Ask HN: Those making $1,000+/month on side projects – what did you make?
It can be a SaaS app, a mobile app, or any side project that is netting you recurring revenue.
I built Premium Ghost Theme marketplace http://www.gtheme.io/ to sell premium ghost themes. I designed most of the themes because I have chicken and egg problem. Now I get about $100-$300/m revenue.
Most people still dont know what is Ghost https://ghost.org/ yet. It is CMS that like Wordpress, but built on NodeJS.
EDIT: Added what is Ghost
A ghost theme market place you say? I went to the site and sure enough, it's ghost themes. Premium ghost themes in fact. I still have no idea what the fuck ghost themes are though.
Most people still dont know what is Ghost https://ghost.org/ yet. It is CMS that like Wordpress, but built on NodeJS.
I would guess that not many are making a $1,000 a month on side projects. Most of my friends have side projects where they make $100-$300, but when they get to over $500 they consider making that the primary project.
Some games make that but you have to continue to update them or they loose their ability to continue to sell, so it's misleading when people say "I make $1500 a month from my games" they should also say "I spend a couple hours a week making sure they are updated to the new versions".
But you may already know that.
I will follow you're question to see if you get much response. I would love to be surprised!
I wrote a battery laptop monitor : http://batterybarpro.com . I get about 1k uniques a day and net about $1500/mn in sales of the Pro version.
How do you get the word out on a utility like this?
I started with a free version that I posted on various freeware software sites and as many forums about laptops as I could find. I also watched referral URLs can tried to engage users. Eventually users started spreading the word themselves. I've tried AdWords a few times but the ROI hasn't been great.
What stack did you use?
It's written in C# with PInvoke code to call the underlying Win32 APIs for the battery status.
There was a thread about this not so long ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844083
Like the hiring/looking for jobs threads, may be this should be a monthly thread.
There's an ebook written by HN user riskish on this topic: http://www.sideprojectbook.com/
I made a video course that teaches you how to build apps with AngularJS.
I used this last winter to learn AngularJS! Make a React course if you can!
Oh wow small world. That's awesome.
Email me at gordon[at]watchandcode[dot]com. Would love to get your feedback on what I can improve and what other things you'd like to learn!
BTW This is the fourth time today someone has asked if I'm doing a React course. I am thinking about it :)
Seconded. Also Reactive Native please.
I should mention that this is a side project that became a main project. It currently makes several thousand a month on a consistent basis.
How did you do the reddit quote thing? Custom made or is there a website that formats it for you?
Click embed under a comment and it will generate embed code for the comment.
Example: http://www.reddit.com/r/angularjs/comments/2f7ziz/i_quit_my_...
Interesting, thought it looked pretty cool. Something to keep in mind for future projects. :)
Looking at the source, its an iframe for this site: //www.redditmedia.com/r/angularjs/comments/2f7ziz/i_quit_my_job_to_teach_you_how_to_launch_a_full/ckbhk0m?embed=true&context=0&depth=1&showedits=true&created=2015-05-04T04:25:24.511Z&showmore=false
I have a few games on the iOS store that still generate some money each month.
My main side project income comes from simple sites I build using public data and my SEO skills. Essentially its all ad sales.
This same thread from two weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9423592
I wrote a book about the Meteor JavaScript framework, which is available for free, but I also sell a video training series that's based on the book: http://meteortips.com
I (still) make >1000 on my watermarking windows program at www.watermark-image.com - yes an old skool installer that you dowbload :)
I am using the money to stairstep (as Rob Walling talks about) into the SaaS world with my sleep and happiness improving way to work called TimeBlock (http://timeblock.com)
$2-300 per quarter from affiliate sales from a vinyl record shop that is linked to from http://soundshelter.net
It's completely automated so any time spent on it is time I want to spend (other than a few user queries).
Should really put up some Adsense but don't want to piss of the loyal users.
You could place Adsense if the IP/user/user agent is one you've never seen before (or seen rarely).
I generated a football betting algorthm > http://betalyst.com/
Gained a decent user base that gives it a strong MMR from ads etc
It's a brilliant idea. Just curious but which data sources do you use?
Was diving into football analytics awhile back but was having trouble getting beyond the usual statistics (e.g. goals, wins, losses, games played, etc).
Sorry, Meant to put Monthly Revenue not MMR
Money?