5 ms·

Does Passive Income Hacker actually exist, or is this conversation a fantasy? How many people are there making five figures ($10,000+) in profit a month with t

Does Passive Income Hacker actually exist, or is this conversation a fantasy? How many people are there making five figures ($10,000+) in profit a month with their SaaS product? Working by themselves, for only "20 minutes a day", with a full day of product development "every few weeks"?

mcantrell 13y ago
Can't say for myself, but I would bet such a person exists. I know a few that could be candidates, but I don't know how much they're making monthly. Add on that he's probably exaggerating about the limited time required. If you really do target a niche, you can make money, and it's easier than targeting everyone.
svmegatron 13y ago
It's possible that they are working for only "20 minutes a day" in the same way that the Startup Guy is working "100+ hours a week." That is to say, the quoted number happens occasionally, but it feels like all the time.
Yhippa 13y ago
> Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place through technology. He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy. Not to say this is sustainable but if there's a way to make money via arbitrage that nobody else has picked up on yet it can be very profitable. And potentially low-effort too.
ambiate 13y ago
This number is really easy to pull of if you know how to sell yourself and be social/on the offensive. $150/month product that saves businesses $4,000/mo (one less programmer). Hard part: Find 70 clients. Working in industry, we demo products all the time. We pay outrageous amounts of money for an online time tracker which is basically an online spreadsheet. We have considered obtaining systems for managing accounting, supply, etc. Focusing on our core business, policies, we never get tied up in 2-3 month/year adventures in uncomfortable territory. There is no innovation, just maintenance. We use a 20 year old 4GL language assisted by native Python/C. I could crank out Android apps in niches, write web content and advertise, build a few cloud based web products (CAN IT EXPORT TO EXCEL!?!?!!!111), and easily live off of 15-20k a month with huge fluctuations (both directions). I choose the simple life of industry. Not to mention, it is so hard to motivate yourself to go from start to end on a product. Most of that energy was used in my late teens. Right now, I could be cranking out that turn based strategy Google Glass native app, because native apps with delays in turn taking are going to be the key to Glass (it gets hot!). Instead, I'll just build another fixed width extract with this day. It will run in 1/16th of the time of the original. People will not notice or care until it breaks again. Ad absurdum. I suppose its worth mentioning, I know a few who pull in 4-6k a month solely on advertising/affiliates. Completely passive, they have months worth of posts automated to go out every 2nd or 4th week. I've pulled off 1-2k using the same method, but I always had a hard time finding microniches that were available for me to dominate. Writing about en pointe ballet, dremels, silver polishing, simms fishing gear etc. is not my ideal goal. It did make money though.
- _delirium 13y ago
  I could crank out Android apps in niches I hear this a lot, but are there numbers on how many people are managing it? I.e. if you exclude apps put out by large companies, how many people are earning $5k+/mo off Android apps? I don't even have a ballpark guess; is it 10 people? 10,000 people?
  - lovesgreen 13y ago
    I think it's larger than you think. I don't hang out with many developers and I know a guy who fits this mold. That's 1 out of the maybe 500-1000 acquaintances I have who are generally of above average intelligence/education.
  - ambiate 13y ago
    When I first learned Java in school, I cranked out a couple of Android apps. I coded one in 30 minutes. It currently has 24k active installs with a total of 125k people trying it out. Free. Horrible programming. No unit tests led to a scenario where setting the alarm at midnight resulted in the wrong calculation. People love the simplicity of it. People hate the simplicity of it. It has the potential to make $5-17/day. I'm guessing if I corrected/updated the code, it would jump in rank. If I could generate 13-15 apps that fit into this type of niche, I would easily reach $5k/month with lazy/horrible coding. If I just sat there for one-two full month(s) churning out one app a day, I would probably be able to reach that goal.
    - wtetzner 13y ago
      Just out of curiosity, what app is it?
      - ambiate 13y ago
        Sleep cycles, direct clone of sleepyti.me. Turns out ATNT branded phones don't allow access to the hardware alarm clock. The app crashes on ATNT Galaxy S2s (my original phone). Considering that was my first experience with Android, I never looked at it again in a happy manner.
hashtree 13y ago
I am one. I work roughly ~70 hours a week (if you count research and studying), but I can go months (or longer) without needing to touch the passive side of things (or work at all, if I so choose). Usually I am studying to push the bounds of what is available to the consumers (ML, NLP, OCR, etc), studying interesting business models, or just generally improving my craft. Not all of us are lazy, and I have a feeling the approach mentioned in that article won't stand the test of time. In short, passive hackers who are bootstrapped and make a tidy some exist all over. I know several. However, it typically isn't treated as a "vacation" but rather having the flexibility to breathe and do things right.
snoonan 13y ago
I qualify. I'm a stay-at-home dad and don't work much during the day. A few customer support emails or a tweak here and there. Lately I've been working hard nights and weekends on a new project to scale things up a bit, but it's not related to maintaining my current income. There are a lot of us out there. Speaking for myself, I can say I don't talk much about it to other people and pretty much never around startup entrepreneurs. The article sums up the feeling I get on the receiving end...
jt2190 13y ago
> Does Passive Income Hacker actually exist? I think patio11 is the "poster child" of this: > Profits: $38,598 (up 66% from $23,230) > > Wage per Hour: Approximately $1,000, given that I worked > for approximately 15 hours integrating the new design and > spend approximately 20 minutes a week doing support. (Source: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/12/29/bingo-card-creator-and-other-stuff-year-in-review-2012/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/12/29/bingo-card-creator-and-o...) The reality is that it's a little more than "20 minutes a week" if you tally up all of the labor over the lifetime of the product, but then again, most people don't include how much they've worked in the past when they're asked: "How much time do you spend working each week?"
- patio11 13y ago
  I wouldn't self-identify with either of the two characters here, but then again they're characters. That said: yes, there are lots of small software businesses out there. Many of them do leave the owners pretty well off. Not all of them require huge amounts of work. BCC is very much not the most successful one out there.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
groovypuppy 13y ago
I qualify. Actually I'm a stay at home dad. I work about an hour each day with my customers (mostly support and help for those users who don't read instructions) and bring in high 4 figures a month. I've been doing this for the last 2 years now. The first 6 months were almost full time while I developed the app but the hours tapered off once I released the app. Now that most of the bugs have been worked out, it's about an hour a day. Couldn't be happier with my current situation. The biggest thing I miss is the camaradery that comes with a start up.
eob 13y ago
I think reality is more like the startup world: there exist a people who pull it off, but there are a lot of people who also end up with a living room full of half-finished crummy web apps. What most of these Passive Income blogs and podcasts seem to be selling is really a process: whereupon you start with analyzing a market with google's search insight tools, build a simple utility for that market, purchase adwords for it, and then ab test it. While a process like this might work some of the time, it still doesn't guarantee anything. I love the idea of being a Passive Income Hacker, mostly because I love the idea of "financial freedom" to pursue interests independent of a stable job and stable income. But the two things that make me wary of it are: (1) isn't it still a lot of work up front? work that you could be putting into something with much bigger impact on society into? (2) I wonder how stable the income is over time without maintenance.
- redrufus 13y ago
  "What most of these Passive Income blogs and podcasts seem to be selling is really a process: whereupon you start with analyzing a market with google's search insight tools, build a simple utility for that market, purchase adwords for it, and then ab test it." You just summed up every article written on PIH
- jbjohns 13y ago
  Why are you so worried about "much bigger impact on society"? I like the quote from Star trek first contact: "don't try to be a great man, just be a man and let history decide".
jasonkester 13y ago
The article reads like somebody attempting to tell my story using my voice. They guess pretty close to the mark, though "20 minutes a day" is a bit on the high side. I have entire months full of 20 minute weeks, and often go a few months between full work days on the product. This is with a SaaS app designed from the outset to minimize support and maintenance, with profit also a high priority, provided it doesn't conflict with the first. It was in no way hard to do this. I often recommend that others give it a try.
- jbjohns 13y ago
  Do you have a blog or something where you talk how to get started? I think many of us want exactly this but haven't been able to pull it off yet. At least that's my case. I have about $30/mo passive income but it would take an awful lot of those to gain any flexibility!

mcantrell 13y ago

Can't say for myself, but I would bet such a person exists. I know a few that could be candidates, but I don't know how much they're making monthly. Add on that he's probably exaggerating about the limited time required. If you really do target a niche, you can make money, and it's easier than targeting everyone.

svmegatron 13y ago

It's possible that they are working for only "20 minutes a day" in the same way that the Startup Guy is working "100+ hours a week." That is to say, the quoted number happens occasionally, but it feels like all the time.

Yhippa 13y ago

> Worst of all, PIH is probably not trying to make the world a better place through technology. He's basically exploiting a narrow arbitrage opportunity and is probably either unethical or lazy. Not to say this is sustainable but if there's a way to make money via arbitrage that nobody else has picked up on yet it can be very profitable. And potentially low-effort too.

ambiate 13y ago

This number is really easy to pull of if you know how to sell yourself and be social/on the offensive. $150/month product that saves businesses $4,000/mo (one less programmer). Hard part: Find 70 clients. Working in industry, we demo products all the time. We pay outrageous amounts of money for an online time tracker which is basically an online spreadsheet. We have considered obtaining systems for managing accounting, supply, etc. Focusing on our core business, policies, we never get tied up in 2-3 month/year adventures in uncomfortable territory. There is no innovation, just maintenance. We use a 20 year old 4GL language assisted by native Python/C. I could crank out Android apps in niches, write web content and advertise, build a few cloud based web products (CAN IT EXPORT TO EXCEL!?!?!!!111), and easily live off of 15-20k a month with huge fluctuations (both directions). I choose the simple life of industry. Not to mention, it is so hard to motivate yourself to go from start to end on a product. Most of that energy was used in my late teens. Right now, I could be cranking out that turn based strategy Google Glass native app, because native apps with delays in turn taking are going to be the key to Glass (it gets hot!). Instead, I'll just build another fixed width extract with this day. It will run in 1/16th of the time of the original. People will not notice or care until it breaks again. Ad absurdum. I suppose its worth mentioning, I know a few who pull in 4-6k a month solely on advertising/affiliates. Completely passive, they have months worth of posts automated to go out every 2nd or 4th week. I've pulled off 1-2k using the same method, but I always had a hard time finding microniches that were available for me to dominate. Writing about en pointe ballet, dremels, silver polishing, simms fishing gear etc. is not my ideal goal. It did make money though.

_delirium 13y ago
I could crank out Android apps in niches I hear this a lot, but are there numbers on how many people are managing it? I.e. if you exclude apps put out by large companies, how many people are earning $5k+/mo off Android apps? I don't even have a ballpark guess; is it 10 people? 10,000 people?
- lovesgreen 13y ago
  I think it's larger than you think. I don't hang out with many developers and I know a guy who fits this mold. That's 1 out of the maybe 500-1000 acquaintances I have who are generally of above average intelligence/education.
- ambiate 13y ago
  When I first learned Java in school, I cranked out a couple of Android apps. I coded one in 30 minutes. It currently has 24k active installs with a total of 125k people trying it out. Free. Horrible programming. No unit tests led to a scenario where setting the alarm at midnight resulted in the wrong calculation. People love the simplicity of it. People hate the simplicity of it. It has the potential to make $5-17/day. I'm guessing if I corrected/updated the code, it would jump in rank. If I could generate 13-15 apps that fit into this type of niche, I would easily reach $5k/month with lazy/horrible coding. If I just sat there for one-two full month(s) churning out one app a day, I would probably be able to reach that goal.
  - wtetzner 13y ago
    Just out of curiosity, what app is it?
    - ambiate 13y ago
      Sleep cycles, direct clone of sleepyti.me. Turns out ATNT branded phones don't allow access to the hardware alarm clock. The app crashes on ATNT Galaxy S2s (my original phone). Considering that was my first experience with Android, I never looked at it again in a happy manner.

hashtree 13y ago

I am one. I work roughly ~70 hours a week (if you count research and studying), but I can go months (or longer) without needing to touch the passive side of things (or work at all, if I so choose). Usually I am studying to push the bounds of what is available to the consumers (ML, NLP, OCR, etc), studying interesting business models, or just generally improving my craft. Not all of us are lazy, and I have a feeling the approach mentioned in that article won't stand the test of time. In short, passive hackers who are bootstrapped and make a tidy some exist all over. I know several. However, it typically isn't treated as a "vacation" but rather having the flexibility to breathe and do things right.

snoonan 13y ago

I qualify. I'm a stay-at-home dad and don't work much during the day. A few customer support emails or a tweak here and there. Lately I've been working hard nights and weekends on a new project to scale things up a bit, but it's not related to maintaining my current income. There are a lot of us out there. Speaking for myself, I can say I don't talk much about it to other people and pretty much never around startup entrepreneurs. The article sums up the feeling I get on the receiving end...

jt2190 13y ago

> Does Passive Income Hacker actually exist? I think patio11 is the "poster child" of this: > Profits: $38,598 (up 66% from $23,230) > > Wage per Hour: Approximately $1,000, given that I worked > for approximately 15 hours integrating the new design and > spend approximately 20 minutes a week doing support. (Source: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/12/29/bingo-card-creator-and-other-stuff-year-in-review-2012/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/12/29/bingo-card-creator-and-o...) The reality is that it's a little more than "20 minutes a week" if you tally up all of the labor over the lifetime of the product, but then again, most people don't include how much they've worked in the past when they're asked: "How much time do you spend working each week?"

patio11 13y ago
I wouldn't self-identify with either of the two characters here, but then again they're characters. That said: yes, there are lots of small software businesses out there. Many of them do leave the owners pretty well off. Not all of them require huge amounts of work. BCC is very much not the most successful one out there.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

groovypuppy 13y ago

I qualify. Actually I'm a stay at home dad. I work about an hour each day with my customers (mostly support and help for those users who don't read instructions) and bring in high 4 figures a month. I've been doing this for the last 2 years now. The first 6 months were almost full time while I developed the app but the hours tapered off once I released the app. Now that most of the bugs have been worked out, it's about an hour a day. Couldn't be happier with my current situation. The biggest thing I miss is the camaradery that comes with a start up.

eob 13y ago

I think reality is more like the startup world: there exist a people who pull it off, but there are a lot of people who also end up with a living room full of half-finished crummy web apps. What most of these Passive Income blogs and podcasts seem to be selling is really a process: whereupon you start with analyzing a market with google's search insight tools, build a simple utility for that market, purchase adwords for it, and then ab test it. While a process like this might work some of the time, it still doesn't guarantee anything. I love the idea of being a Passive Income Hacker, mostly because I love the idea of "financial freedom" to pursue interests independent of a stable job and stable income. But the two things that make me wary of it are: (1) isn't it still a lot of work up front? work that you could be putting into something with much bigger impact on society into? (2) I wonder how stable the income is over time without maintenance.

redrufus 13y ago
"What most of these Passive Income blogs and podcasts seem to be selling is really a process: whereupon you start with analyzing a market with google's search insight tools, build a simple utility for that market, purchase adwords for it, and then ab test it." You just summed up every article written on PIH
jbjohns 13y ago
Why are you so worried about "much bigger impact on society"? I like the quote from Star trek first contact: "don't try to be a great man, just be a man and let history decide".

jasonkester 13y ago

The article reads like somebody attempting to tell my story using my voice. They guess pretty close to the mark, though "20 minutes a day" is a bit on the high side. I have entire months full of 20 minute weeks, and often go a few months between full work days on the product. This is with a SaaS app designed from the outset to minimize support and maintenance, with profit also a high priority, provided it doesn't conflict with the first. It was in no way hard to do this. I often recommend that others give it a try.

jbjohns 13y ago
Do you have a blog or something where you talk how to get started? I think many of us want exactly this but haven't been able to pull it off yet. At least that's my case. I have about $30/mo passive income but it would take an awful lot of those to gain any flexibility!