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Looks like a great product and congratulations on your success. I miss the days when HN was more stories like this of people using their expertise to make mone

• freetonik 1y ago
  There's limited space on the front page, and the topic of AI is so prevalent, it occupies a lot, every day. Right now 10 out of 30 stories on the front page are about AI and LLMs.
  • gadders 1y ago
    I wouldn't mind if it was "Here is how I got to $250k ARR with my self-funded AI startup" :-)
  • dmos62 1y ago
    To be fair, more than 1/3 of my technical thoughts involve ai these days.
  • catlikesshrimp 1y ago
    I prefer AI both raw material and recycled garbage than the cryptocoin epidemy from recent years.
  • -__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
    Yeah, it's a Trump-related political outrage, or it's an AI thing. I feel anecdotally like the AI-related things are even more prevalent, but would love to see some data on it. The Trump stuff seems to get flagged very much, and the AI stuff, very litle. It's heady times, anyway, that's for sure.
    • -__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
      Actually, I should say, using https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active to see flagged stuff too is great. Not sure if you see everything, but I definitely am more interested in a less curated frontpage. I don't find ignoring headlines I'm not interested in to be such a major affront to my sensibilities.
    • bigstrat2003 1y ago
      > The Trump stuff seems to get flagged very much, and the AI stuff, very litle. Speaking personally, I flag the political posts and not the AI posts because the political posts always turn into flame wars. AI posts do not, so I leave them be (even though I don't personally like them).
      • -__---____-ZXyw 1y ago
        Hmmm. Is there a statement of HN policy somewhere about that? Or is this just a thing you decided to do on your own accord? No judgment, just curious. I presume you've reflected on the idea that one person's flame war is another person's gentle exchange of opinion. I can see what you're saying though, and I have seen discussions where I've thought "oook, don't really understand what these people think they're achieving", but I wouldn't say I've seen anything horrendous. I mean, individual horrific comments get quickly flagged to death. Why bother flagging the whole topic? Why not simply not investigate those threads?
        • satvikpendem 1y ago
          https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html mentions not to use HN for political or ideological battle.
    • stevage 1y ago
      >but would love to see some data on it. There was a great post by someone who did some analysis on HN content, just yesterday. Can't remember keywords to find it though.
• sochix 1y ago
  My story on the first page, so I guess people still loves success-stories ;)
  • gadders 1y ago
    Yes, but maybe this rose-tinted glasses, but it seems like every week we would have a story like yours, an essay from Patio11 on how much money Bingo Cards are making, Nathan Barry talking about how a book launch earnt him $50k in a weekend, Brennan Dunn launching a course for 5 figures etc.
• YetAnotherNick 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • sochix 1y ago
    Maybe! But on the other side I can work when and how I want, it's a big bonus as for me.
    • sirfz 1y ago
      This bonus is priceless tbh congrats on your success and hope you'll never need to work for anyone
    • YetAnotherNick 1y ago
      I also love side projects and have done a few. What I was commenting on is "people using their expertise to make money". For me it's more of the opposite. I could have earned way more in traditional things but I do side project because I can select what I want to do.
  • bboygravity 1y ago
    It is if you live outside of the US or if you'd never make it into a FAANG, because of lack of credentials and/or connections. Or. If you like the idea of having no boss, no standup meetings, no Jira, no commutes, no open office plan, etc.
  • 0_____0 1y ago
    Not bad when the median salary is equivalent to 600$/mo
  • naughtyfinch 1y ago
    Nothing beats the freedom and fulfillment of owning and operating your own business. A job at a FAANG company with a high salary is so overrated. I know, since I have worked in multiple FAANG companies over the last 12 years.
    • sochix 1y ago
• cornholio 1y ago
  Well, perhaps people see such success stories for what they are, well curated commodity flowers in the walled gardens of the major players, who will not hesitate to pluck them the instant they threaten to have any kind of uncontrolled growth. It's "ISVs" all over again, commoditization of complements etcetera, the tech molemen that serve the big machines. AI looks to many as a wall buster, at least for the time being, so even if breakout success is unlikely you can't blame people for at least trying to escape the underground caverns where the "widely successful" ceiling is capped at perhaps reaching a FAANG manager level of compensation.
  • pjc50 1y ago
    > AI looks to many as a wall buster Hmm. I see a lot of people trying to build products on top of models trained by other people, which seems very vulnerable.
    • detourdog 1y ago
      I think what that is demonstrating is that models are commodity objects. The model factory may have a value. I think it would need a specialized context. It would need a market large enough to support it and small enough to keep the context out of the mainstream. My guess is this will always be a moving target. The consumer will choose models based on their value proposition. We all have to start our sandcastle somewhere.
    • Perz1val 1y ago
      Using silicon chips manufactured in like 3 fabs
• apercu 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • monkeywork 1y ago
    >it bothered me because I come here to get away from all the propaganda. Somehow, I doubt this statement is true, given the rest of your post, which was in no way adding to the conversation, is exactly the sort of propaganda you claim to try and get away from. >We have to educate and inform. Which you did not do in any stretch of the words - all you did was add noise.
    • cdelsolar 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • zahlman 1y ago
        >And now that we are Nothing of the sort is occurring here. In the part of the HN guidelines where it says: > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. A big part of the reason for that is that habitually doing things like that tends to blind one to reality.
        • cdelsolar 1y ago
          How are the things I mentioned not real? I didn't say that we are talking about those semantic arguments on this Hacker News thread, I'm talking about the world outside of that.
          • zahlman 1y ago
            I've been here since August and I haven't seen anything that even remotely resembles > semantic arguments about why it’s ok for ICE to bust down random doors looking for brown people to deport to the death camps If you feel you have, I humbly suggest you go back and re-evaluate whatever it was that you read. Keep in mind that in order to qualify as such, the other party would have to agree with you that ICE's actions could be fairly described as such, in every aspect.
• kryogen1c 1y ago
  > Is that harder to do these days, or has the HN news appetite shifted? I'll speak as someone who is part of the problem. As groucho Marx says, I wouldn't want to be a part of any club that will have me as a member! HN is a victim of its own popularity. Things just get diluted and more mainstreamy by people like me, who are perhaps hackers in spirit but don't have much to show for it. I work in IT at an international company everyone knows the name of. I've got a garden and there are meals in my fridge made of meat from pigs I raised. I've got furniture in my house my wife and I made years ago in a different state. I'll submit random articles, but never a show HN. How could I? Woodgearsca built a woodworking shop out of his woodworking shop. No one cares about the tables I built. I try to speak only when I know I can contribute, but im very unsure i raise the quality here.
  • vintagedave 1y ago
    You might be surprised what you could contribute. I've submitted articles that I thought were really valuable, and never had any success [0] (maybe the first is too business-y, not hacker-ish, but I genuinely believe what I wrote there matters and it's worth understanding, at least in the sense it was transformative for me when I did understand it) and then an article on a random weekend project a friend and I did made the top five on the front page [1] and stayed there for ages. People very much just might care about the tables you make! Especially if you can share something you learned. [0]: https://daveon.design/what-are-you-optimising-for.html https://daveon.design/what-are-you-optimising-for.html and https://daveon.design/creating-joy-in-the-user-experience.html https://daveon.design/creating-joy-in-the-user-experience.ht... [1]: https://daveon.design/adventures-making-vegemite.html https://daveon.design/adventures-making-vegemite.html
  • showerst 1y ago
    I’d take a 100 random IT folks with gardens over a single growth hacker, crypto bro, or “I created an ai bot to do (X)” ChatGPT wrapper site shill.
    • bigbuppo 1y ago
      I'd also like some horror stories, like someone vibe-coding their way into burning a million dollars by accident and having to sell a kidney on the black market so they don't lose their house.
• deadbabe 1y ago
  It used to be easier to use expertise to make money, now you need to use expertise just to get by.
  • bredren 1y ago
    I was not expecting this comment here but it tracks with my observations. Things that previously could be taken for granted now require applied thought and physical capability. For example, people regularly ask how to find reasonably priced housing in /r/askPortland. The OP usually mentions constant looking at Zillow and other sites / apps. Very, very few good deals will be found there because the marketplace is too fluid and too accessible. You gotta hustle on the ground in the neighborhood you want to be in to find the best housing compromises. Used to be you could wing it on craigslist. From concert tickets to new Nike shoes, you want a good seat / common size? How about a nice family campsite? Well you better have set up automation. It’s to the point where public swim lessons can’t be got without a bot. Unless, you go to the pool and ask about lessons not scheduled on the internet. It is an absolute hustle, across the minor daily desires of good things and experiences. Those products rejected by the most motivated get binned into some consultant optimized vertically integrated reseller. The services get marketed heavily with dark patterns just to cancel their membership. It is tough out there.
    • deadbabe 1y ago
      thank you for the reply, it feels good for others to understand
• devsda 1y ago
  > Is that harder to do these days, or has the HN news appetite shifted? The popular keywords for some time have been AI, Trump, Russia, Ukraine. As these are hot topics, the "Hacker" part of HN has taken a noticeable backseat. There are still interesting submissions but they don't reach the front page that often. For example, there's a huge thread on this very post about the source site because of its supposed origins.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• bredren 1y ago
  There is good reason why these posts don’t regularly make front page. The genre of content is regularly abused by hypesters. There is a forum / podcast dedicated to this kind of success story and it is just massive cheerleading and success bias. If you go look for it, you’ll find it. HN readers achieving this success either don’t need or don’t want the attention that might come with this kind of content marketing. It’s much more interesting to learn about detailed technical solutions engineering and the SOTA.
  • camdenreslink 1y ago
    Are you talking about Indie Hackers? Why speak in riddles, it isn't a secret.
    • heromal 1y ago
      I also was confused by why he was being so cryptic about a very popular forum.
• stevoski 1y ago
  If you get a one- or two-person SaaS to $10K MMR, and then tell the detailed story in places like HN, you get copycatted many times. People will reproduce what you made - to the pixel. It is really, really frustrating. Founders who have experienced this learn to avoid sharing the stories on HN, etc.