a site the other day that does something quite similar to RSStalker, but specific to best selling books: http://yowzas.com http://yowzas.com Best selling book lists are everywhere, but this one is near real-time due to AWS. I find myself browsing the site daily reading book reviews. I have category specific ones like http://business.yowzas.com http://business.yowzas.com and just like RSStalker, I have RSS feeds for each major category of best selling book lists.

L1quid 18y ago
Nice site! I dig the simplicity and usefulness of the design.
- jreposa 18y ago
  thanks! i really got sick of trying to find books on amazon. i essentially removed everything that i didn't care about... so, really i made it in part because i had an itch to scratch. - list of best sellers - most helpful reviews - books i also might like

chops 18y ago

Everyone's gotta start somewhere, and eventually, maybe one of those projects will take off and start generating a decent amount of profit. A few years ago when I was a consultant, in my free time I worked on my World of Warcraft guild's website and after a year and a half, I realized it was better than the vast majority of other guild sites out there (imo), and thought, maybe I could charge for this if i made it a service. So I spent 6 months rewriting my own guild's site to make it "general purpose" allowing other guilds to create websites. The thought was, "maybe I can score a few extra bucks on the side." I launched in May of '06 and was profitable immediately, and by January '07, business was so good that I dropped consulting altogether to focus on the guild hosting site. So keep plugging away. I probably had 5 or 6 projects (Frozen Custard Stand CMS system anyone?) that I worked on "on the side" before this one actually turned into a profitable venture.

palish 18y ago
Wow. May I ask, how profitable was the WoW meta-guild site?
- chops 18y ago
  I don't remember how profitable 2006 was (since the income was combined with consulting at the end for taxes), but for 2007 and 2008, it was something like $90k revenue each year. 2008 was on a course for a bigger year (March did $14k) and then it seemed all WoW interest dropped considerably after July (if you look at the alexa ratings for the main guild hosting services, they all took the same dive). It's nothing massive or anything, but it's a reasonable living for providing gaming service to folks who are pretty much just like me :)
  - palish 18y ago
    Hell. Yes. Way to go. One more: could you estimate how many total hours of work you've invested into the WoW meta-guild site?
    - chops 18y ago
      That one, I honestly couldn't estimate. Some weeks I do no coding and just answer support emails, phone calls, and forum posts. Other weeks, I'll code seemingly nonstop over 80-90 hours/week and won't do anything else (I won't even feel like gaming during those hard core weeks, all I care about, and all I dream about is coding).
      - palish 18y ago
        Is much time lost due to burnout? E.g. periods when you don't feel like working on code, support emails, phone calls, or forum posts -- just on leveling your character. Have you developed any techniques to deal with those periods?
        chops 18y ago

patio11 18y ago

The great thing about side projects is that they only get better -- your code stays written, your marketing snowball gets better, age and inlinks bring your rankings higher, etc. (If your business plan does not have these features, for example if you are planning to sell iPhone applications which have a shelf-life of cut apples which have been soaked in agar[1], you may wish to reconsider.) 2006: $1k of bingo cards 2007: $10k of bingo cards 2008: $21k of bingo cards 2009: ... [1] Don't try this at home, kiddos.

staticshock 18y ago
$21k in bingo? kudos.

paulgb 18y ago

RSStalker is a great idea. Glad it's worked out well for him.

jbenz 18y ago

Thanks so much for posting this. Very cool. RSS Talker is sweet. Matt, if you're reading this, and if you don't mind, here are a couple critiques: The title of this page should really be the info in that bubble: "Track Amazon Price Changes With an RSS Feed". This should be the biggest, boldest font on the page. I don't think the average web user is very familiar with the terms ASIN and ISBN. It could be as simple as "Enter your email to track a specific product on Amazon." The How It Works section can explain more. Can you make it just an email service for people without RSS feeds? This site has a ton of potential. It's a shame that Amazon's commission rate is so low. It would be awesome to open it up to any web retailer that is signed up through a service like Commission Junction. Some of them offer 15% commission. I'm sure you've thought through all of this. Good luck!

kirse 18y ago
I use a similar site right now: http://camelcamelcamel.com/ http://camelcamelcamel.com/ I think their interface is a bit cleaner than RSSTalker and probably more developed right now.
- L1quid 18y ago
  Thanks, I have put quite a lot of work into it since January 2008. The site has been very profitable since launching in April! Here's hoping that continues in 2009... Suggestions, feature requests, and bug reports are all welcome =)
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
- WashburnCoustic 18y ago
  I like http://creditrabbit.com http://creditrabbit.com quite a bit better, it seems there's just less mess to deal with there.
mattcurry 18y ago
Hey jbenx, Thanks for the critiques. I will definitely take it into consideration. RE: ASIN and ISBN - I was torn on whether to include those, since I agree with you that it can be confusing. I also have the option of dropping the entire url in there and it will pick the ASIN out automatically. I figured that would be easiest for users. RE: email - I didn't want to do the email thing because then I'd have to deal w/ unsubscribe and spam issues. I like making services that don't require a signup.

joshwa 18y ago

I can't for the life of me figure out what planbookedu.com does, even after watching the screencast. It's a calendar? With only all-day events allowed? And with TinyMCE? What am I missing?

gcheong 18y ago
I had the same reaction. I think if he just spent some time in creating a clear message and then putting that message on the front page he might see an increase in users. If you think about the average user they need to have the selling point made a clear as possible, more so if we're talking about the average teacher ;^).
- mattcurry 18y ago
  Thanks for the criticism...copywriting isn't my strong suit. In my defense I think the site makes sense if you're a teacher. At least that's what my wife (the teacher) tells me :)
  - rymngh 18y ago
    Your wife has some associated bias. I totally agree with them, you can increase your revenue like 5 times if you just made that clearer. But I guess you have some point since I'm guessing that the Edu website gets noticed not because of Web search but word of mouth of teachers. And probably the teachers who spread this website to other teachers have well explained the product's features enough already. But If you just upgrade the clarity of your site. The web searcher won't get trouble and know your site's purpose immediately.
  - gcheong 18y ago
    I have to say I admire your productivity. Bob Walsh (47hats.com) has an eBook called "Micro ISV Sites that Sell" that's gotten some good reviews that you may want to have a look at. Good luck with the sites!
- rickd 18y ago
  I want to echo this as well, because I feel exactly the same - and because I left a comment on Matt's site saying i thought planbook could be MUCH more profitable, but I didn't go into elaborating on HOW it could be. gcheong nailed it.

fuzzmeister 18y ago

later.rsstalker.com looks very useful, I will definitely use it. Great alternative to tossing everything into my bookmarks.

joshwa 18y ago
Instapaper is the bomb. And you don't even have to register-- just pick a username (no password necessary). The iPhone app is also really killer.
mattcurry 18y ago
Thanks fuzzmeister. Let me know if you hit any issues. I coded and launched it in a weekend, so it may have some bugs. So far it's worked well for me though.
- MaysonL 18y ago
  I clicked the bookmarklet a little before 3 PST for the Language Log page you should see in your db: it showed up on the webpage, but never made it to the feed (according to Google Reader).
  - mattcurry 18y ago
    The feeds are cached, so items may not appear right away. Plus there is an additional lag depending on how often Google pings the feed. Anyway, I checked out your case and I see the link in your feed now. I plan on dropping the cache time once I get off the shared hosting.
    - MaysonL 18y ago
      Great - got it now.

inovica 18y ago

We developed SourceGuardian.com as a side project from my main company (Inovica.com) as we had a need for PHP encryption and were not prepared to pay the thousands of dollars that one company was charging at the time. We developed it for our own sites and then packaged it up to sell it to others. We had some teething problems with the earlier versions, but we're still here a number of years later. It's still a side project (and we have a few of them!!) but it brings in revenues of around $70,000+ a year. There is a team of three people though that worked on this side project and which share on this. We also run: www.europeantenders.com - Around $20,000 a year www.ukscrap.com. This did amazingly well when scrap values were high (we were doing around $2000 a day) but they have become quite low at the moment so its only just covering its costs. Hope the above helps. Happy to provide more info or help to anyone who wants it

palehose 18y ago

I seriously don't see the point of advertising how much money I'm making off a given site. If someone else knows that putting together a site like RSSTalker will eventually bring in thousands of dollars annually with a minimum amount of maintenance, doesn't that increase the chance that my site is going to get cloned by someone else? If I were to visit RSSTalker and not know whether or not the site was profitable, I would be less likely to take the time to consider cloning the site.

Tichy 18y ago
Free publicity? I had never heard of RSSTalker - until now...
- palehose 18y ago
  Its one thing to say 'rate my startup', but to say 'look how much I'm making' is something totally different.
  - Tichy 18y ago
    The latter will probably generate considerably more interest?
    - randallsquared 18y ago
      I notice that ending your statement with a question mark seems to help in avoiding downvotes?
      - pg 18y ago
        Actually this was a big feature of the new PC intonation that appeared in the late 80s and early 90s. Undergrads started saying declarative sentences with interrogative intonation-- as if they were actually questions. This allowed one to disclaim some responsibility for whatever one was saying, and yet at the same time to compel a response from the other person. This way of speaking has now passed down to high school students and isn't associated with any specific sort of ideas (unless you count the empty set as a type of idea), but it was originally quite a nasty piece of conversational jiujitsu.

akshaye 18y ago

Ask HN: What's better: Having multiple side projects; or devoting all time to one single app? Which has better chance of bringing in more revenues?

brianr 18y ago
I'm a fan of the "throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks" approach. Build lots of different things until one starts to get traction, and when one does, focus your attention on that.
- rs 18y ago
  That's good for well sized projects for the time frame that you're willing to commit to. However, from my experience in the past, I actually tried that on a number of BIG projects - knowing only a couple of things: 1. The ideas were big - thinking about 50k LOC at minimum. 2. I had too much ego to let them go Bad, bad mistake. Bad rs. I scaled back to just working on 1 big project, and maybe toying with 2-3 smaller projects, and it has worked out better. But the essence of your advice is right - work on a number of projects, and focus on one that works.
njharman 18y ago
What does YC do? One startup or many?

jwesley 18y ago

"All I did for marketing in 2008 was email existing users" Seriously? That does not make any sense. Why not try a paid search campaign? Or networking with teachers via twitter? What is the purpose of building a business and then not doing anything to market it?

rymngh 18y ago
Google actually did just that. They didn't engage any marketing activities on their early days.
mattcurry 18y ago
Frankly the old version of the site sucked. I finally got around to launching the new version this past summer. I was hesitant to push it considering I had no real QA other then myself. It would have sucked to spent a ton of time/money to market it and then find a huge bug that drove all those users away. Now that it's half way through the school year and there haven't been any issues I'm more confident. But it doesn't make sense to market it now, since teachers are already in their routine for the year. Next August I plan on making a bigger push.