11 ms·

Ask HN: Is it possible to create a Saas for passive income while working a job?

90 points by nodelessness 11y ago

Have you done it? If so what are the challenges that you faced? What tips do you have for someone trying to do that?

jakozaur 11y ago
Patio11 did that, he created Bingo Card Creator while working as Japanese salesman: http://www.kalzumeus.com/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/ He wrote a lot on that subject.
- jeremyw 11y ago
  s/salesman/salaryman/
LoSboccacc 11y ago
Finding a job where you don't sign off your intellectual right on secondary works has been my limiting factor.
- crystaln 11y ago
  As long as you work on your own time, equipment, and ideas, why would this be a problem? Seems like an invalid limiting belief.
  - abrookewood 11y ago
    Not necessarily. In Australia it is increasingly common to see 'moonlighting' either prohibited outright or have the company attempt to claim ownership of it.
  - guiambros 11y ago
    Many companies require their employees to give away any and all intellectual rights while working for them, even when created on your own spare time and equipment. You may request an exception, but it'll need to be reviewed and approved beforehand by their lawyers. Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056
    - kabdib 11y ago
      Talk to a lawyer, but in the US it depends on the state you live in. In CA I believe you own things done on your own time and equipment. (In WA, not so much).
      - rbrcurtis 11y ago
        In both NC and WI where I work it's true that you own your side projects given the caveats above. I assumed it was most states so I'm surprised to see WA is different.
    - seanwilson 11y ago
      For what it's worth, I asked the founders of a startup I was working at if I could develop and sell my own apps in my spare time and they gave me permission to do so without any issues. We agreed that any apps I made couldn't compete in the domain the startup was based around which I thought was fair.
    - Will_Do 11y ago
      In most U.S. states (even WA) [Law here](http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=49.44.140 http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=49.44.140). Employers often still make you sign something saying that they own your soul and blah blah but they aren't enforceable. Now, in some states (WA but not CA or NY) your employer can fire you for moonlighting if they want to but that's about it. You also have to watch out if you signed a non-compete and are arguably competing with your employer.
      - lfowles 11y ago
        These states seem to be a minority, see Intellectual Property and the Employee Engineer[1] California CA Labor 2870 -2872 Delaware 19 Del.C. s 805 Illinois 765 I.L.C.S. 1060/2 Kansas K.S.A. 44-130 Minnesota M.S.A. 181.78 North Carolina G.S. s 66-57.1 Washington RCWA 49.44.140, 150 Utah UT ST s 34-39-3 [1]: https://www.ieeeusa.org/members/IPandtheengineer.pdf https://www.ieeeusa.org/members/IPandtheengineer.pdf
    - 11y ago
andersthue 11y ago
Yes, besides Patio11 a lot of those attending MicroConf has done it!
- darkxanthos 11y ago
  Oh it looks like I just missed 2015's. Hopefully next year. Microconf sounds interesting.
  - andersthue 11y ago
    It's held twice a year, in Vegas in april and in Europe in the fall, previously it was in Prauge, this year it is in Barcelona sep 30'th - aug 1'st. The conference is made by Rob & Mike from the essential bootstrap a business on the side podcast "Startup for the rest of us". There might be a few tickets left for Barcelona - I'm attending (and my saas startup http://timeblock.com http://timeblock.com is sponsering !) Hope to see you in either!
    - hobo_mark 11y ago
      You probably mean aug 30th - sep 1st. I was interested until I saw the price, frugal bootstrappers must not be the target audience.
      - rwalling 11y ago
        The target audience is bootstrappers who are willing to invest in growth. It's 1/3rd the price of any comparable conference.
- benedikt 11y ago
  Is there an European equivalent of MicroConf?
  - hnrc 11y ago
    http://www.microconfeurope.com http://www.microconfeurope.com
mangeletti 11y ago
I've been trying to do this for a long time, but I have to admit something rather peculiar about my frustrating attempts to do so. I started a company with my brother in 2010. It involves websites, and it takes up about 10-20 hours of our time per year. It costs us about $150/mo to run and earns us anywhere from $1000-$2400/mo (probably $1,600/mo average). It's earned around the same income for about 3 years, and before that it earned $400-$800/mo for most of time during the first 2 years. We could continue working hard to increase the amount our business earns, perhaps until it reaches $8,000-$10,000/mo (very realistic, but would require about 2 man months or so each), but for some reason neither of us are ever excited to work on it. In his spare time, he's busy doing his stuff (completely unrelated work), and I'm busy working on the next big thing (creating an SaaS, or at least trying to determine one to work on). It's really stupid, because we have this boring thing that earns us huge returns on our time invested, and currently pays us nearly $1,000/mo each for doing basically nothing, but we somehow find every excuse to work on something more exciting with little monetary returns, or perhaps simply scratching our own itches. I think the lesson you can take from this (which I clearly haven't learned) is that you shouldn't seek to "create a SaaS", necessarily. Instead, figure out the path of lease resistance to the dollars you want, and don't worry about the "passive" nature of it. You can automate things later, in theory. Worry first about finding easy money. It really is out there. I know that money isn't everything, but it is pretty important. If you have passive income coming in, you can work on all the fun and world changing projects (or charity, etc.) you want, and all without worrying about going broke.
- justincormack 11y ago
  Why not sell it to someone who wants to invest the time and sees the potential?
  - mangeletti 11y ago
    This business isn't the kind of company a VC would invest in, which means it's also not the kind of company that somebody would see and think, "We could blow this thing sky high!" (unless $8-10k/mo is sky high). It does have great potential, but there is no chance of it growing exponentially (like a social network or other highly successful SaaS). Because of this, I couldn't imagine getting more than 3 years revenue for it, and it's such a consistent income earner that it's not something I would want to sell for less than (perhaps) 8 years revenue.
jon-wood 11y ago
Fool I am, I'm doing this on hard mode, by starting a year after our first child arrived. It's hard work, and not earning me any money so far because I'm still working on the MVP, but I hope to get there sooner or later. Most of the work so far is the odd hour here and there in the evening, and a few hours a week during my commute. I am however greatly reassured by a colleague who is doing the same thing with an iOS app which is bringing in a reasonable amount of money - he works on it during his lunch break most days.
- nextweek2 11y ago
  > works on it during his lunch break most days That is very dangerous thing to do, using company time or equipment would entitle the company to between some and all of the revenue. Whilst you can claim it's within your own lunch break, a lawyer might argue that it is hard to separate the time. Using the companies Internet access and hardware would certainly constitute using the companies resource. Unless you have explicit written confirmation from your employer, DON'T do your own projects in their time or at their place of business.
  - vijayr 11y ago
    You are assuming he is using company equipment. He might not be - may be he takes his lunch outside and uses his own computer to work on his stuff?
    - tony2016 11y ago
      I am a developer for over 25 years. I have been using company time and equipment for my own personal projects. Immoral.. not cool? Maybe. I still work the 8 hours and sometimes stay longer. I am very productive and every company is satisfied with my output. They will never know what I am doing on my computer. They don't care. The only way they would know if they install screen capture software. I would never work for a company who does this. Worst worst case that can ever happen is I will get fired. So what? There are tons of companies who would be happy to hire me. It's the company's who fired me loss.. not really mine. Use your judgement on what you can do at the company. In every case, I was able to work on my stuff any time. Usually all the company cares about is that your do your job and meet or exceed their expectations. Some people might not like these suggestions. But come on.. stop living in fear. If this a job that you really are afraid to lose, then you probably want to be more careful. You're not going to go to prison for working on company's time and equipment. If you create a software, there's no proof how you created it. I am working on the same stuff at home and work. A company doesn't care if I sell some software.. as long it's not competing with their own. Then they would come and say I am using their IP. Anyone who says the company owns everything you create using their time and equipment. Just legal words of fear mongering. Prove it.
gargarplex 11y ago
Yeah I did that. The biggest challenge was wanting to spend every minute possible working on my Saas and dreading being at work. Also, I know the intent of what you're saying when you say "passive income" but after ~8 years of being obsessed with these ideas I offer a slightly more experience perspective when I say You probably aren't going to earn any "passive income" from your Saas. Let's say you get 30 customers @ 20/month. That's $600/month but you shouldn't appropriate that as passive income if you're still building features, performing service maintenance, etc. Maybe if you freeze the product and don't perform any marketing work, server work, etc. then it's "passive income". In other words, you should focus on building a business, not a passive income. If you invest money in bonds or dividend-distributing stocks, then that's a passive income. Because you literally do not have to do any work or stress over it if you take an extremely low-risk, highly-diversified, income-producing investment strategy. How do you get the $$ to invest? By building a business and investing lots of energy (the opposite of passive). Can you build a business while working a job? Yes, it's done all the time. Another tip is to wake up every morning very early and put your best cognitive hours into your project. Then you can go to work, and by the time you're ready to get home you can fully invest in being present.
- bsbechtel 11y ago
  Another way of looking at this is that, in a dynamic world (especially technology), things are constantly changing, and the very term passive implies your product is static. If you leave your Saas product that has <1,000 hours of dev time alone, thereby becoming a passive income, your very dynamic competitors who are always looking for their next revenue source will be building additional features and trying to steal your customers. The only way this doesn't hold true is if you develop some sort of barrier to entry for competitors that keep it from being worthwhile for them to try to compete with you. Oftentimes, the best barrier to entry is building a product that is difficult to replicate, which means more like >10,000 hours of dev time, which is 5 years of work. In the small business/Saas world, you are either growing or you are dying. It is very hard to maintain a static/passive business.
  - patio11 11y ago
shubb 11y ago
If your idea is good, why not hire someone to do the grunt work? If you have the skills to make it yourself, then unlike a lot of people who commission software, you have the knowledge to get a good deal and make sure the work is quality. If it's unaffordable, you probably wouldn't have had time to make it.
joshontheweb 11y ago
I'm doing this right now with http://zencastr.com http://zencastr.com. It's still in beta so it hasn't made money yet. Not sure if I'm very qualified to give tips but one thing that has helped immensely is that I work remotely and have a job where I can choose my hours. If I have an emergency with my side project I can usually tend to it immediately. I also don't have to work a full 40 hour week so that gives me time to work on Zencastr. Sometimes it has been hard to keep things moving on it. It is quite easy to go a week without making any progress. Especially if I am up against a bug that is proving hard to figure out. One thing that really helped push forward consistently was to make a trello list of todos. Then every day (almost), I make sure to cross something off of that list. It might only be a small copy change, or simple style tweak. As long as I cross something off every day I'm making progress. Typically I find that once I'm making a small change it gets me in the zone to work on bigger stuff while I'm there as well. Then weekends are typically when I really dig in and get stuff done. We had our first baby right in the middle of all of this as well. Having a supportive partner definitely makes a big difference. Hope that is helpful.
empire29 11y ago
IME there are two main challenges 1) Pre-launch: Finding the time while working to create your SaaS (prior to go launch). 2) Post-launch: Ensuring you have the time to support your customers, and resolve issues in a timely manner. (Paying) customers come with the extra responsibility of taking care of them. The latter can be much harder to manage since you need to react quickly and not push it off until when you have time.
foxhop 11y ago
Yes, look to my profile for proof. Do you have anything specific in mind that would cause you to believe otherwise? Possibly I can offer up my experiences.
- blinduck 11y ago
  Cool just checked out linkpeek? By any chance would be comfortable sharing usage numbers?
- nodelessness 11y ago
  Not that I believe otherwise but challenges and realities of trying to do so that I can think of: 1. Being able to contribute to expectation / well at work while trying to do so. 2. As a developer, you will likely have to retain a deep domain knowledge so shifting between the domain of your own creation and the one of your employer isn't going to be lossless. 3. Having the discipline to ship when you are the only one working on it and not keep on building because you can. 4. Technical skills aside, doing the marketing work to get buyers for the product. Marketing tends to be a shot if you don't have a pre-existing audience to pitch to in the dark until you test and tweak down to the the source that converts the most while keeping you profitable. Where do you even start? etc. 5. Keeping yourself motivated though to completion. 6. Not burning out and managing your emotional well being while making your product as well as doing your job. How much of your free time are you okay with spending on this idea? All of this for even a simple product is not a trivial undertaking. All things considered, technical skill is only one of the many requirements for someone to be able to pull this off. Technical skill may be just a very tiny portion of what you will need to succeed.
augustflanagan 11y ago
A little over a year ago a friend and I launched https://cronitor.io https://cronitor.io Our first paying customer came on July 9th, 2014. As of today we're at about 80 paying customers. As of last month, we have started taking monthly revenue distributions of $1000 each. I would echo gargaplex's comment that, when building a small Saas product, your focus should be about building a business not necessarily just building passive income. However, it's easy to become completely engrossed in something you're working on (especially if it's showing a little traction). So, unless you can see a very clear path to your project becoming a replacement for your full-time revenue source, it's important to be conscious of your time investment, and whether you are at the point where additional work will yield diminishing returns. This is something I've been thinking about a lot with my project lately. I'm not sure if we're there, but, unlike a year ago, when spending 10 hours of time to improve a mediocre product was clearly adding value it's less cut and dry these days. When I look at what has made Cronitor successful (this is a relative term) this past year there are a couple of things that stand out. 1. We launched with a really basic version of our product. It had limited functionality, was far from robust, and didn't even include help docs. But, you could sign up and pay money for it. 2. We hounded our users for feedback. If you signed up you got at least one email from us asking for feedback. Most of the features that exist today on paid plans are because users asked for them. We'd say "sure, we can do that it will be part of plan X. would you be willing to sign up for that?" Not all of them said yes, but getting that validation before investing in features was key. 3. We took breaks from working on it. For myself especially this has been key. I'll have a feature I want to build, or some part of the infrastructure I want to improve. Tackling this feels just like a regular programming sprint, but when it's done I usually take at least a month before moving onto the next "big" thing. This has helped me avoid burnout, and gets me excited to come back and work on it every few weeks. Hope that helps, if you'd like to chat further about getting a Saas project off the ground you can email me august[at]cronitor.io.
- bigtunacan 11y ago
  How did you go about getting customers? For me building a product is the easy part. I'm at a loss for how would I advertise this type of service?
thrwwy71215 11y ago
Do you think it's a reasonable risk to work on my SaaS at work? My context: I have 1-2 hours of free time each day max, if nothing comes up. This is because I have a baby. The 1-2 hours sacrifices perfect sleep. My job on the other hand is not always demanding. I might be able to get a good 2 hour block in for myself. In addition, I have private space and my company is not in software, so they are more likely to be unaware. My SaaS idea is intended to be a personal scale business, so even if caught it's unlikely my company would be interested in it. Totally unrelated to their business as well. There is a slim chance my idea can catch on larger than I expect, but I'm not banking on it. I also do not come from a CS background, so it takes me triple+ the time of what some of you can hack out a site. I've only created one app and I have to learn new tools for this new one. Thus the time crunch is even more extreme. I can work on my app through a web IDE and private IP (HTTPS). Will the company be able to detect it? Alternatively I can shell out for a new Macbook I suppose, since I have private space to work. My idea if successful will need some network effects to keep away copycats, so I'd like to be able to work full bore. However I cannot afford to quit my job. I'm in California. My employer is not based there. I did not have to sign any IP agreements. Would you work on your SaaS on the job if you were me? Thanks.
- blooberr 11y ago
  Do you have to physically be in the office? Would it work if you were in the library or a coffee shop 5 minutes away?
  - thrwwy71215 11y ago
    I do need to be in the office. No strict schedule, but generally available. If company property was an issue, I could always get my own laptop and use a personal hotspot. Someone would have to prove I worked on my app in my office, which is hard without surveillance I imagine.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
  No. I've done my share of stupid/risky things, but I'm simply not going to work on a side business while actually in the office at my day job. That said, I used to know someone who did exactly this successfully. However, while he was an engineer, his day job had absolutely nothing to do with software development and gave him lots of free time "at work" when he would just have been bored.
hansy 11y ago
Passive income often connotes building something once, then sitting back while money pours in. More often than not, this doesn't happen (at least initially anyway). Most of your time with your side project will be allocated to customer support and marketing. Others on this thread have correctly pointed out that approaching the project in terms of a business is the appropriate mindset to possess. You'll constantly be tweaking and iterating until you hit product-market fit, then you'll have to go out and sell the product. It took me about a month to build https://www.onhand.co https://www.onhand.co then double that time to reach enough users to sustain the server costs (still not profitable). Honestly the best advice I have is similar to the advice startups receive, which is first figure out a pain point others are willing to pay to alleviate, then spend time building your side project/business/passive income.
kiliancgn 11y ago
Yes, I did it with significant monthly profits. I solved a problem many eBay sellers had at that time. Tips from me: 1. Try to outsource as much as possible and do not try to solve everything yourself. Upwork & Co. is your friend. There are people who are better in coding, designing etc. than you. After a while I outsourced time consuming customer first level support too. Of course you need some money to do it but you will make way more progress if you have a great team. Be VERY careful in selecting the people you work with. There are several good ones out there but a lot of not so good ones too. 2. Developing the Saas platform is not the difficult part. Winning/getting customers is. Customers won't come just because you published your site. 3. Think twice before you want to start something where you face a 2-sided-market. Building this next to your job might be very challenging. 4. Go for it! You (and others) will never know until you built it. Don't let others stop you but consider their feedback. Good luck!
- rufugee 11y ago
  Any tips for hiring workers on thinks like Upwork/eLance/etc without them stealing your idea?

90 points by nodelessness 11y ago

Have you done it? If so what are the challenges that you faced? What tips do you have for someone trying to do that?

Patio11 did that, he created Bingo Card Creator while working as Japanese salesman: http://www.kalzumeus.com/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/ He wrote a lot on that subject.

jeremyw 11y ago
s/salesman/salaryman/

LoSboccacc 11y ago

Finding a job where you don't sign off your intellectual right on secondary works has been my limiting factor.

crystaln 11y ago
As long as you work on your own time, equipment, and ideas, why would this be a problem? Seems like an invalid limiting belief.
- abrookewood 11y ago
  Not necessarily. In Australia it is increasingly common to see 'moonlighting' either prohibited outright or have the company attempt to claim ownership of it.
- guiambros 11y ago
  Many companies require their employees to give away any and all intellectual rights while working for them, even when created on your own spare time and equipment. You may request an exception, but it'll need to be reviewed and approved beforehand by their lawyers. Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056
  - kabdib 11y ago
    Talk to a lawyer, but in the US it depends on the state you live in. In CA I believe you own things done on your own time and equipment. (In WA, not so much).
    - rbrcurtis 11y ago
      In both NC and WI where I work it's true that you own your side projects given the caveats above. I assumed it was most states so I'm surprised to see WA is different.
  - seanwilson 11y ago
    For what it's worth, I asked the founders of a startup I was working at if I could develop and sell my own apps in my spare time and they gave me permission to do so without any issues. We agreed that any apps I made couldn't compete in the domain the startup was based around which I thought was fair.
  - Will_Do 11y ago
    In most U.S. states (even WA) [Law here](http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=49.44.140 http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=49.44.140). Employers often still make you sign something saying that they own your soul and blah blah but they aren't enforceable. Now, in some states (WA but not CA or NY) your employer can fire you for moonlighting if they want to but that's about it. You also have to watch out if you signed a non-compete and are arguably competing with your employer.
    - lfowles 11y ago
      These states seem to be a minority, see Intellectual Property and the Employee Engineer[1] California CA Labor 2870 -2872 Delaware 19 Del.C. s 805 Illinois 765 I.L.C.S. 1060/2 Kansas K.S.A. 44-130 Minnesota M.S.A. 181.78 North Carolina G.S. s 66-57.1 Washington RCWA 49.44.140, 150 Utah UT ST s 34-39-3 [1]: https://www.ieeeusa.org/members/IPandtheengineer.pdf https://www.ieeeusa.org/members/IPandtheengineer.pdf
  - 11y ago

andersthue 11y ago

Yes, besides Patio11 a lot of those attending MicroConf has done it!

darkxanthos 11y ago
Oh it looks like I just missed 2015's. Hopefully next year. Microconf sounds interesting.
- andersthue 11y ago
  It's held twice a year, in Vegas in april and in Europe in the fall, previously it was in Prauge, this year it is in Barcelona sep 30'th - aug 1'st. The conference is made by Rob & Mike from the essential bootstrap a business on the side podcast "Startup for the rest of us". There might be a few tickets left for Barcelona - I'm attending (and my saas startup http://timeblock.com http://timeblock.com is sponsering !) Hope to see you in either!
  - hobo_mark 11y ago
    You probably mean aug 30th - sep 1st. I was interested until I saw the price, frugal bootstrappers must not be the target audience.
    - rwalling 11y ago
      The target audience is bootstrappers who are willing to invest in growth. It's 1/3rd the price of any comparable conference.
benedikt 11y ago
Is there an European equivalent of MicroConf?
- hnrc 11y ago
  http://www.microconfeurope.com http://www.microconfeurope.com

mangeletti 11y ago

I've been trying to do this for a long time, but I have to admit something rather peculiar about my frustrating attempts to do so. I started a company with my brother in 2010. It involves websites, and it takes up about 10-20 hours of our time per year. It costs us about $150/mo to run and earns us anywhere from $1000-$2400/mo (probably $1,600/mo average). It's earned around the same income for about 3 years, and before that it earned $400-$800/mo for most of time during the first 2 years. We could continue working hard to increase the amount our business earns, perhaps until it reaches $8,000-$10,000/mo (very realistic, but would require about 2 man months or so each), but for some reason neither of us are ever excited to work on it. In his spare time, he's busy doing his stuff (completely unrelated work), and I'm busy working on the next big thing (creating an SaaS, or at least trying to determine one to work on). It's really stupid, because we have this boring thing that earns us huge returns on our time invested, and currently pays us nearly $1,000/mo each for doing basically nothing, but we somehow find every excuse to work on something more exciting with little monetary returns, or perhaps simply scratching our own itches. I think the lesson you can take from this (which I clearly haven't learned) is that you shouldn't seek to "create a SaaS", necessarily. Instead, figure out the path of lease resistance to the dollars you want, and don't worry about the "passive" nature of it. You can automate things later, in theory. Worry first about finding easy money. It really is out there. I know that money isn't everything, but it is pretty important. If you have passive income coming in, you can work on all the fun and world changing projects (or charity, etc.) you want, and all without worrying about going broke.

justincormack 11y ago
Why not sell it to someone who wants to invest the time and sees the potential?
- mangeletti 11y ago
  This business isn't the kind of company a VC would invest in, which means it's also not the kind of company that somebody would see and think, "We could blow this thing sky high!" (unless $8-10k/mo is sky high). It does have great potential, but there is no chance of it growing exponentially (like a social network or other highly successful SaaS). Because of this, I couldn't imagine getting more than 3 years revenue for it, and it's such a consistent income earner that it's not something I would want to sell for less than (perhaps) 8 years revenue.

jon-wood 11y ago

Fool I am, I'm doing this on hard mode, by starting a year after our first child arrived. It's hard work, and not earning me any money so far because I'm still working on the MVP, but I hope to get there sooner or later. Most of the work so far is the odd hour here and there in the evening, and a few hours a week during my commute. I am however greatly reassured by a colleague who is doing the same thing with an iOS app which is bringing in a reasonable amount of money - he works on it during his lunch break most days.

nextweek2 11y ago
> works on it during his lunch break most days That is very dangerous thing to do, using company time or equipment would entitle the company to between some and all of the revenue. Whilst you can claim it's within your own lunch break, a lawyer might argue that it is hard to separate the time. Using the companies Internet access and hardware would certainly constitute using the companies resource. Unless you have explicit written confirmation from your employer, DON'T do your own projects in their time or at their place of business.
- vijayr 11y ago
  You are assuming he is using company equipment. He might not be - may be he takes his lunch outside and uses his own computer to work on his stuff?
  - tony2016 11y ago
    I am a developer for over 25 years. I have been using company time and equipment for my own personal projects. Immoral.. not cool? Maybe. I still work the 8 hours and sometimes stay longer. I am very productive and every company is satisfied with my output. They will never know what I am doing on my computer. They don't care. The only way they would know if they install screen capture software. I would never work for a company who does this. Worst worst case that can ever happen is I will get fired. So what? There are tons of companies who would be happy to hire me. It's the company's who fired me loss.. not really mine. Use your judgement on what you can do at the company. In every case, I was able to work on my stuff any time. Usually all the company cares about is that your do your job and meet or exceed their expectations. Some people might not like these suggestions. But come on.. stop living in fear. If this a job that you really are afraid to lose, then you probably want to be more careful. You're not going to go to prison for working on company's time and equipment. If you create a software, there's no proof how you created it. I am working on the same stuff at home and work. A company doesn't care if I sell some software.. as long it's not competing with their own. Then they would come and say I am using their IP. Anyone who says the company owns everything you create using their time and equipment. Just legal words of fear mongering. Prove it.

gargarplex 11y ago

Yeah I did that. The biggest challenge was wanting to spend every minute possible working on my Saas and dreading being at work. Also, I know the intent of what you're saying when you say "passive income" but after ~8 years of being obsessed with these ideas I offer a slightly more experience perspective when I say You probably aren't going to earn any "passive income" from your Saas. Let's say you get 30 customers @ 20/month. That's $600/month but you shouldn't appropriate that as passive income if you're still building features, performing service maintenance, etc. Maybe if you freeze the product and don't perform any marketing work, server work, etc. then it's "passive income". In other words, you should focus on building a business, not a passive income. If you invest money in bonds or dividend-distributing stocks, then that's a passive income. Because you literally do not have to do any work or stress over it if you take an extremely low-risk, highly-diversified, income-producing investment strategy. How do you get the $$ to invest? By building a business and investing lots of energy (the opposite of passive). Can you build a business while working a job? Yes, it's done all the time. Another tip is to wake up every morning very early and put your best cognitive hours into your project. Then you can go to work, and by the time you're ready to get home you can fully invest in being present.

bsbechtel 11y ago
Another way of looking at this is that, in a dynamic world (especially technology), things are constantly changing, and the very term passive implies your product is static. If you leave your Saas product that has <1,000 hours of dev time alone, thereby becoming a passive income, your very dynamic competitors who are always looking for their next revenue source will be building additional features and trying to steal your customers. The only way this doesn't hold true is if you develop some sort of barrier to entry for competitors that keep it from being worthwhile for them to try to compete with you. Oftentimes, the best barrier to entry is building a product that is difficult to replicate, which means more like >10,000 hours of dev time, which is 5 years of work. In the small business/Saas world, you are either growing or you are dying. It is very hard to maintain a static/passive business.
- patio11 11y ago

shubb 11y ago

If your idea is good, why not hire someone to do the grunt work? If you have the skills to make it yourself, then unlike a lot of people who commission software, you have the knowledge to get a good deal and make sure the work is quality. If it's unaffordable, you probably wouldn't have had time to make it.

joshontheweb 11y ago

I'm doing this right now with http://zencastr.com http://zencastr.com. It's still in beta so it hasn't made money yet. Not sure if I'm very qualified to give tips but one thing that has helped immensely is that I work remotely and have a job where I can choose my hours. If I have an emergency with my side project I can usually tend to it immediately. I also don't have to work a full 40 hour week so that gives me time to work on Zencastr. Sometimes it has been hard to keep things moving on it. It is quite easy to go a week without making any progress. Especially if I am up against a bug that is proving hard to figure out. One thing that really helped push forward consistently was to make a trello list of todos. Then every day (almost), I make sure to cross something off of that list. It might only be a small copy change, or simple style tweak. As long as I cross something off every day I'm making progress. Typically I find that once I'm making a small change it gets me in the zone to work on bigger stuff while I'm there as well. Then weekends are typically when I really dig in and get stuff done. We had our first baby right in the middle of all of this as well. Having a supportive partner definitely makes a big difference. Hope that is helpful.

empire29 11y ago

IME there are two main challenges 1) Pre-launch: Finding the time while working to create your SaaS (prior to go launch). 2) Post-launch: Ensuring you have the time to support your customers, and resolve issues in a timely manner. (Paying) customers come with the extra responsibility of taking care of them. The latter can be much harder to manage since you need to react quickly and not push it off until when you have time.

foxhop 11y ago

Yes, look to my profile for proof. Do you have anything specific in mind that would cause you to believe otherwise? Possibly I can offer up my experiences.

blinduck 11y ago
Cool just checked out linkpeek? By any chance would be comfortable sharing usage numbers?
nodelessness 11y ago
Not that I believe otherwise but challenges and realities of trying to do so that I can think of: 1. Being able to contribute to expectation / well at work while trying to do so. 2. As a developer, you will likely have to retain a deep domain knowledge so shifting between the domain of your own creation and the one of your employer isn't going to be lossless. 3. Having the discipline to ship when you are the only one working on it and not keep on building because you can. 4. Technical skills aside, doing the marketing work to get buyers for the product. Marketing tends to be a shot if you don't have a pre-existing audience to pitch to in the dark until you test and tweak down to the the source that converts the most while keeping you profitable. Where do you even start? etc. 5. Keeping yourself motivated though to completion. 6. Not burning out and managing your emotional well being while making your product as well as doing your job. How much of your free time are you okay with spending on this idea? All of this for even a simple product is not a trivial undertaking. All things considered, technical skill is only one of the many requirements for someone to be able to pull this off. Technical skill may be just a very tiny portion of what you will need to succeed.

augustflanagan 11y ago

A little over a year ago a friend and I launched https://cronitor.io https://cronitor.io Our first paying customer came on July 9th, 2014. As of today we're at about 80 paying customers. As of last month, we have started taking monthly revenue distributions of $1000 each. I would echo gargaplex's comment that, when building a small Saas product, your focus should be about building a business not necessarily just building passive income. However, it's easy to become completely engrossed in something you're working on (especially if it's showing a little traction). So, unless you can see a very clear path to your project becoming a replacement for your full-time revenue source, it's important to be conscious of your time investment, and whether you are at the point where additional work will yield diminishing returns. This is something I've been thinking about a lot with my project lately. I'm not sure if we're there, but, unlike a year ago, when spending 10 hours of time to improve a mediocre product was clearly adding value it's less cut and dry these days. When I look at what has made Cronitor successful (this is a relative term) this past year there are a couple of things that stand out. 1. We launched with a really basic version of our product. It had limited functionality, was far from robust, and didn't even include help docs. But, you could sign up and pay money for it. 2. We hounded our users for feedback. If you signed up you got at least one email from us asking for feedback. Most of the features that exist today on paid plans are because users asked for them. We'd say "sure, we can do that it will be part of plan X. would you be willing to sign up for that?" Not all of them said yes, but getting that validation before investing in features was key. 3. We took breaks from working on it. For myself especially this has been key. I'll have a feature I want to build, or some part of the infrastructure I want to improve. Tackling this feels just like a regular programming sprint, but when it's done I usually take at least a month before moving onto the next "big" thing. This has helped me avoid burnout, and gets me excited to come back and work on it every few weeks. Hope that helps, if you'd like to chat further about getting a Saas project off the ground you can email me august[at]cronitor.io.

bigtunacan 11y ago
How did you go about getting customers? For me building a product is the easy part. I'm at a loss for how would I advertise this type of service?

thrwwy71215 11y ago

Do you think it's a reasonable risk to work on my SaaS at work? My context: I have 1-2 hours of free time each day max, if nothing comes up. This is because I have a baby. The 1-2 hours sacrifices perfect sleep. My job on the other hand is not always demanding. I might be able to get a good 2 hour block in for myself. In addition, I have private space and my company is not in software, so they are more likely to be unaware. My SaaS idea is intended to be a personal scale business, so even if caught it's unlikely my company would be interested in it. Totally unrelated to their business as well. There is a slim chance my idea can catch on larger than I expect, but I'm not banking on it. I also do not come from a CS background, so it takes me triple+ the time of what some of you can hack out a site. I've only created one app and I have to learn new tools for this new one. Thus the time crunch is even more extreme. I can work on my app through a web IDE and private IP (HTTPS). Will the company be able to detect it? Alternatively I can shell out for a new Macbook I suppose, since I have private space to work. My idea if successful will need some network effects to keep away copycats, so I'd like to be able to work full bore. However I cannot afford to quit my job. I'm in California. My employer is not based there. I did not have to sign any IP agreements. Would you work on your SaaS on the job if you were me? Thanks.

blooberr 11y ago
Do you have to physically be in the office? Would it work if you were in the library or a coffee shop 5 minutes away?
- thrwwy71215 11y ago
  I do need to be in the office. No strict schedule, but generally available. If company property was an issue, I could always get my own laptop and use a personal hotspot. Someone would have to prove I worked on my app in my office, which is hard without surveillance I imagine.
HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
No. I've done my share of stupid/risky things, but I'm simply not going to work on a side business while actually in the office at my day job. That said, I used to know someone who did exactly this successfully. However, while he was an engineer, his day job had absolutely nothing to do with software development and gave him lots of free time "at work" when he would just have been bored.

hansy 11y ago

Passive income often connotes building something once, then sitting back while money pours in. More often than not, this doesn't happen (at least initially anyway). Most of your time with your side project will be allocated to customer support and marketing. Others on this thread have correctly pointed out that approaching the project in terms of a business is the appropriate mindset to possess. You'll constantly be tweaking and iterating until you hit product-market fit, then you'll have to go out and sell the product. It took me about a month to build https://www.onhand.co https://www.onhand.co then double that time to reach enough users to sustain the server costs (still not profitable). Honestly the best advice I have is similar to the advice startups receive, which is first figure out a pain point others are willing to pay to alleviate, then spend time building your side project/business/passive income.

kiliancgn 11y ago

Yes, I did it with significant monthly profits. I solved a problem many eBay sellers had at that time. Tips from me: 1. Try to outsource as much as possible and do not try to solve everything yourself. Upwork & Co. is your friend. There are people who are better in coding, designing etc. than you. After a while I outsourced time consuming customer first level support too. Of course you need some money to do it but you will make way more progress if you have a great team. Be VERY careful in selecting the people you work with. There are several good ones out there but a lot of not so good ones too. 2. Developing the Saas platform is not the difficult part. Winning/getting customers is. Customers won't come just because you published your site. 3. Think twice before you want to start something where you face a 2-sided-market. Building this next to your job might be very challenging. 4. Go for it! You (and others) will never know until you built it. Don't let others stop you but consider their feedback. Good luck!

rufugee 11y ago
Any tips for hiring workers on thinks like Upwork/eLance/etc without them stealing your idea?