Easiest path to $2000 a month? | Hacker News Reader

Easiest path to $2000 a month?

discuss.joelonsoftware.com

129 pointssadiq72 comments

I wonder if people are being unnecessarily negative on this discussion thread. It seems to me that his best bet is to start something that he can manage in his spare time that solves a problem. That's not easy but it's not horribly difficult either. I was able to bring a product to market in my spare time and recruited sales people to sell it. I have even lined up speaking gigs at conferences in my vertical (no idea if I'm actually going to be any good at this).

I realize that this person is different than me but I did it for a similar reason: I have to make extra money to provide for my family in the long term. Consulting actually seemed harder to me because you need to put in a consistent amount of time and if you have a family that's very hard to do. I still work a job during the day but my evenings are spent largely improving my product and writing marketing copy for the website I'm having designed.

I thought they seemed negative, until I remembered that the poster said they couldn't do consulting. It takes the discussion from "I am a skilled programmer looking for work" to "what kind of product should I create and market that will sell immediately," which just isn't a realistic discussion to have. As Bob Frances said in that thread (paraphrasing), if it were that easy, a great deal more people would be doing it.

I think people get this idea that striking it rich with a popular app is easy after reading a bunch of rags-to-riches app developer stories.

He didn't actually say "immediately". I understood that he needs $2000/month "as soon as realistically possible," and asks in which kind of software is such a goal easiest to achieve. It's just his question is hard to answer when he seems to not have an idea yet what to build...

Chances are if he really needs an extra 2k / month for health reasons then finding a job with better heath insurance is a much better option than possibly building a product that generates 2k/month in profit.

Or just moving to the UK (or another country with a public health system).

I think "Marie Petit" is a girl's name.

"I have even lined up speaking gigs at conferences in my vertical (no idea if I'm actually going to be any good at this)."

Toastmasters International is your friend. They exist for this reason. Find a local club, visit, and see what you think. Really, whether you are naturally awesome or terrified you owe it to yourself and the audience to polish your speaking skills.

I'd say I'm in between. I'm not nervous about it but I realize the limitations of my social skills. I will check it out.

"What do I do when I'm attacked by a man with a banana? It's easy, I just pull the lever and release the tiger"

Sure, making a few inside sales is "very easy", if you happen to have the skills, the contacts, the understanding of particular markets, the initiative, the ability/willingness not to panic when no money is coming in, etc. Opening a locked door is easy too, if you have the key, etc.

If, on the other hand, you aren't leveraging skills and experience but you just want/need money, you can't pull opportunity out of your hit based on your desire.

The worst possible reason to become an entrepreneur is needing money.

I'm sure there are worse reasons to become an entrepreneur. Needing money is a perfectly valid reason to try something new.

OK, I'd agree there are worse reasons but needing money is back because entrepreneurhood needs mindset and a skillset. Happening to need money doesn't get either of those.

Yes, they are overwhelmingly negative because they have all struggled and mostly failed.

Taking years to get to $2,000/mo revenue as some of the commenters say? That is truly sad. Somebody seriously needs to teach these guys some business skills.

Hopefully it will be me.

I wrote a positive comment - I've made gobs of money and my SaaS made $1300 its very first month, after the first round of trials ended. And the reason is because I created a truly different product in a category proven to make money, and used my blog/twitter audience to spread the word as I was launching (and before).

It's really, really, really not that hard.

What was your SaaS? (I didn't see a link in your profile)

She recently posted about it here that led to a very interesting (and useful) discussion: http://letsfreckle.com/

HN Post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1366862

Inspire us. Details?

You made $1300 the first month you offered the product. how much time did it take to develop it.

3 months, one or two days a week max. :)

I'd venture outfits of the calibre of your SaaS are much rarer than you may think.

Your UX is stellar, it's very clear what the value proposition is.

You're solving an actual problem, it's a problem most people and not just programmers have, and you're not building an adware, data-collection social networking honey pot where there is no significant revenue until you have thousands upon thousands of users.

Things which can't be said of a number of the ideas I see floated here...

I mean really, AdSense link farms? What a terrible idea. What a way to waste programming effort and pollute the web with crap.

Thanks, heresy, for the UI compliment :)

I agree with you - it's clear what the value proposition is, and it's a tool that generates real value. That's the real reason it makes money, the UI is just the way I chose to differentiate.

Making $2k/mo is NOT hard if you provide actual value.

Anyone can learn to do that!

It just takes time, effort, reading biz books, etc. - or attending my launch course (http://yearofhustle.com), which condenses everything I've learned from reading and practice into really easy-to-absorb lessons.

The thing is, the reason I specifically chose a tool that would have a clear value, chose how to deliver that value in a different way, and made the content explain how it makes people money.

And I have read 100s of business books -- a hobby I started as a 13-year-old. It's not like I've got an MBA, or ever had a business mentor. I taught myself.

I posted to the thread and I thought I was being positive but realistic. The majority of programmers are not capable of creating a $2000/month cashflow business for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to skills, marketing knowledge and not least of all overcoming laziness.

The BoS forum has a lot of people selling downloadable desktop apps into crowded markets. That's why there is a lot of 'very hard' type comments.

You need $2000 per month? You must add at least that much extra value into the world to get it. The reason people who responded to the original post suggested consulting is because consulting is value creation that is very well defined by the person requesting it. If you want to create value in software, in either desktop, iphone OS, or web apps, you have to look where there is pain in some market, and see if the pain is worth $2000 to solve. It's not a question of platform, but a question of market and value.

With mobile "games" it's not about pain, it's about pleasure. If you can show someone a good time for 24 hours, you can get $2 from them.

Therefore, in the app world, you are in the "I'll tickle you for $2 business" and you just need 1000 customers a month.

Now that we have mobile games, people have begun to experience "boredom at the train station" as pain, and "getting tired with old games" as pain too.

People will try harder to get themselves from pain back up to baseline than to get themselves from baseline to happiness. And once they reach happiness for long enough, that becomes the new baseline.

"You must add at least that much extra value into the world to get it."

Not true; every exchange can (and typically does) have externalities (positive and/or negative).

For ethical reasons you should strive for (mostly) positive externalities. That means you need to add those 2000$ plus the externalities.

One comment in thread stood out for me: "Since your problem is medical bills, it seems extremely obvious that you need to switch to a job that has a better benefits package."

The poster simply stated she needs an extra $2,000 a month for medical reasons. Why? Medication? Visits to a specialist? If the extra $2k is needed because what she needs isn't covered under her current employer's benefits, job shopping is probably a better way to spend her free time.

Good point, but maybe the money is needed for a relative that won't be covered anyway?

Anyway, how about a move to a country with socialized health care? (Canada?)

Under most circumstances, those benefits take time to kick in. In Ontario, for example:

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ohip/wait.htm...

Socialized health care is not the same as having money to pay for treatment. Some Canadians go to the US to get treated for cancer.

In Denmark there is also government healthcare, but some people, including politicians, still pay private hospitals for treatment.

Canadians go to the US for treatment because they either want to get treated faster than it is possible in Canada or they want or need a method of treatment which is not available in Canada. (The latter is not terribly surprising if you consider population sizes.) Nobody would go for US treatment because of money issues.

They are right in that it just does not happen that fast. Furthermore, trying to make cash when you are under pressure to make cash rarely works - people who need cash quickly usually don't have the time or the patience to successfully bring a product from conception to release.

One first has to solve the cash issue before trying to build a product. Building a product from dire straits rarely works.

$2000 a month? Find a large quantity of text that isn't on the Web that people might search for, put it online, and put AdSense ads on it.

You mean like scanning some old obscure books with expired copyright?

Haha.

Aaron, how do you figure out these kinds of things (popular searches)? I know there's the Google search keyword tool.

Yes, with the keyword tools. The real issue is how do you find large amount of text which isn't on the web...

Give me an example of some searches you would do?

I really hope you're kidding...I would venture a guess that there are no more than a handful of people in the world making more than $100/month in adsense, even with a lot of content sites

I don't know about $2k, but $100 isn't a high threshold at all. There are plenty of areas where $10+ CPM is the norm, and plenty of people in those areas run 10k-visitors-per-month sites.

I'm smallfry and do $3-4k/month through AdSense for about 10 minutes/week effort tops from a handful of sites.

Well you sir would then be a member of that handful. The income on the Adsense network is just like the income distribution of America: 1% control 80%.

I think you're underestimating the number of people who'd be doing OK out of it.

You said, "I would venture a guess that there are no more than a handful of people in the world making more than $100/month."

A handful would be fewer than a dozen, surely? There'd be thousands making more than $100/month. Actually, there'd be thousands making more than $10k/month IMO.

meh, I guess my idea of what I thought a handful of people meant was lower than everyone elses opinion. By handful, I mean a small percentage. Since there are so many publishers on Adsense, a small percentage of that is still a good amount of people.

Saying "small percentage" would've removed that ambiguity.

Now, regardless, the majority trying AdSense make bugger all because they're clowns, half-arsed, give up early, don't know what they're doing, etc. Anyone with either some luck or a half-decent plan, some ability and persistence can build up some passive income or at least give it a shot for free.

Bear in mind that people earning a lot on adSense don't usually talk about it much.

(I've been making a living off adSense for quite some years now).

Very very skeptical it's that easy. $2k/mo in AdSense is a TON of traffic. So, unless these are celebrity diaries, unlikely.

I've done it. I consistently make over $2.5k a month selling iPhone apps. At my peak I made a little under $5k. It kinda sucks at times as it's not just one app. To be honest, most people would consider them shovelware, but if you actually download them you'll see that they provide value. You can read my story here: http://techneur.com I should mention though, it didn't happen overnight and it took about five months or so to get to this point.

Consulting in a hot area like iPhone apps or something, I'd say. Creating and selling some products is much more risk-prone.

I've thought about this some more, and I've come to the conclusion that by the time you need $2000/month more, it's almost too late.

The problem is that by aiming for such a small amount you're going to be looking at marginal solutions to marginal problems.

You're better off, in my opinion, aiming for 10 or 20,000 a month and hitting 2,000 than trying to max out at 2,000, and probably hitting 200.

30 hrs/week * 4.3 weeks = 130 hours in a month. $2000/130 hours = $15/hour

You can take on freelance writing gigs that pay the equivalent of $15/hour pretty easily. And these have the extra benefits of being incredibly flexible in regards to work hours, can start pretty much immediately, with no real sales effort required.

Where would one find these freelance writing gigs?

There are dozens of postings here: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/wri/

And don't limit yourself to your local city, look in all the major cities in North America. At any given time you'll see a few dozen freelance writing/editing gigs in the San Fran, NYC, Toronto Craigslists.

You also have sites like Associated Content, Hubpages, etc. And actually, in its heyday Mahalo was probably a pretty good place to make decent money for the right people.

I don't think sites like Squidoo, Knol, and the new Mahalo that do rev share are good sources of income. I mean, they can be, but it's probably almost as difficult to make money on those sites as it would be to start up your own content site. Being paid per article/report is the best way to do it - from a writer perspective. Rev share is the best way to do it from the site's perspective.

If you're in Canada: http://apply.productwiki.com

>Hard work doesn't scare me but consulting is off the table due to restriction at my workplace.

What "restrictions"? You have a (most likely verbal) contract with your employer to provide your effort in exchange for money. They don't own you and any clauses they have that restrict what you can do when you're not there or don't even work for them anymore are probably not enforceable. Especially when this dubious claus is holding you back from money you need.

Just because a contract says something, even if you signed it, doesn't mean it can actually be enforced.

"a (most likely verbal) contract" => most likely he actually has a signed contract, no? Why do you think otherwise?

The US goes mostly on verbal contracts for permanent employees. I don't personally know of any non-executive exceptions, but there must be some.

EDIT: P.S. Even if it's a signed contract, that still doesn't mean it's enforcable.

The US also goes on at-will employment, so regardless of how legally enfoceable his contract may be (in that they can't sue him for violating it), they can fire him for violating it.

Some states are at-will employment. I would avoid working in those states, they give the employer way too much power over the worker.

Which states aren't at-will employment?

LOL. All states except Montana have at-will employment, albeit that the nature of exceptions varies across states. Where do you live?

I always lived in an at-will state, but I wouldn't ever go back there to work. I was under the impression that the states were either Union (California?) or "Right to work".

wtf is with the downvoting here? If you have a problem with the post please state it so it can be discussed.

Nice. Stay classy.

I work in the US and have never had a job where there wasn't some kind of signed contract. I'd feel that a company that didn't put its expectations of its employees in writing was somewhat shady.

I've worked in numerous jobs in the US and have never had to sign a contract. One tried to make me sign one of those 'anything you invent even on your own time is our property' documents and I told them no to which they said don't worry about it then.

The company I work for now was acquired awhile back and the software I work on is one of the main reasons for acquisition. I fully expected them to try and present some contracts, but they didn't. Most likely they correctly thought that I wouldn't sign it without some increase in pay and benefits, and they didn't want to give me any additional money.

Can you, for example, work for a competition in your spare time? I have a contract which forbids me do that (but I respect it since it seems reasonable to ask for this).

Honestly I think it depends on the circumstance. But companies (at least US ones) always try to make these contracts much more restrictive than they could ever actually get away with. I once worked for a company that said I was not allowed to work for a company in a related market segment for 2 years after leaving the company.

But whether the contract should, or could be, broken shouldn't even enter into the conversation. The poster said they cannot do consulting. For the purposes of this discussion, that's all the information given, so it's pointless to make further assumptions.

Consulting would be my suggestion as well; it's far more immediately lucrative than creating a product from scratch.

I disagree. If the person is skipping their best option due to a misunderstanding on their part (as it appears to be) then that should be addressed.

If he absolutely needs the extra $2000 this month, consulting may be the wrong way to go. Say you bill for 20 hours at $100 an hour to a company and they pay invoices 45 days after submission. Now you're SOL.

I'd look for a part time job, or pick up work on the weekends from a Craigslist job where you'll get paid that day.

Does this story help the quest to $2000/mo? Making Money Online in your Spare Time: 50 Ways & 150 sites http://bighow.com/news/making-money-online-in-your-spare-tim...

http://www.itworld.com/offbeat/109756/7-strange-ways-make-mo... Its another Hacker News article on the main page. Don't know how to copy the HN link.

Start with a product that's earning $4000 a month.

> > Success in business is rather like pregnancy.

> Because you get screwed a lot at the beginning?

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