16 ms·

Ask HN: Your best passive income sources?

237 points by robbiet480 14y ago

neel980 14y ago
A supportive working wife, nothing beats that :)
- danellis 14y ago
  I should hope not.
fudged71 14y ago
Amazon affiliate links somehow floating through the abyss and still pulling in pennies.
bigethan 14y ago
Airbnb. High value customers and very little overhead on my part. Not totally passive, I guess, but takes up very little time and makes us a decent bit of money on the side.
- EGreg 14y ago
  Could you disclose how much one can make on airbnb? I have a 2 bedroom apartment and sometimes, when I leave on vacation, I would like to rent it out.
  - bigethan 14y ago
    Depends on your location. Do an airbnb search in your area to get an idea. I just made up a price for mine, and when I was getting tons of requests for it, raised the prices to slow them to a manageable rate. Living in SF doesn't hurt.
    - marcojgm 14y ago
      In SF you could easily rent out a spare room in a 2br apartment for $65-120 per night depending on the quality. I typically do 10 days a month at $100 per night. Sometimes I hire a cleaner, and buy some wine/snacks/breakfast for guests but it's been very easy and I love doing it. Disclaimer: I work for Airbnb.
  - redthrowaway 14y ago
    Easiest way to figure that out is to check what's available in your area on Airbnb and see what equivalent places are going for.
ww520 14y ago
Real estate
bdunn 14y ago
Planscope (https://planscope.io https://planscope.io) - predictable, more-growth-than-churn SaaS revenue Compared to my book, which fizzles out when I'm not actively marketing it, building a B2B subscription product is the best, most turnkey income source I've ever had.
- ww520 14y ago
  It looks great. How do you market your webapp?
  - bdunn 14y ago
    Content marketing mostly, and over delivering awesome, awesome support that gets customers to refer others. You can also do really well by just optimizing the hell out of the visitors/expired trials you already have. SO MUCH EASIER than attracting more eyeballs.
    - shmageggy 14y ago
      Doesn't all of the above take this out of the realm of "passive"? Or are you able to magically get all of that done in such a short time that you consider it negligible?
      - bdunn 14y ago
        I spend about 2 hours a week total, so right - it's not totally passive... But I'm at the point now where I could outsource first tier support and maybe get away with no weekly involvement. But I want more growth, so I'm still actively working on promoting Planscope.
    - gamelodge 14y ago
      delivering awesome, awesome support would require lots and lots of time/effort != passive
- pan69 14y ago
  Looks great. But is this passive income? It looks like you've invested a lot to get this off the ground, correct? How much time do you spend on this, let's say per week?
JoeCortopassi 14y ago
[Related]Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what? (1 month ago) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4467603 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4467603
- sprobertson 14y ago
  [Related] Ask HN: How do you generate passive income? (3 years ago) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=387789 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=387789
  - khet 14y ago
    I am glad this (and similar) questions gets asked. As a community of makers, we can get very good at making things but just making things is not enough. We need to prove to our customers that we created something of value and then charge them for that value. This topic cannot be talked about enough.
Matsta 14y ago
Facebook was definitely my biggest earner until they decided to crack down on everything at the end of last year and basically screwed everyone over. It's the same deal for SEO, used to be a easy way to promote Adsense, CPA offers and what not, but the penguin change just makes it harder and harder to rank for keywords. 2012 has been definitely a slow year for Internet marketing, the worst I've faced since I started in 2006.
- robryan 14y ago
  You could argue that this stuff being harder is actually a good thing for the end user. The stuff that is still around is likely offering more value. Coming from someone who has done a fair bit of CPA/ Adsense stuff in the past myself.
  - cgag 14y ago
    I think it'd be pretty hard to argue otherwise.
raintrees 14y ago
Real Estate, multi-family rentals.
byoung2 14y ago
I have two sites that I built 3 years ago that still rank well for a few valuable keywords. Each site has hundreds of pages of content but one page on each site is number 1 on Google for keywords that pay $5-10 per click. Not a lot of traffic, but enough for a few hundred a month from adsense and affiliate links.
choxi 14y ago
This might not be the kind of answer you're looking for, but the best way to truly passively increase your wealth is to take care of your personal finances (e.g. pay off your student loans, pay off your credit card balance, invest in a lifecycle fund, see if your employer offers a 401(k)) I personally really liked the book I Will Teach You To Be Rich -- it has a poor name but it's dense with incredibly practical advice particularly for people coming right out of college suddenly making an income.
- jfolkins 14y ago
  I support the idea of paying off debt. 401k (investment groups) however, is essentially giving your money to a gambler, and having him play your hand. Bet on yourself. Always.
  - hartleybrody 14y ago
    Betting on yourself isn't always the safest. But I'd be curious to know what you meant by betting on yourself. Like investing part of your savings into a side project?
  - saryant 14y ago
    In regards to the 401k, I disagree. Unless your employer only offers really crappy funds it's in no way gambling. First off, your employer match is essentially free money. It's foolish to ignore that. The tax benefits can also be significant. For instance, I contribute 25% of my pre-tax salary to my 401k. That works out to $1500 a month but because my taxable income is lowered my monthly net is only decreased by about $950. That's $550 a month into savings that I wouldn't have previously had due to taxes. If you follow the investing philosophy of John C. Bogle, founder of Vanguard, you'll likely do just fine. Assuming you're young, you just split your 401k between four index funds: total bond market, total domestic stock market, total international stock market and real estate investment trusts (REITs). I do 20/45/25/10. Yes, in the short term you might take a big hit but in the long term (>20 years) this is historically shown to perform very well. As you get closer to retirement you increase the proportion of your portfolio in bonds so as to lower your risk.
patio11 14y ago
Halloweenbingocards.net will probably hit about $6k this October (BCC will hit maybe $10k). Not bad for $250 paid in like 2009 or so. I did a course on lifecycle emails for SaaS businesses recently. That did pretty well - a few hundred sales.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > I did a course on lifecycle emails for SaaS businesses recently. That did pretty well - a few hundred sales. A more professional-looking video on training.kalzumeus.com would've probably helped your conversion rate quite a bit. And avoiding the use of your internet handle on the site would've kept it from sounding cheesy to those outside the HN community.
  - hiddenfeatures 14y ago
    The question remains unanswered whether a "more professional" video would not have turned out cheesy. IMHO success proves Patrick right.
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      > The question remains unanswered whether a "more professional" video would not have turned out cheesy. I don't see how it would have. The whole point of making it more professional would have been to make it less cheesy. If you fail to do that, then you've failed to make it "more professional". > IMHO success proves Patrick right. Patrick's success has primarily been in the written word. This is his first foray into selling video-based content, and I think he has quite a bit of work to do on his presentation. Like most nerds, he's quite awkward on camera, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with some elbow grease. Of course people will cite his Business of Software talk as a counterexample, but that was highly rehearsed (something he mentioned on HN) and consequently felt polished (yet still a little awkward), but the video on training.kalzumeus.com doesn't feel that way. Moreover, having to heavily rehearse every presentation you give does not scale very well when you're creating a series of them to sell online. Some things that could've been easily improved in the intro video include wearing a proper suit (or at least a collared shirt) instead of a red tracksuit, properly styling his hair, wearing contacts instead of glasses (due to the reflections on them), not wearing an enormous geeky headset, removing the audio "booms" that frequently occur in the video, not being in a 和室 (Japanese-style room) and dropping the super-tacky gimmick with the $100 bill.
mcantor 14y ago
I sell posters of a vim cheat sheet I designed (see my profile for link). I ship my inventory to a 3rd-party fulfillment provider who plugs in to Shopify with a custom app, so all I have to do is re-print when the inventory runs out and handle the occasional customer service problem. Digital downloads are a total freebie.
- statictype 14y ago
  Neat. I've thought of doing things like this before. Do you mind sharing how many figures you make on this? How do you handle the actual printing? Is that also outsourced?
  - mcantor 14y ago
    I lucked out with this project; it began as a Kickstarter which got incredibly overfunded: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxcantor/beautiful-vim-cheat-sheet-poster http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxcantor/beautiful-vim-... It hit the front page of "Featured Technology" projects and lived there for almost the entire funding run. I used UPrinting for the printing, who I'm quite happy with. It cost less than a thousand dollars to do the initial run of 500 posters. Initially, my approach to shipping was to buy 500 poster tubes from Uline (no relation to UPrinting) and ship them myself. This was an unmitigated disaster; a cataclysm; a miserable shit-show of Brobdingnagian proportions. There is simply not sufficient support for the "hobbyist shipper"; USPS doesn't know what to do with you, UPS and Fedex charge too much (especially for international shipping), and the label-printing tools are across-the-board some of the worst software I've ever worked with. After months of Kafkaesque hijinks with USPS, I gave up and shipped my inventory to Fulfillrite, a third-party fulfillment provider. Thank God for those guys. I haven't run the numbers to determine my exact profit & loss, but I make more than just beer money. I don't know if I'll ever sell enough to come even close to what the Kickstarter originally made, but the web store has been bringing in around $750/mo in revenue, which translates to something in the range of $350 - $500 of profit. I tend to make money to the extent that more eyeballs hit the site. Last month, someone mentioned the poster in passing in the comment of a blog I'd never heard of, and I made $300 in six hours. I have no idea how to advertise, though, so that kind of thing is usually just lucky happenstance for me. I'll probably do another couple of poster projects (bash, emacs, etc.); if they are even nearly as successful as this one, I might eventually be able to live exclusively off the profits! An exciting prospect, but one that is quite far off. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any other questions. I really ought to condense this stuff into a blog post some time.
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apike 14y ago
Two years ago, when we started Steamclock, we spent our first two months building a niche iPhone app. We've done point releases but not added much, yet today it pays our rent. http://www.steamclocksw.com/weddingdj/ http://www.steamclocksw.com/weddingdj/ We haven't done any serious research or marketing for it. We simply focused down and built the highest quality app we could build, and it worked.
- AVTizzle 14y ago
  Awesome icon. >>We haven't done any serious research or marketing for it. It could be a personal taste question, but why not any marketing? With enough traction to be paying rent based solely off word-of-mouth and organic, you certainly seem to be creating value for people. There are easy/free/cheap ways to market apps, definitely at least some amount of money being left on the table. Congrats either way, good stuff :)
  - apike 14y ago
    Thanks! Icons are huge on the App Store, an excellent one is a must have. We've done some experimenting with marketing, but couldn't figure out any strategy that could convert a bride or groom for $3.50 (the amount we net after Apple's cut). We tried and abandoned Google ads, Facebook ads, and advertising on wedding blogs. Virtually all app-marketing services focus on free apps, and most of them are grey hat in some way. For a general-purpose app (like our upcoming Party Monster, a more general music app) you don't need to be targeted, but for a wedding app you need to target engaged people, which is expensive!
    - ecaradec 14y ago
      You may try to contact zankyou or some other website that manage wedding list. I used them for my wedding and they also promote other products. I think they might be interested into your product. Their users are the perfect fit for you : engaged and with an inclination for technology.
- lessnonymous 14y ago
  This app is an AWESOME idea. I wonder if there's any other verticals that it could be adapted to. Maybe conferences? Funerals? Religious services? How about fitness? I do fun-runs and I would KILL to have playlists for warm up, first 1km, middle run, last 500m, victory and warm down.
pacomerh 14y ago
Very low ones, the first one is selling a set of shutterstock pictures, aprox 100 bucks a month. And the lowest one, 30-40 bucks a month with adsense clicks. Basically a list of powerpoint presenations (chain letters) for the spanish speaking. I spend 30 min a week. I get the PPS files, convert a couple of them to html and put them on a wordpress blog. edit: forgot to put a url http://powerpointz.com http://powerpointz.com
dshimy 14y ago
https://www.jabwire.com https://www.jabwire.com - collaboration tool for software projects, SaaS revenue
tully 14y ago
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meowch!/id492321599?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meowch!/id492321599?mt=8 and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nahmeenstudios.meowch&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nahmeenstu... first game, brings in consistent cash every month. Also on amazon and barnes and noble.
pczzy 14y ago
I have a website, http://www.mfrbee.com http://www.mfrbee.com . Not a lot of traffic, but enough for a few hundred a month from adsense.
- whalabi 14y ago
  No offense, but you should get someone to fix the English, I was immediately turned off.
andrewljohnson 14y ago
Our highest selling app (a hiking app) makes 15-30K/month, depending on the season. Our other navigation apps don't make quite as much yet, but some are getting there. You can figure out from my profile which it is, but I didn't want to name it in the thread and have this be something that turned up in searches. I wouldn't call it totally passive, but if we ignored it, it wouldn't stop making money. We have consistently grown the sales over the last couple of years, and we are about to introduce a premium in-app purchase. I have always thought making iPhone apps was a good business, despite what you hear on this forum.
- EGreg 14y ago
  Is it a paid app or a free one?
  - andrewljohnson 14y ago
    Paid, the price has been between .99 - 24.99, and now sells for 9.99. The premium add-on will be 19.99/year.
- peto123 14y ago
  Congratulation, good work! Anyway, the question was about passive income...I suppose you have to do a bit of marketing, user support, thinking about new features, etc...isn't it then just a business?
  - andrewljohnson 14y ago
    Perhaps, though it seems like a lot of these responses fall in that category. I'll say this - I used to work on this app day and night, and now I try and just do the part I enjoy the most, and leave most of it to expert developers and friendly support people. My focus is now on growing the platform, business development, and design work.
- fendale 14y ago
  I followed through your profile, and the hiking app looks very good. Great job! How do you get 'outdoor maps' into the App, ie do you license them or are they available freely somewhere?
rjurney 14y ago
In California, selling cannibas to a co-op you belong to as a patient could be a nice supplemental income. An Aerogrow makes it easy, and with six legal plants, you can grow at least 1.5 pounds every 90 days. I think it works out that you can make $10-15k/year for not much work. And no, my wife would not let me do this :)
- pyre 14y ago
  > I think it works out that you can make $10-15k/year > for not much work. Gross or net revenue? I would imagine that the electricity bills would be not insignificant.
  - rjurney 14y ago
    Net, I think. The LED bulbs aren't so inefficient. But there is an up front cost of about $250 per Aerogrow. It's the tallest/biggest unit you need.
- brianwillis 14y ago
  I think you win the prize for the most creative idea in this thread.
  - jarek 14y ago
    If true, that'd say more about the thread than about anything else.
  - kevinrpope 14y ago
    I'd say it's probably the most unique idea in this thread, given that most HNers likely wouldn't normally think of dealing/selling drugs as being particularly creative.
- EvRev 14y ago
  That is not passive at all. You have to change the res every two weeks, plus be on the look out for any signs of stress (bugs, nutrients, and environment). Then you have to process it, which a pound can be trimmed by a professional in about 10 hours. BTW you need to supervise them or do it yourself. Then you get the hassle of dealing with the clubs consignment drama... Not to mention the stress of worrying about being robbed throughout the whole cycle.
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thangalin 14y ago
http://www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement/ http://www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement/ A paltry $100 per year in ad revenue.
- supersaiyan 14y ago
  I loled, but you should make some youtube videos, its a very niche topic you would drive good traffic back
vjz 14y ago
Tax-free municipal bonds
- aantix 14y ago
  Care to expand on this?
  - brianobush 14y ago
    Municipal bonds, loans to your local government are free of taxes (both state and fed). I have excess cash that would normally be in certificate of deposit in muni bonds currently making 3% tax free. There are risks, best to consult with a money manager if you are uncertain on how to gauge the associated risks.
    - nandemo 14y ago
      Indeed, municipal bonds are much riskier than good ol' Treasuries. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/business/municipal-bonds-default-more-than-advertised.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/business/municipal-bonds-d...
      - brianobush 14y ago
        The key is diversity; I use municipal bond funds and have had great success and much more income than from treasuries.
  - hkhanna 14y ago
    State and municipality bonds are sort of like U.S. Treasury bonds, except they're issued by a state or local government. They pay a fixed interest rate, but your interest is usually tax-free. Of course, they pay a lower interest rate than taxable bonds. Thus, the only reason these tax-free bonds would be better than taxable bonds is if you are in a high enough marginal tax bracket to compensate for the difference in interest between these tax-free bonds and taxable bonds. An example should make this all clear. Assume you have a marginal tax rate of 40%. (You earn a lot of money.) If you invest $100,000 in a typical taxable bond that pays 10%, each year you will get $10,000. But subtract out the 40% tax, and you are left with only $6,000 after-tax. Compare this with what would happen if you invested that same $100,000 in a tax-free state bond. This bond only pays 8%, being tax-free and all. Each year you get $8,000. But you pay no tax, so you are in fact better off than if you had bought the taxable bonds! Now, lets change your marginal tax bracket to 10%--you don't earn much money, so your marginal rate is low. You invest that same $100,000 in the taxable bond that pays 10%, you will get $10,000 pre-tax but only pay your marginal rate, 10%, on that sum, so you are left with $9,000. With the tax-free state bond at 8%, you only get $8,000, though you don't pay any tax on it. So at your low marginal rate, you would have been better off buying the taxable bond. My point is, tax-free bonds are probably only useful if you earn a lot of income each year to put you in a high marginal rate. Source: I'm a law student and we learned about tax-exempt state/municipal bonds today in Tax!
nostromo 14y ago
Real estate. (Ok, not 100% passive, but what is?) You can buy a duplex for not much more than a single family house in many US cities and, thanks to the low interest rates for an owner-occupied mortgage, rent out half and live for free. Unlike tech, you will not have a giant windfall with real estate; but also unlike tech, it's very easy to price your product, find customers, and figure out what your cashflow will be for years to come.
- sage_joch 14y ago
  > Ok, not 100% passive, but what is? A stock index fund. :-) Usually much less yield for your money, though.
  - JoshTriplett 14y ago
    If you want a passive version of real-estate investing, just buy a REIT fund. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REIT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REIT
- Vivtek 14y ago
  A word of caution: unless you have the personal skills to deal with tenants, do not make the mistake of thinking that real estate is passive income. Like any earning occupation, landlording takes attention to detail, the ability not to procrastinate, and people skills. Unlike most occupations, landlording will bring you into contact with some of the worst people the planet has to offer, under what has to be the worst possible set of circumstances. If you want to lose your faith in humanity, I encourage you to take up landlording. There are easier ways to live rent-free, unless, as I say, you have the personal skills to ride herd on grown children or if you are lucky enough to own your property in an area where normal people rent, and you can find good tenants on a regular basis.
  - curiouscats 14y ago
    Or pay someone else to manage the property for you. They are not cheap but with the super low interest rates now (along with house purchase and rental markets) you can likely find some workable solutions this way. It isn't passive, but with a property manager it is much closer to passive.
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bosco 14y ago
pixurwall.com - about 2-3k hits a day generating $20-30 in revenue. Cost 200 bucks to make and has been pretty consistent for over 8 months.
- volandovengo 14y ago
  where does this traffic come from?
  - bosco 14y ago
    The way the app works, it auto tags 2-3 people that are in the collage poster that was generated. I believe most of the traffic is generated that way.
dangrossman 14y ago
I launched http://www.improvely.com/ http://www.improvely.com/ in August, and it's already eclipsed my other sites in recurring revenue.
- nja 14y ago
  I've been hearing more and more that B2B is the way to go. Sounds like it has worked well for you.
kkoppenhaver 14y ago
A site that I've recently stumbled across and been reading through voraciously is smartpassiveincome.com. It has some pretty solid tips and in 3 episodes of his free podcast, he goes over 8 potential types of "passive" income business models.
dhechols 14y ago
Last February I started a small YouTube channel surrounding eSports called DrZealotTV. http://youtube.com/DrZealotTV http://youtube.com/DrZealotTV Although it hasn't even broken even, I'm now equipped with a ton of expertise and I have a few efforts I'm working on that I think will be quite popular. :)
suresk 14y ago
I really like building developer tools and kind of miss doing it full time. I built a tool for testing/playing with REST services last year and sell it on the OS X app store: http://www.uresk.net/httpclient/ http://www.uresk.net/httpclient/ I'm not getting rich off it, but it usually brings in a few hundred bucks per month and I like hearing from fellow developers who benefit from using it.
- krickle 14y ago
  Did you do any market testing to see if there was a need, or was this scratching your own itch?
  - suresk 14y ago
    It was just something I needed at the time - I was doing a lot with REST services at the time and thought a simple tool for interacting with them would be handy.
- nja 14y ago
  That's pretty cool, actually. I would never have thought of selling an app for that, as most everybody I know uses Advanced REST Client ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/advanced-rest-client-appl/hgmloofddffdnphfgcellkdfbfbjeloo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/advanced-rest-clie... ). It must be really neat to know people are choosing to pay you for your product over using a similar free app.
  - suresk 14y ago
    Thanks. The browser-based ones have improved quite a bit recently. I use Advanced REST Client whenever I'm on a Windows machine - it is quite good. There are a few features that my tool has that make it worth a few bucks for some people, I think, most notably being able to save requests and share them with other members of your team. I've heard from a few folks who have them checked into source control as part of manual testing scripts (there are some interesting opportunities to automate this kind of testing, too, but I haven't had time to focus on it). And I'm releasing a feature soon that will let you paste in cURL commands and turn them into requests, which is handy when you're working with a webservice that has examples of requests given in the form of cURL commands (which is a lot of them). Even if you're competing against free apps that match and even exceed what you can offer in some areas (which is frankly going to be more and more common), you can still find little features that might be fairly simple but add a ton of value for a certain subset of people.
SeoxyS 14y ago
Airbnb + legacy Mac & iPhone apps. 50k/yr on average.
scheff 14y ago
I'm about to write a book on precisely this topic. I have been looking hard at addressing this issue over the past 10 years so that I can focus on what's important (Startups!). And I believe that I have finally found the best passive income source, given the limitations that people like ourselves are working with. I'm still in the process of experimenting with my method to see how far I can take it, but the basics of it work already. A lot of what people define as "passive income" is questionable. Most, if not all, passive income investment strategies require you to hold down a job, or other income, while financing assets that some day, HOPEFULLY, will be paid off enough that you don't have to work ever again. Most of those plans take too long for my satisfaction. There are other means and methods if you learn and apply yourself. My book will hopefully detail and compare my method with a majority of others. The obvious ones to look at, if you can invest time and/or money - * Share trading * Property investment * Property flipping/options * Google AdSense (or similar) * Affiliate marketing * Tim Ferriss' muse / 4HWW * Network marketing/MLM * Website flipping All of them have varying degrees of learning curve and time commitment to make happen. Few people will tell you how much commitment you need to make, they just focus on dangling the carrot.
- goggles99 14y ago
  I always question people who write books, produce DVDs, hold seminars or sell any kind of knowledge concerning how to get rich or make extra money. If you or any of these people are so good and know all these 'secrets' to success and money - Why don't you just get rich off of it and retire? why would you let everyone know you secrets? Won't this just crowd your space? Why do you need to sell this product to make money? Some of you claim that you just want to give back or help others and you have such success, then why are you charging me $20-$500+ ? So I am always skeptical. I think that this is generally snake oil.
  - firebones 14y ago
    I used to question most of those people too (and still do), but someone explained it fairly well in response to why patio11 did this with his drip marketing class: it's simply a scale out strategy. Given the available time an expert has, one could make $X as one person just doing it; with consulting and teaching others, you might reach 5 people in a year; but by turning that learning into intellectual property that can be distributed (as a class, a video, a book) you might be able to reach 100x the people. That said, there are certainly gurus who are merely selling hope, often because the easy money has been made and they can wind down what they've learned because the edge no longer exists. You know what I can't figure out though? Why is Mark Cuban shooting a commercial to pimp lame shoes?
ryangilbert 14y ago
nflbyeweeks.com - gets over 1,000 uniques each day and generates between $2 and $5 each day with Adsense. Not overly impressive but it's still nice.
- hilti 14y ago
  Just with a single page? That's impressive!
  - ryangilbert 14y ago
    Yep. Just one page. I've been considering adding a couple more to see what would happen.
- kaizendc 14y ago
  You should split test some NFL jersey e-mail submit offers from CPA networks, instead of Adsense. I bet you will make way more money from those 1,000 daily uniques with a good jersey e-mail submit.
  - ryangilbert 14y ago
    Could you email me at draftpulse at gmail dot com to give me a little info on how that works?
- aw3c2 14y ago
  I don't understand that site. Is it just the table with the teams on the right? No links, nothing? Or am I missing some plugin? Really amazed that a page like that could attract any useful traffic. I guess people are lured onto the site by your meta description and then, searching for links, click on the ads. Evil!
- armenarmen 14y ago
  Where was the bulk of your traffic from?
enobrev 14y ago
No matter how hard I try, all my eggs only seem to fit into one basket at a time. I don't recommend it, but it has worked well for me thus far.
veb 14y ago
I use TeeSpring (http://www.teespring.com http://www.teespring.com) to create t-shirts and market them towards people on my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ModernSherlock http://www.facebook.com/ModernSherlock). Generally does very well. Way better than other stuff I've tried, like SEO/Marketing etc. The only problems I have is using a crap design, so it pays to know what the audience really wants before I try selling it to them.
- Eliezer 14y ago
  I've considered selling T-Shirts. How much time do they take to create? How much income do you make, for how much effort?
  - wiwillia 14y ago
    Hey Eliezer, it takes 10-14 days after the end of the campaign for the printed tees to arrive on buyers doorsteps, and you control your margin! We take a flat margin per tee, which is included in the base price quoted on www.teespring.com/design. If you've got any Q's, feel free to shoot me an email @ walker@teespring.com
  - veb 14y ago
    My last design took about 5 minutes, and it took maybe 20minutes in total "advertising" and I got back... two months salary. (software dev, in NZ)
evanlong 14y ago
By posting links to Google. I currently make about $7000 a month doing it. If you are interested send me a message. And if you are interested in learning more check out my site for the details: http://bit.ly/bxhogZ http://bit.ly/bxhogZ
ericdykstra 14y ago
Not 100% passive, but fantasy sports has been a nice side income for me this year. I used to play a lot for almost nothing, but then found daily fantasy games (pick a new team every game day, play against other people) and have made a decent return on my investment. I play on fanduel.com almost exclusively. If you have any questions or want some help getting started, send me an email (in profile). My referral link if you're so inclined: http://www.fanduel.com/?invitedby=yudarvish&cnl=da http://www.fanduel.com/?invitedby=yudarvish&cnl=da
- bramstroker 14y ago
  Scumbag.
- sejje 14y ago
  I have an old poker friend who started a similar site: http://buzzdraft.com/ http://buzzdraft.com/ It's formatted to be similar to poker sit-and-gos.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
seanlinehan 14y ago
I was making a few thousand dollars a month from a coupon site. The Panda update completely knocked me out of the rankings for the past 4 months, but I've been slowly climbing back up on my top keywords. It was literally no work whatsoever - I wrote a script to aggregate coupons automagically and outsourced SEO. Turns out the latter wound up killing me. (If you're an SEO master, please reach out to me on Twitter) :)
ashray 14y ago
I started a site 13 years ago and it is one of the largest sites in it's niche right now. Very very popular. I do work on it many hours a week (can range from 0 to 100 hours/week) but I don't really have to. I just love working on it, adding new features, etc. I would definitely call the work passive or hobbyist - even though sometimes I'm up till 4 in the morning working on X new feature. Income is in the early 5 digits per month range (USD). Traffic dropped a bit from August to September so I've been working more on it lately :)
- intended 14y ago
  Hobbyist would be the better category for it. At a variable range of 0-100 hours a week, your top end is very far removed from the passive income part of the question. In this case the average number of hours per month may make more sense to discuss.
  - ashray 14y ago
    You're right. And maybe average number of hours per month is more appropriate. Or lets, say average number of hours per week. Usually the top end goes to 100 when I'm working on some new feature and am completely obsessed with it. However, following that there is definitely burn-out which causes me to go down to the 0-20 per week range. Also, considering that I've been working on this since high school, I used to have a lot more time for it back then ;) In a regular month I probably average around 20 hours per week. However, during a particularly overzealous month I may go to 35 or higher. I think at 20 it still falls under passive income. Just to give you an idea of how my commitment varies. A year ago I had a full time job and I would sometimes work only 5-10 hours per week on it. Also, I completely neglected it in my first year of college (yet it paid for my college) and by my 3rd year there were enough problems that I had to again spend considerable time bringing it up to spec :) I'd love to call it a hobby - because that's how I feel about it - but when 24 hours of downtime can cause more than a few hundred dollars of losses - it becomes tough not to take things a bit more seriously =/
    - intended 14y ago
sinak 14y ago
Two friends and I started http://repeaterstore.com http://repeaterstore.com straight out of college. Within a year it was profitable, and within 3 it was doing $3 million in revenue (and about a 15% profit margin). It's pretty much stabilized since then, and we hired a manager to monitor the operation. Most stock is shipped through drop shoppers, we just have 2 customer support people to handle phone calls and emails. Forthe last 2 years we've been working on new, more interesting startups - but having a stable source of income has been incredibly valuable in letting us bootstrap until we could raise funds from VCs. Niche eCommerce can be awesome.
- spiredigital 14y ago
  Totally agreed! Just left a comment above about how eCommerce is my favorite source of passive income.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ssebro 14y ago
  You're having db issues here : http://www.repeaterstore.com/applications/small-building.html http://www.repeaterstore.com/applications/small-building.htm...
- dxrysom 14y ago
  Well, It would be more awesome if your site was not "unable to select a database".
spiredigital 14y ago
I'd have to say my two eCommerce businesses. They took a ton of time to setup and market initially, but now they generate a full-time income as I have a team in place to manage operations. I love to work on them and often do, but I'll frequently take weeks off at a time to travel and everything continues to run smoothly. The entire business is based on the drop shipping model, so I don't have to stock any inventory and can run the business from anywhere. Plus, the initial capital outlay was just $1,500 so I didn't have to take on any risk. For anyone interested, I blog about running my two businesses and eCommerce in general at: http://www.ecommercefuel.com http://www.ecommercefuel.com
- armenarmen 14y ago
  loved your book by the way
kcorey 14y ago
I make lower 5 digits per year from http://docrobot.co.uk http://docrobot.co.uk. It's effectively an online desktop publishing system aimed at making it easy for HR teams to deliver TRS (Total Reward Statements) in 10% of the time, at 10% of the cost, and with fewer errors. It took a couple years to write, so I wouldn't say it was an easy investment, but it was fun to write. These days it ticks over and I don't spend much time on it at all. Perhaps I should work on advertising more... -Ken
vu0tran 14y ago
How timely. I'm actually starting a challenge for myself to see if I can bootstrap something to at least $5,000 in revenue a month. I've tried and failed many times, but this time, I'm going to force myself to only live off what I can make with this product. http://vutran.me/blog/desperation.html http://vutran.me/blog/desperation.html
- sejje 14y ago
  Did you release this (blog says oct 15th)?
khet 14y ago
I spent 2 weeks on a Themeforest xhtml/css theme about 3 years ago. It still gives me a 40$ every month. Nothing to brag about but it takes care of my hosting bill :)
- tudorizer 14y ago
  Link?
kolinko 14y ago
Real estate - I used to own two flats, and get $200-$300 from each one of them. I recently sold one though - I think I can make a better use of the money by other means. iPhone/iPad apps - I did two or three successful apps, right now they bring in $20-$40 daily. The last time I touched/promoted any one of them was last December, and the sales are quite steady now. I bought some S.DICE shares ( http://polimedia.us/bitcoin/mpex.php?mpsic=S.DICE http://polimedia.us/bitcoin/mpex.php?mpsic=S.DICE ) @0.0032, spent 800 BTC on them I think. Got ~20BTC from dividends first month, ~5BTC dividends the second. It's very risky, but there is some potential for growth there. All in all I get ~1200 USD of passive income which would be considered an average pay in Poland. I've got a startup on top of that which brings a lot more though.
- Marwy 14y ago
  Can you tell the name of this startup?
- dbaupp 14y ago
  Is the 1200 per month?
nsoonhui 14y ago
Setting up an ecommerce shop and let my friend runs it.
tudorizer 14y ago
Good timing with this thread. My attempt is with making iOS games. Trying to mix pleasure and profit. First attempt is http://clumsyandthestars.com/ http://clumsyandthestars.com/. Working on a second one now...
- kranner 14y ago
  Same here. Our first game is at http://noisytyping.com http://noisytyping.com.
  - tudorizer 14y ago
    I like those screenshots. :) Let me know on twitter when it's launched @tudorizer
    - kranner 14y ago
      Thanks, will do. Your game looks awesome, btw. I'll give it a try.
- Cakez0r 14y ago
  How is that working out for you, if you don't mind answering?
  - tudorizer 14y ago
    Not that great yet. My day job doesn't allow me much time to focus on everything an app implies. Hopefully I will fix this soon.
- xgalvez 14y ago
  Good luck! I'm trying the same thing myself with http://yata.ca http://yata.ca. It's more of a party game played with the iOS device, and thought the interactivity with people in the same room would add to the fun. Hope all's well with the second one!
  - 14y ago
mgz 14y ago
I have built http://search-logs.com http://search-logs.com back in 2006 in a couple of days and ad revenue still lets me work on interesting projects, not worrying about getting a "real" job.
icoder 14y ago
I created http://www.colormandala.com http://www.colormandala.com It makes ~2 dollars a day from adsense. Breadcrumbs, but I haven't spend any time on it for like half a year. Amazon affiliate adds almost nothing to this. Being in the Chrome Webstore seems to have helped a lot in page visits. I still wonder from time to time if I should put some effort in upping this a bit. But my time is limited and the app doesn't fit my current strategy (mobile, mhealth specifically).
marcelfalliere 14y ago
> theonemillioneuromap.com I got 4 euros (minus google checkout fees) so far.
demostenes 14y ago
My website about PC processors http://www.jaki-procesor.pl/ http://www.jaki-procesor.pl/ (in Polish) gets me around 200$-300$ per month. US version http://www.best-processor.net/ http://www.best-processor.net/ is barely alive tho.
ispekhov 14y ago
Whoever is offering stock as an income opportunity is not smart. And if you think stock is a passive income opportunity, you are dumb. Go read James Altucher.
- rm999 14y ago
  All passive income comes from something with value, and hence carries inherent risk. I'd argue real estate is even riskier, yet you aren't criticizing people in this thread who make money from renting/airbnb.
ispekhov 14y ago
Go download Qriket app for your iPhone. It lets you scan QR codes and win money. Not a tedious task that will net you $20 per day.
- nXqd 14y ago
  is there any similar app on Android ?
jawns 14y ago
This is probably not your ordinary type of passive income, but it's income for work I would otherwise be doing anyway, so hopefully it counts. I run Correlated (http://www.correlated.org http://www.correlated.org), a site that publishes one surprising correlation a day, using data generated by readers. It was never really intended to be a money-making project, although I did give display ads and affiliate links a try, with very little success. And then ... a book deal fell into my lap. I had been shopping around a book proposal for "Experiments on Babies" (http://www.experimentsonbabies.com http://www.experimentsonbabies.com), and one of the publishers that was interested in that book also happened to note that I was the creator of Correlated, and asked if I would be interested in a separate deal to turn Correlated into a book. I got a very nice advance for the two book deals, and in the case of Correlated, the writing involved is, for the most part, what I'd be doing anyway, deal or no deal.
hendi_ 14y ago
Bunker App (https://www.bunkerapp.com https://www.bunkerapp.com) Bunker is my SaaS solution which I market to freelancers and consultants who are looking for a complete solution for their small business (from creating quotes and proposals over project management and time-tracking to invoicing and payments). Most other services specialize on a subset of what's needed (e.g. they're only doing invoicing, or only time-tracking, or only project management) and you have to go shopping for multiple solutions (and cross fingers that all of them integrate well with each other!). With Bunker my focus is on providing a complete, well-integrated experience. So you could say my niche is "covering multiple niches" ;-) I'd say that Bunker provides me passive income because my support burden is negligible and my churn-rate less then my conversion-rate. So if I wanted to I could go completely passive, but I'm committed to improve the app further and grow it.
pkamb 14y ago
The Mac App Store. Consistent sales of my $8 app EdgeCase and the $3 Reddit Notifier. Plus the more expensive One-Hand Keyboard. In my experience it's much easier to price higher on the Mac App Store compared to iOS. Especially when you're selling a constantly-running notifier/utility. Feels more worth it when the app is passively used every time you use your Mac, as opposed to whenever you happen to find and use the random app on your 3rd home screen in iOS. - EdgeCase http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/edgecase/id513826860?mt=12 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/edgecase/id513826860?mt=12 - Reddit Notifier https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reddit-notifier/id468366517?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reddit-notifier/id468366517?... - One-Hand Keyboard http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/one-hand-keyboard-one-hand/id465275525?mt=12 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/one-hand-keyboard-one-hand/id...
hodder 14y ago
Stocks work the best for me so far. Specifically Graham style net-nets.
Jemaclus 14y ago
For a long time I refused to sign up for Amazon Prime, and I'd order things that cost $19 or $23, and I'd hunt around for something that would bring in that additional $6 or $3 to meet the minimum price for free Super Saver Shipping (USD $25). I got tired of hunting around for that, so I built http://finishmyorder.com/ http://finishmyorder.com/. I get like $6/mo in affiliate fees, but I don't really advertise it so I'm lucky I get even that.
danneu 14y ago
I make (well, past-tense at the moment) almost $2k/month on a vBulletin play-by-post gaming forum I started back in 2007. One single adsense banner below the navbar. I actually burned out within 6 months of trying to bootstrap the fledgling forum with fake activity, clever backlinks, and entertaining the trickle of registrants. Burned out enough to take a a break for a while. Came back months later and it was a bustling forum of activity. Apparently I'd just reached that critical mass necessary for the community to be autonomous (able to entertain itself and cajole newbies to stay) before I took that break. Nowadays, I do very little beyond pay the server bill. It's staggering the amount of work volunteers (moderators) will put into maintaining a community and I'm grateful. Recently had adsense disabled on my website after some automated process decided my website was "mature/adult-themed". The automated email cited a post in our forum's off-topic spammy section where some user copy and pasted the phrase "sexual intercourse" over and over again in Mandarin. Just some non-Mandarin-speaking teenagers being silly for a moment. Now I'm working on getting adsense reactivated.
- dholowiski 14y ago
  I'd just like to point out that this is a classic "Overnight"... well, after 6 months of crazy hard work "success" story.
  - firebones 14y ago
    As well as the risk of dependence on a single revenue stream subject to being shut off by automated algorithms flagging your site based on UGC from teenagers.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
benhall2121 14y ago
My most recent iPhone App, Peek-A-Boo Boo Bear. Apps are the essence of passive income. I made it once and now I get paid for it. The app plays peek-a-boo and a few other things. http://itunes.apple.com/app/peek-a-boo-boo-bear/id501788281?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/app/peek-a-boo-boo-bear/id501788281?...
collegeappz 14y ago
I've learned that my passive income sources have become nonexistent and going into the biz. That's to be expected in the early years of a startup. If anyone has other advice if I were to have pennies to save, do share.
armenarmen 14y ago
I own aidsforhearing.com a shitty amazon store selling hearing aids, go figure it's made nothing. ideas?
abhishekdesai 14y ago
SignInStyle.com Launched in 2007 as a free service, got covered in CNBC India. Got loads of requests overnight so had to make it paid afterwards. Around USD 2-3k income without doing lot of efforts. It is one of the most unique ideas you can ever come across. Requires no paid marketing. You get extremely happy when Olympians, photographers use signatures designed by you on their websites and photographs as autographs. Highly gratifying passive income.
da_n 14y ago
I make about $80-100 per month in Adsense from a 'scratch your own itch' website I made to help calculate battle outcomes in a game. Did it over a weekend. I don't actually play the game anymore, was taking up too much of my life. Working on a new version though as the code is a shambles and it isn't responsive and most visitors come from iOS, I didn't know much about JavaScript or responsive design at the time I wrote it so a horror show underneath. http://battlecalc.net http://battlecalc.net

237 points by robbiet480 14y ago

neel980 14y ago

A supportive working wife, nothing beats that :)

danellis 14y ago
I should hope not.

fudged71 14y ago

Amazon affiliate links somehow floating through the abyss and still pulling in pennies.

bigethan 14y ago

Airbnb. High value customers and very little overhead on my part. Not totally passive, I guess, but takes up very little time and makes us a decent bit of money on the side.

EGreg 14y ago
Could you disclose how much one can make on airbnb? I have a 2 bedroom apartment and sometimes, when I leave on vacation, I would like to rent it out.
- bigethan 14y ago
  Depends on your location. Do an airbnb search in your area to get an idea. I just made up a price for mine, and when I was getting tons of requests for it, raised the prices to slow them to a manageable rate. Living in SF doesn't hurt.
  - marcojgm 14y ago
    In SF you could easily rent out a spare room in a 2br apartment for $65-120 per night depending on the quality. I typically do 10 days a month at $100 per night. Sometimes I hire a cleaner, and buy some wine/snacks/breakfast for guests but it's been very easy and I love doing it. Disclaimer: I work for Airbnb.
- redthrowaway 14y ago
  Easiest way to figure that out is to check what's available in your area on Airbnb and see what equivalent places are going for.

ww520 14y ago

Real estate

bdunn 14y ago

Planscope (https://planscope.io https://planscope.io) - predictable, more-growth-than-churn SaaS revenue Compared to my book, which fizzles out when I'm not actively marketing it, building a B2B subscription product is the best, most turnkey income source I've ever had.

ww520 14y ago
It looks great. How do you market your webapp?
- bdunn 14y ago
  Content marketing mostly, and over delivering awesome, awesome support that gets customers to refer others. You can also do really well by just optimizing the hell out of the visitors/expired trials you already have. SO MUCH EASIER than attracting more eyeballs.
  - shmageggy 14y ago
    Doesn't all of the above take this out of the realm of "passive"? Or are you able to magically get all of that done in such a short time that you consider it negligible?
    - bdunn 14y ago
      I spend about 2 hours a week total, so right - it's not totally passive... But I'm at the point now where I could outsource first tier support and maybe get away with no weekly involvement. But I want more growth, so I'm still actively working on promoting Planscope.
  - gamelodge 14y ago
    delivering awesome, awesome support would require lots and lots of time/effort != passive
pan69 14y ago
Looks great. But is this passive income? It looks like you've invested a lot to get this off the ground, correct? How much time do you spend on this, let's say per week?

JoeCortopassi 14y ago

[Related]Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what? (1 month ago) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4467603 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4467603

sprobertson 14y ago
[Related] Ask HN: How do you generate passive income? (3 years ago) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=387789 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=387789
- khet 14y ago
  I am glad this (and similar) questions gets asked. As a community of makers, we can get very good at making things but just making things is not enough. We need to prove to our customers that we created something of value and then charge them for that value. This topic cannot be talked about enough.

Matsta 14y ago

Facebook was definitely my biggest earner until they decided to crack down on everything at the end of last year and basically screwed everyone over. It's the same deal for SEO, used to be a easy way to promote Adsense, CPA offers and what not, but the penguin change just makes it harder and harder to rank for keywords. 2012 has been definitely a slow year for Internet marketing, the worst I've faced since I started in 2006.

robryan 14y ago
You could argue that this stuff being harder is actually a good thing for the end user. The stuff that is still around is likely offering more value. Coming from someone who has done a fair bit of CPA/ Adsense stuff in the past myself.
- cgag 14y ago
  I think it'd be pretty hard to argue otherwise.

raintrees 14y ago

Real Estate, multi-family rentals.

byoung2 14y ago

I have two sites that I built 3 years ago that still rank well for a few valuable keywords. Each site has hundreds of pages of content but one page on each site is number 1 on Google for keywords that pay $5-10 per click. Not a lot of traffic, but enough for a few hundred a month from adsense and affiliate links.

choxi 14y ago

This might not be the kind of answer you're looking for, but the best way to truly passively increase your wealth is to take care of your personal finances (e.g. pay off your student loans, pay off your credit card balance, invest in a lifecycle fund, see if your employer offers a 401(k)) I personally really liked the book I Will Teach You To Be Rich -- it has a poor name but it's dense with incredibly practical advice particularly for people coming right out of college suddenly making an income.

jfolkins 14y ago
I support the idea of paying off debt. 401k (investment groups) however, is essentially giving your money to a gambler, and having him play your hand. Bet on yourself. Always.
- hartleybrody 14y ago
  Betting on yourself isn't always the safest. But I'd be curious to know what you meant by betting on yourself. Like investing part of your savings into a side project?
- saryant 14y ago
  In regards to the 401k, I disagree. Unless your employer only offers really crappy funds it's in no way gambling. First off, your employer match is essentially free money. It's foolish to ignore that. The tax benefits can also be significant. For instance, I contribute 25% of my pre-tax salary to my 401k. That works out to $1500 a month but because my taxable income is lowered my monthly net is only decreased by about $950. That's $550 a month into savings that I wouldn't have previously had due to taxes. If you follow the investing philosophy of John C. Bogle, founder of Vanguard, you'll likely do just fine. Assuming you're young, you just split your 401k between four index funds: total bond market, total domestic stock market, total international stock market and real estate investment trusts (REITs). I do 20/45/25/10. Yes, in the short term you might take a big hit but in the long term (>20 years) this is historically shown to perform very well. As you get closer to retirement you increase the proportion of your portfolio in bonds so as to lower your risk.

patio11 14y ago

Halloweenbingocards.net will probably hit about $6k this October (BCC will hit maybe $10k). Not bad for $250 paid in like 2009 or so. I did a course on lifecycle emails for SaaS businesses recently. That did pretty well - a few hundred sales.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> I did a course on lifecycle emails for SaaS businesses recently. That did pretty well - a few hundred sales. A more professional-looking video on training.kalzumeus.com would've probably helped your conversion rate quite a bit. And avoiding the use of your internet handle on the site would've kept it from sounding cheesy to those outside the HN community.
- hiddenfeatures 14y ago
  The question remains unanswered whether a "more professional" video would not have turned out cheesy. IMHO success proves Patrick right.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    > The question remains unanswered whether a "more professional" video would not have turned out cheesy. I don't see how it would have. The whole point of making it more professional would have been to make it less cheesy. If you fail to do that, then you've failed to make it "more professional". > IMHO success proves Patrick right. Patrick's success has primarily been in the written word. This is his first foray into selling video-based content, and I think he has quite a bit of work to do on his presentation. Like most nerds, he's quite awkward on camera, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with some elbow grease. Of course people will cite his Business of Software talk as a counterexample, but that was highly rehearsed (something he mentioned on HN) and consequently felt polished (yet still a little awkward), but the video on training.kalzumeus.com doesn't feel that way. Moreover, having to heavily rehearse every presentation you give does not scale very well when you're creating a series of them to sell online. Some things that could've been easily improved in the intro video include wearing a proper suit (or at least a collared shirt) instead of a red tracksuit, properly styling his hair, wearing contacts instead of glasses (due to the reflections on them), not wearing an enormous geeky headset, removing the audio "booms" that frequently occur in the video, not being in a 和室 (Japanese-style room) and dropping the super-tacky gimmick with the $100 bill.

mcantor 14y ago

I sell posters of a vim cheat sheet I designed (see my profile for link). I ship my inventory to a 3rd-party fulfillment provider who plugs in to Shopify with a custom app, so all I have to do is re-print when the inventory runs out and handle the occasional customer service problem. Digital downloads are a total freebie.

statictype 14y ago
Neat. I've thought of doing things like this before. Do you mind sharing how many figures you make on this? How do you handle the actual printing? Is that also outsourced?
- mcantor 14y ago
  I lucked out with this project; it began as a Kickstarter which got incredibly overfunded: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxcantor/beautiful-vim-cheat-sheet-poster http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxcantor/beautiful-vim-... It hit the front page of "Featured Technology" projects and lived there for almost the entire funding run. I used UPrinting for the printing, who I'm quite happy with. It cost less than a thousand dollars to do the initial run of 500 posters. Initially, my approach to shipping was to buy 500 poster tubes from Uline (no relation to UPrinting) and ship them myself. This was an unmitigated disaster; a cataclysm; a miserable shit-show of Brobdingnagian proportions. There is simply not sufficient support for the "hobbyist shipper"; USPS doesn't know what to do with you, UPS and Fedex charge too much (especially for international shipping), and the label-printing tools are across-the-board some of the worst software I've ever worked with. After months of Kafkaesque hijinks with USPS, I gave up and shipped my inventory to Fulfillrite, a third-party fulfillment provider. Thank God for those guys. I haven't run the numbers to determine my exact profit & loss, but I make more than just beer money. I don't know if I'll ever sell enough to come even close to what the Kickstarter originally made, but the web store has been bringing in around $750/mo in revenue, which translates to something in the range of $350 - $500 of profit. I tend to make money to the extent that more eyeballs hit the site. Last month, someone mentioned the poster in passing in the comment of a blog I'd never heard of, and I made $300 in six hours. I have no idea how to advertise, though, so that kind of thing is usually just lucky happenstance for me. I'll probably do another couple of poster projects (bash, emacs, etc.); if they are even nearly as successful as this one, I might eventually be able to live exclusively off the profits! An exciting prospect, but one that is quite far off. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any other questions. I really ought to condense this stuff into a blog post some time.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

apike 14y ago

Two years ago, when we started Steamclock, we spent our first two months building a niche iPhone app. We've done point releases but not added much, yet today it pays our rent. http://www.steamclocksw.com/weddingdj/ http://www.steamclocksw.com/weddingdj/ We haven't done any serious research or marketing for it. We simply focused down and built the highest quality app we could build, and it worked.

AVTizzle 14y ago
Awesome icon. >>We haven't done any serious research or marketing for it. It could be a personal taste question, but why not any marketing? With enough traction to be paying rent based solely off word-of-mouth and organic, you certainly seem to be creating value for people. There are easy/free/cheap ways to market apps, definitely at least some amount of money being left on the table. Congrats either way, good stuff :)
- apike 14y ago
  Thanks! Icons are huge on the App Store, an excellent one is a must have. We've done some experimenting with marketing, but couldn't figure out any strategy that could convert a bride or groom for $3.50 (the amount we net after Apple's cut). We tried and abandoned Google ads, Facebook ads, and advertising on wedding blogs. Virtually all app-marketing services focus on free apps, and most of them are grey hat in some way. For a general-purpose app (like our upcoming Party Monster, a more general music app) you don't need to be targeted, but for a wedding app you need to target engaged people, which is expensive!
  - ecaradec 14y ago
    You may try to contact zankyou or some other website that manage wedding list. I used them for my wedding and they also promote other products. I think they might be interested into your product. Their users are the perfect fit for you : engaged and with an inclination for technology.
lessnonymous 14y ago
This app is an AWESOME idea. I wonder if there's any other verticals that it could be adapted to. Maybe conferences? Funerals? Religious services? How about fitness? I do fun-runs and I would KILL to have playlists for warm up, first 1km, middle run, last 500m, victory and warm down.

pacomerh 14y ago

Very low ones, the first one is selling a set of shutterstock pictures, aprox 100 bucks a month. And the lowest one, 30-40 bucks a month with adsense clicks. Basically a list of powerpoint presenations (chain letters) for the spanish speaking. I spend 30 min a week. I get the PPS files, convert a couple of them to html and put them on a wordpress blog. edit: forgot to put a url http://powerpointz.com http://powerpointz.com

dshimy 14y ago

https://www.jabwire.com https://www.jabwire.com - collaboration tool for software projects, SaaS revenue

tully 14y ago

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meowch!/id492321599?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meowch!/id492321599?mt=8 and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nahmeenstudios.meowch&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nahmeenstu... first game, brings in consistent cash every month. Also on amazon and barnes and noble.

pczzy 14y ago

I have a website, http://www.mfrbee.com http://www.mfrbee.com . Not a lot of traffic, but enough for a few hundred a month from adsense.

whalabi 14y ago
No offense, but you should get someone to fix the English, I was immediately turned off.

andrewljohnson 14y ago

Our highest selling app (a hiking app) makes 15-30K/month, depending on the season. Our other navigation apps don't make quite as much yet, but some are getting there. You can figure out from my profile which it is, but I didn't want to name it in the thread and have this be something that turned up in searches. I wouldn't call it totally passive, but if we ignored it, it wouldn't stop making money. We have consistently grown the sales over the last couple of years, and we are about to introduce a premium in-app purchase. I have always thought making iPhone apps was a good business, despite what you hear on this forum.

EGreg 14y ago
Is it a paid app or a free one?
- andrewljohnson 14y ago
  Paid, the price has been between .99 - 24.99, and now sells for 9.99. The premium add-on will be 19.99/year.
peto123 14y ago
Congratulation, good work! Anyway, the question was about passive income...I suppose you have to do a bit of marketing, user support, thinking about new features, etc...isn't it then just a business?
- andrewljohnson 14y ago
  Perhaps, though it seems like a lot of these responses fall in that category. I'll say this - I used to work on this app day and night, and now I try and just do the part I enjoy the most, and leave most of it to expert developers and friendly support people. My focus is now on growing the platform, business development, and design work.
fendale 14y ago
I followed through your profile, and the hiking app looks very good. Great job! How do you get 'outdoor maps' into the App, ie do you license them or are they available freely somewhere?

rjurney 14y ago

In California, selling cannibas to a co-op you belong to as a patient could be a nice supplemental income. An Aerogrow makes it easy, and with six legal plants, you can grow at least 1.5 pounds every 90 days. I think it works out that you can make $10-15k/year for not much work. And no, my wife would not let me do this :)

pyre 14y ago
> I think it works out that you can make $10-15k/year > for not much work. Gross or net revenue? I would imagine that the electricity bills would be not insignificant.
- rjurney 14y ago
  Net, I think. The LED bulbs aren't so inefficient. But there is an up front cost of about $250 per Aerogrow. It's the tallest/biggest unit you need.
brianwillis 14y ago
I think you win the prize for the most creative idea in this thread.
- jarek 14y ago
  If true, that'd say more about the thread than about anything else.
- kevinrpope 14y ago
  I'd say it's probably the most unique idea in this thread, given that most HNers likely wouldn't normally think of dealing/selling drugs as being particularly creative.
EvRev 14y ago
That is not passive at all. You have to change the res every two weeks, plus be on the look out for any signs of stress (bugs, nutrients, and environment). Then you have to process it, which a pound can be trimmed by a professional in about 10 hours. BTW you need to supervise them or do it yourself. Then you get the hassle of dealing with the clubs consignment drama... Not to mention the stress of worrying about being robbed throughout the whole cycle.

deleted 14y ago

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thangalin 14y ago

http://www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement/ http://www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement/ A paltry $100 per year in ad revenue.

supersaiyan 14y ago
I loled, but you should make some youtube videos, its a very niche topic you would drive good traffic back

vjz 14y ago

Tax-free municipal bonds

aantix 14y ago
Care to expand on this?
- brianobush 14y ago
  Municipal bonds, loans to your local government are free of taxes (both state and fed). I have excess cash that would normally be in certificate of deposit in muni bonds currently making 3% tax free. There are risks, best to consult with a money manager if you are uncertain on how to gauge the associated risks.
  - nandemo 14y ago
    Indeed, municipal bonds are much riskier than good ol' Treasuries. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/business/municipal-bonds-default-more-than-advertised.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/business/municipal-bonds-d...
    - brianobush 14y ago
      The key is diversity; I use municipal bond funds and have had great success and much more income than from treasuries.
- hkhanna 14y ago
  State and municipality bonds are sort of like U.S. Treasury bonds, except they're issued by a state or local government. They pay a fixed interest rate, but your interest is usually tax-free. Of course, they pay a lower interest rate than taxable bonds. Thus, the only reason these tax-free bonds would be better than taxable bonds is if you are in a high enough marginal tax bracket to compensate for the difference in interest between these tax-free bonds and taxable bonds. An example should make this all clear. Assume you have a marginal tax rate of 40%. (You earn a lot of money.) If you invest $100,000 in a typical taxable bond that pays 10%, each year you will get $10,000. But subtract out the 40% tax, and you are left with only $6,000 after-tax. Compare this with what would happen if you invested that same $100,000 in a tax-free state bond. This bond only pays 8%, being tax-free and all. Each year you get $8,000. But you pay no tax, so you are in fact better off than if you had bought the taxable bonds! Now, lets change your marginal tax bracket to 10%--you don't earn much money, so your marginal rate is low. You invest that same $100,000 in the taxable bond that pays 10%, you will get $10,000 pre-tax but only pay your marginal rate, 10%, on that sum, so you are left with $9,000. With the tax-free state bond at 8%, you only get $8,000, though you don't pay any tax on it. So at your low marginal rate, you would have been better off buying the taxable bond. My point is, tax-free bonds are probably only useful if you earn a lot of income each year to put you in a high marginal rate. Source: I'm a law student and we learned about tax-exempt state/municipal bonds today in Tax!

nostromo 14y ago

Real estate. (Ok, not 100% passive, but what is?) You can buy a duplex for not much more than a single family house in many US cities and, thanks to the low interest rates for an owner-occupied mortgage, rent out half and live for free. Unlike tech, you will not have a giant windfall with real estate; but also unlike tech, it's very easy to price your product, find customers, and figure out what your cashflow will be for years to come.

sage_joch 14y ago
> Ok, not 100% passive, but what is? A stock index fund. :-) Usually much less yield for your money, though.
- JoshTriplett 14y ago
  If you want a passive version of real-estate investing, just buy a REIT fund. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REIT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REIT
Vivtek 14y ago
A word of caution: unless you have the personal skills to deal with tenants, do not make the mistake of thinking that real estate is passive income. Like any earning occupation, landlording takes attention to detail, the ability not to procrastinate, and people skills. Unlike most occupations, landlording will bring you into contact with some of the worst people the planet has to offer, under what has to be the worst possible set of circumstances. If you want to lose your faith in humanity, I encourage you to take up landlording. There are easier ways to live rent-free, unless, as I say, you have the personal skills to ride herd on grown children or if you are lucky enough to own your property in an area where normal people rent, and you can find good tenants on a regular basis.
- curiouscats 14y ago
  Or pay someone else to manage the property for you. They are not cheap but with the super low interest rates now (along with house purchase and rental markets) you can likely find some workable solutions this way. It isn't passive, but with a property manager it is much closer to passive.

deleted 14y ago

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bosco 14y ago

pixurwall.com - about 2-3k hits a day generating $20-30 in revenue. Cost 200 bucks to make and has been pretty consistent for over 8 months.

volandovengo 14y ago
where does this traffic come from?
- bosco 14y ago
  The way the app works, it auto tags 2-3 people that are in the collage poster that was generated. I believe most of the traffic is generated that way.

dangrossman 14y ago

I launched http://www.improvely.com/ http://www.improvely.com/ in August, and it's already eclipsed my other sites in recurring revenue.

nja 14y ago
I've been hearing more and more that B2B is the way to go. Sounds like it has worked well for you.

kkoppenhaver 14y ago

A site that I've recently stumbled across and been reading through voraciously is smartpassiveincome.com. It has some pretty solid tips and in 3 episodes of his free podcast, he goes over 8 potential types of "passive" income business models.

dhechols 14y ago

Last February I started a small YouTube channel surrounding eSports called DrZealotTV. http://youtube.com/DrZealotTV http://youtube.com/DrZealotTV Although it hasn't even broken even, I'm now equipped with a ton of expertise and I have a few efforts I'm working on that I think will be quite popular. :)

suresk 14y ago

I really like building developer tools and kind of miss doing it full time. I built a tool for testing/playing with REST services last year and sell it on the OS X app store: http://www.uresk.net/httpclient/ http://www.uresk.net/httpclient/ I'm not getting rich off it, but it usually brings in a few hundred bucks per month and I like hearing from fellow developers who benefit from using it.

krickle 14y ago
Did you do any market testing to see if there was a need, or was this scratching your own itch?
- suresk 14y ago
  It was just something I needed at the time - I was doing a lot with REST services at the time and thought a simple tool for interacting with them would be handy.
nja 14y ago
That's pretty cool, actually. I would never have thought of selling an app for that, as most everybody I know uses Advanced REST Client ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/advanced-rest-client-appl/hgmloofddffdnphfgcellkdfbfbjeloo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/advanced-rest-clie... ). It must be really neat to know people are choosing to pay you for your product over using a similar free app.
- suresk 14y ago
  Thanks. The browser-based ones have improved quite a bit recently. I use Advanced REST Client whenever I'm on a Windows machine - it is quite good. There are a few features that my tool has that make it worth a few bucks for some people, I think, most notably being able to save requests and share them with other members of your team. I've heard from a few folks who have them checked into source control as part of manual testing scripts (there are some interesting opportunities to automate this kind of testing, too, but I haven't had time to focus on it). And I'm releasing a feature soon that will let you paste in cURL commands and turn them into requests, which is handy when you're working with a webservice that has examples of requests given in the form of cURL commands (which is a lot of them). Even if you're competing against free apps that match and even exceed what you can offer in some areas (which is frankly going to be more and more common), you can still find little features that might be fairly simple but add a ton of value for a certain subset of people.

SeoxyS 14y ago

Airbnb + legacy Mac & iPhone apps. 50k/yr on average.

scheff 14y ago

I'm about to write a book on precisely this topic. I have been looking hard at addressing this issue over the past 10 years so that I can focus on what's important (Startups!). And I believe that I have finally found the best passive income source, given the limitations that people like ourselves are working with. I'm still in the process of experimenting with my method to see how far I can take it, but the basics of it work already. A lot of what people define as "passive income" is questionable. Most, if not all, passive income investment strategies require you to hold down a job, or other income, while financing assets that some day, HOPEFULLY, will be paid off enough that you don't have to work ever again. Most of those plans take too long for my satisfaction. There are other means and methods if you learn and apply yourself. My book will hopefully detail and compare my method with a majority of others. The obvious ones to look at, if you can invest time and/or money - * Share trading * Property investment * Property flipping/options * Google AdSense (or similar) * Affiliate marketing * Tim Ferriss' muse / 4HWW * Network marketing/MLM * Website flipping All of them have varying degrees of learning curve and time commitment to make happen. Few people will tell you how much commitment you need to make, they just focus on dangling the carrot.

goggles99 14y ago
I always question people who write books, produce DVDs, hold seminars or sell any kind of knowledge concerning how to get rich or make extra money. If you or any of these people are so good and know all these 'secrets' to success and money - Why don't you just get rich off of it and retire? why would you let everyone know you secrets? Won't this just crowd your space? Why do you need to sell this product to make money? Some of you claim that you just want to give back or help others and you have such success, then why are you charging me $20-$500+ ? So I am always skeptical. I think that this is generally snake oil.
- firebones 14y ago
  I used to question most of those people too (and still do), but someone explained it fairly well in response to why patio11 did this with his drip marketing class: it's simply a scale out strategy. Given the available time an expert has, one could make $X as one person just doing it; with consulting and teaching others, you might reach 5 people in a year; but by turning that learning into intellectual property that can be distributed (as a class, a video, a book) you might be able to reach 100x the people. That said, there are certainly gurus who are merely selling hope, often because the easy money has been made and they can wind down what they've learned because the edge no longer exists. You know what I can't figure out though? Why is Mark Cuban shooting a commercial to pimp lame shoes?

ryangilbert 14y ago

nflbyeweeks.com - gets over 1,000 uniques each day and generates between $2 and $5 each day with Adsense. Not overly impressive but it's still nice.

hilti 14y ago
Just with a single page? That's impressive!
- ryangilbert 14y ago
  Yep. Just one page. I've been considering adding a couple more to see what would happen.
kaizendc 14y ago
You should split test some NFL jersey e-mail submit offers from CPA networks, instead of Adsense. I bet you will make way more money from those 1,000 daily uniques with a good jersey e-mail submit.
- ryangilbert 14y ago
  Could you email me at draftpulse at gmail dot com to give me a little info on how that works?
aw3c2 14y ago
I don't understand that site. Is it just the table with the teams on the right? No links, nothing? Or am I missing some plugin? Really amazed that a page like that could attract any useful traffic. I guess people are lured onto the site by your meta description and then, searching for links, click on the ads. Evil!
armenarmen 14y ago
Where was the bulk of your traffic from?

enobrev 14y ago

No matter how hard I try, all my eggs only seem to fit into one basket at a time. I don't recommend it, but it has worked well for me thus far.

veb 14y ago

I use TeeSpring (http://www.teespring.com http://www.teespring.com) to create t-shirts and market them towards people on my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ModernSherlock http://www.facebook.com/ModernSherlock). Generally does very well. Way better than other stuff I've tried, like SEO/Marketing etc. The only problems I have is using a crap design, so it pays to know what the audience really wants before I try selling it to them.

Eliezer 14y ago
I've considered selling T-Shirts. How much time do they take to create? How much income do you make, for how much effort?
- wiwillia 14y ago
  Hey Eliezer, it takes 10-14 days after the end of the campaign for the printed tees to arrive on buyers doorsteps, and you control your margin! We take a flat margin per tee, which is included in the base price quoted on www.teespring.com/design. If you've got any Q's, feel free to shoot me an email @ walker@teespring.com
- veb 14y ago
  My last design took about 5 minutes, and it took maybe 20minutes in total "advertising" and I got back... two months salary. (software dev, in NZ)

evanlong 14y ago

By posting links to Google. I currently make about $7000 a month doing it. If you are interested send me a message. And if you are interested in learning more check out my site for the details: http://bit.ly/bxhogZ http://bit.ly/bxhogZ

ericdykstra 14y ago

Not 100% passive, but fantasy sports has been a nice side income for me this year. I used to play a lot for almost nothing, but then found daily fantasy games (pick a new team every game day, play against other people) and have made a decent return on my investment. I play on fanduel.com almost exclusively. If you have any questions or want some help getting started, send me an email (in profile). My referral link if you're so inclined: http://www.fanduel.com/?invitedby=yudarvish&cnl=da http://www.fanduel.com/?invitedby=yudarvish&cnl=da

bramstroker 14y ago
Scumbag.
sejje 14y ago
I have an old poker friend who started a similar site: http://buzzdraft.com/ http://buzzdraft.com/ It's formatted to be similar to poker sit-and-gos.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

seanlinehan 14y ago

I was making a few thousand dollars a month from a coupon site. The Panda update completely knocked me out of the rankings for the past 4 months, but I've been slowly climbing back up on my top keywords. It was literally no work whatsoever - I wrote a script to aggregate coupons automagically and outsourced SEO. Turns out the latter wound up killing me. (If you're an SEO master, please reach out to me on Twitter) :)

ashray 14y ago

I started a site 13 years ago and it is one of the largest sites in it's niche right now. Very very popular. I do work on it many hours a week (can range from 0 to 100 hours/week) but I don't really have to. I just love working on it, adding new features, etc. I would definitely call the work passive or hobbyist - even though sometimes I'm up till 4 in the morning working on X new feature. Income is in the early 5 digits per month range (USD). Traffic dropped a bit from August to September so I've been working more on it lately :)

intended 14y ago
Hobbyist would be the better category for it. At a variable range of 0-100 hours a week, your top end is very far removed from the passive income part of the question. In this case the average number of hours per month may make more sense to discuss.
- ashray 14y ago
  You're right. And maybe average number of hours per month is more appropriate. Or lets, say average number of hours per week. Usually the top end goes to 100 when I'm working on some new feature and am completely obsessed with it. However, following that there is definitely burn-out which causes me to go down to the 0-20 per week range. Also, considering that I've been working on this since high school, I used to have a lot more time for it back then ;) In a regular month I probably average around 20 hours per week. However, during a particularly overzealous month I may go to 35 or higher. I think at 20 it still falls under passive income. Just to give you an idea of how my commitment varies. A year ago I had a full time job and I would sometimes work only 5-10 hours per week on it. Also, I completely neglected it in my first year of college (yet it paid for my college) and by my 3rd year there were enough problems that I had to again spend considerable time bringing it up to spec :) I'd love to call it a hobby - because that's how I feel about it - but when 24 hours of downtime can cause more than a few hundred dollars of losses - it becomes tough not to take things a bit more seriously =/
  - intended 14y ago

sinak 14y ago

Two friends and I started http://repeaterstore.com http://repeaterstore.com straight out of college. Within a year it was profitable, and within 3 it was doing $3 million in revenue (and about a 15% profit margin). It's pretty much stabilized since then, and we hired a manager to monitor the operation. Most stock is shipped through drop shoppers, we just have 2 customer support people to handle phone calls and emails. Forthe last 2 years we've been working on new, more interesting startups - but having a stable source of income has been incredibly valuable in letting us bootstrap until we could raise funds from VCs. Niche eCommerce can be awesome.

spiredigital 14y ago
Totally agreed! Just left a comment above about how eCommerce is my favorite source of passive income.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ssebro 14y ago
You're having db issues here : http://www.repeaterstore.com/applications/small-building.html http://www.repeaterstore.com/applications/small-building.htm...
dxrysom 14y ago
Well, It would be more awesome if your site was not "unable to select a database".

spiredigital 14y ago

I'd have to say my two eCommerce businesses. They took a ton of time to setup and market initially, but now they generate a full-time income as I have a team in place to manage operations. I love to work on them and often do, but I'll frequently take weeks off at a time to travel and everything continues to run smoothly. The entire business is based on the drop shipping model, so I don't have to stock any inventory and can run the business from anywhere. Plus, the initial capital outlay was just $1,500 so I didn't have to take on any risk. For anyone interested, I blog about running my two businesses and eCommerce in general at: http://www.ecommercefuel.com http://www.ecommercefuel.com

armenarmen 14y ago
loved your book by the way

kcorey 14y ago

I make lower 5 digits per year from http://docrobot.co.uk http://docrobot.co.uk. It's effectively an online desktop publishing system aimed at making it easy for HR teams to deliver TRS (Total Reward Statements) in 10% of the time, at 10% of the cost, and with fewer errors. It took a couple years to write, so I wouldn't say it was an easy investment, but it was fun to write. These days it ticks over and I don't spend much time on it at all. Perhaps I should work on advertising more... -Ken

vu0tran 14y ago

How timely. I'm actually starting a challenge for myself to see if I can bootstrap something to at least $5,000 in revenue a month. I've tried and failed many times, but this time, I'm going to force myself to only live off what I can make with this product. http://vutran.me/blog/desperation.html http://vutran.me/blog/desperation.html

sejje 14y ago
Did you release this (blog says oct 15th)?

khet 14y ago

I spent 2 weeks on a Themeforest xhtml/css theme about 3 years ago. It still gives me a 40$ every month. Nothing to brag about but it takes care of my hosting bill :)

tudorizer 14y ago
Link?

kolinko 14y ago

Real estate - I used to own two flats, and get $200-$300 from each one of them. I recently sold one though - I think I can make a better use of the money by other means. iPhone/iPad apps - I did two or three successful apps, right now they bring in $20-$40 daily. The last time I touched/promoted any one of them was last December, and the sales are quite steady now. I bought some S.DICE shares ( http://polimedia.us/bitcoin/mpex.php?mpsic=S.DICE http://polimedia.us/bitcoin/mpex.php?mpsic=S.DICE ) @0.0032, spent 800 BTC on them I think. Got ~20BTC from dividends first month, ~5BTC dividends the second. It's very risky, but there is some potential for growth there. All in all I get ~1200 USD of passive income which would be considered an average pay in Poland. I've got a startup on top of that which brings a lot more though.

Marwy 14y ago
Can you tell the name of this startup?
dbaupp 14y ago
Is the 1200 per month?

nsoonhui 14y ago

Setting up an ecommerce shop and let my friend runs it.

tudorizer 14y ago

Good timing with this thread. My attempt is with making iOS games. Trying to mix pleasure and profit. First attempt is http://clumsyandthestars.com/ http://clumsyandthestars.com/. Working on a second one now...

kranner 14y ago
Same here. Our first game is at http://noisytyping.com http://noisytyping.com.
- tudorizer 14y ago
  I like those screenshots. :) Let me know on twitter when it's launched @tudorizer
  - kranner 14y ago
    Thanks, will do. Your game looks awesome, btw. I'll give it a try.
Cakez0r 14y ago
How is that working out for you, if you don't mind answering?
- tudorizer 14y ago
  Not that great yet. My day job doesn't allow me much time to focus on everything an app implies. Hopefully I will fix this soon.
xgalvez 14y ago
Good luck! I'm trying the same thing myself with http://yata.ca http://yata.ca. It's more of a party game played with the iOS device, and thought the interactivity with people in the same room would add to the fun. Hope all's well with the second one!
- 14y ago

mgz 14y ago

I have built http://search-logs.com http://search-logs.com back in 2006 in a couple of days and ad revenue still lets me work on interesting projects, not worrying about getting a "real" job.

icoder 14y ago

I created http://www.colormandala.com http://www.colormandala.com It makes ~2 dollars a day from adsense. Breadcrumbs, but I haven't spend any time on it for like half a year. Amazon affiliate adds almost nothing to this. Being in the Chrome Webstore seems to have helped a lot in page visits. I still wonder from time to time if I should put some effort in upping this a bit. But my time is limited and the app doesn't fit my current strategy (mobile, mhealth specifically).

marcelfalliere 14y ago

> theonemillioneuromap.com I got 4 euros (minus google checkout fees) so far.

demostenes 14y ago

My website about PC processors http://www.jaki-procesor.pl/ http://www.jaki-procesor.pl/ (in Polish) gets me around 200$-300$ per month. US version http://www.best-processor.net/ http://www.best-processor.net/ is barely alive tho.

ispekhov 14y ago

Whoever is offering stock as an income opportunity is not smart. And if you think stock is a passive income opportunity, you are dumb. Go read James Altucher.

rm999 14y ago
All passive income comes from something with value, and hence carries inherent risk. I'd argue real estate is even riskier, yet you aren't criticizing people in this thread who make money from renting/airbnb.

ispekhov 14y ago

Go download Qriket app for your iPhone. It lets you scan QR codes and win money. Not a tedious task that will net you $20 per day.

nXqd 14y ago
is there any similar app on Android ?

jawns 14y ago

This is probably not your ordinary type of passive income, but it's income for work I would otherwise be doing anyway, so hopefully it counts. I run Correlated (http://www.correlated.org http://www.correlated.org), a site that publishes one surprising correlation a day, using data generated by readers. It was never really intended to be a money-making project, although I did give display ads and affiliate links a try, with very little success. And then ... a book deal fell into my lap. I had been shopping around a book proposal for "Experiments on Babies" (http://www.experimentsonbabies.com http://www.experimentsonbabies.com), and one of the publishers that was interested in that book also happened to note that I was the creator of Correlated, and asked if I would be interested in a separate deal to turn Correlated into a book. I got a very nice advance for the two book deals, and in the case of Correlated, the writing involved is, for the most part, what I'd be doing anyway, deal or no deal.

hendi_ 14y ago

Bunker App (https://www.bunkerapp.com https://www.bunkerapp.com) Bunker is my SaaS solution which I market to freelancers and consultants who are looking for a complete solution for their small business (from creating quotes and proposals over project management and time-tracking to invoicing and payments). Most other services specialize on a subset of what's needed (e.g. they're only doing invoicing, or only time-tracking, or only project management) and you have to go shopping for multiple solutions (and cross fingers that all of them integrate well with each other!). With Bunker my focus is on providing a complete, well-integrated experience. So you could say my niche is "covering multiple niches" ;-) I'd say that Bunker provides me passive income because my support burden is negligible and my churn-rate less then my conversion-rate. So if I wanted to I could go completely passive, but I'm committed to improve the app further and grow it.

pkamb 14y ago

The Mac App Store. Consistent sales of my $8 app EdgeCase and the $3 Reddit Notifier. Plus the more expensive One-Hand Keyboard. In my experience it's much easier to price higher on the Mac App Store compared to iOS. Especially when you're selling a constantly-running notifier/utility. Feels more worth it when the app is passively used every time you use your Mac, as opposed to whenever you happen to find and use the random app on your 3rd home screen in iOS. - EdgeCase http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/edgecase/id513826860?mt=12 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/edgecase/id513826860?mt=12 - Reddit Notifier https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reddit-notifier/id468366517?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reddit-notifier/id468366517?... - One-Hand Keyboard http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/one-hand-keyboard-one-hand/id465275525?mt=12 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/one-hand-keyboard-one-hand/id...

hodder 14y ago

Stocks work the best for me so far. Specifically Graham style net-nets.

Jemaclus 14y ago

For a long time I refused to sign up for Amazon Prime, and I'd order things that cost $19 or $23, and I'd hunt around for something that would bring in that additional $6 or $3 to meet the minimum price for free Super Saver Shipping (USD $25). I got tired of hunting around for that, so I built http://finishmyorder.com/ http://finishmyorder.com/. I get like $6/mo in affiliate fees, but I don't really advertise it so I'm lucky I get even that.

danneu 14y ago

I make (well, past-tense at the moment) almost $2k/month on a vBulletin play-by-post gaming forum I started back in 2007. One single adsense banner below the navbar. I actually burned out within 6 months of trying to bootstrap the fledgling forum with fake activity, clever backlinks, and entertaining the trickle of registrants. Burned out enough to take a a break for a while. Came back months later and it was a bustling forum of activity. Apparently I'd just reached that critical mass necessary for the community to be autonomous (able to entertain itself and cajole newbies to stay) before I took that break. Nowadays, I do very little beyond pay the server bill. It's staggering the amount of work volunteers (moderators) will put into maintaining a community and I'm grateful. Recently had adsense disabled on my website after some automated process decided my website was "mature/adult-themed". The automated email cited a post in our forum's off-topic spammy section where some user copy and pasted the phrase "sexual intercourse" over and over again in Mandarin. Just some non-Mandarin-speaking teenagers being silly for a moment. Now I'm working on getting adsense reactivated.

dholowiski 14y ago
I'd just like to point out that this is a classic "Overnight"... well, after 6 months of crazy hard work "success" story.
- firebones 14y ago
  As well as the risk of dependence on a single revenue stream subject to being shut off by automated algorithms flagging your site based on UGC from teenagers.

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benhall2121 14y ago

My most recent iPhone App, Peek-A-Boo Boo Bear. Apps are the essence of passive income. I made it once and now I get paid for it. The app plays peek-a-boo and a few other things. http://itunes.apple.com/app/peek-a-boo-boo-bear/id501788281?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/app/peek-a-boo-boo-bear/id501788281?...

collegeappz 14y ago

I've learned that my passive income sources have become nonexistent and going into the biz. That's to be expected in the early years of a startup. If anyone has other advice if I were to have pennies to save, do share.

armenarmen 14y ago

I own aidsforhearing.com a shitty amazon store selling hearing aids, go figure it's made nothing. ideas?

abhishekdesai 14y ago

SignInStyle.com Launched in 2007 as a free service, got covered in CNBC India. Got loads of requests overnight so had to make it paid afterwards. Around USD 2-3k income without doing lot of efforts. It is one of the most unique ideas you can ever come across. Requires no paid marketing. You get extremely happy when Olympians, photographers use signatures designed by you on their websites and photographs as autographs. Highly gratifying passive income.

da_n 14y ago

I make about $80-100 per month in Adsense from a 'scratch your own itch' website I made to help calculate battle outcomes in a game. Did it over a weekend. I don't actually play the game anymore, was taking up too much of my life. Working on a new version though as the code is a shambles and it isn't responsive and most visitors come from iOS, I didn't know much about JavaScript or responsive design at the time I wrote it so a horror show underneath. http://battlecalc.net http://battlecalc.net