Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside programming?
Always wondered this. Sometimes I feel the need to do something else outside my field, and possibly get some money out of it.
The storefront is through ShapeWays[1] and I use iFixit[2],[3] to drive the traffic. It passively makes enough to cover my own coffee needs forever. I spend about 20 minutes per month fielding questions. This all happened because my grinder failed and I could not get parts.
[1] https://www.shapeways.com/product/NASLAGCCP/breville-coffee-...
[2] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/BCG800XL+Grinder+Jamming+due+to...
[3] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/BCG600SIL+Dose+Control+Pro+Coff...
I could see someday having a github project for replacement parts, each one iterating and getting better an better -- far beyond the original.
Could even be something silly, like a plastic fuse extractor tool that people will pay $50 for if it looks OEM.
A company does sell a replacement, which he paid a fortune for, which had garbage tolerances and we spent weeks modifying it until it fit more or less well enough.
I suspect if you spent time on "classic car" forums you'd find owners of very specific models of cars searching for things you could make and sell for any markup, and every owner would buy one.
[1] Its the silver part in this photo, which the alternator mounts to and must be precisely centered https://rennlist.com/forums/attachments/993-forum/1236047d15...
Edit: I actually looked into it a little more- it looks like the part is probably machined from casting given that there appear to be four stators which also locate the center mounting point. That's where the concentricity would be set; not by the casting, but by the machining of the center flange. So assuming that the fan's mounting points are within spec, I would say that your friend's part could just be chalked up to machining process that leaves something to be desired. This is actually a trickier part if machined from casting (without the appropriate tooling), but actually pretty simple (and wildly expensive) if machined from billet.
I used to order a lot of custom things from China. Took a lot of trial and error to find good suppliers. They only accept bank wire as payment, so they risk little other than repeat business if they choose to be sloppy.
I think from memory the inside of the circle (which was cast) was not perfectly round. From memory the original Porsche part was titanium, and this replacement was aluminum. But I might have that backwards.
What doesn't sit right with me is the fact that for a small run, the price of even an aluminum casting would absolutely motivate me to get it right the first time. At the level of volume that the guy would have to be operating at, I would be test-fitting every part to a car before sending it out the door.
I feel like the relative scarcity of air-cooled 911s coupled with the difficulty of machining the part correctly as a third party is why the part itself is so hard to come by. If a person were motivated, though, there is definitely another way to make a suitable replacement more cheaply and easily with a modified design. That's provided someone is okay with not having a completely factory 911.
Even without that, I'm kind of surprised they sue. Are they patenting each part? Is there case law that covers this? Or is it just a case of bringing a suit to scare people I sto stopping? I wonder.
https://mercedesheritage.com/classic-mb-culture/mercedes-ben...
Just take a quick look through your favourite forum for your car of choice and there's endless threads begging for some random old plastic part that can no longer be found.
Interior trim clips, centre console fascias, exterior body plugs (where tow hook goes, where roof racks go, etc), stereo surrounds, door handle surrounds, etc etc etc.
Depends on your pricing and margins. There's a huge number of parts that are available but ridiculously priced, often coming out an order of magnitude in excess of what seems reasonable.
Take for instance a kettle scale filter. OK you probably can't 3d print these, but for something so simple they're insanely priced - £5-£15 for a bit of plastic. A whole kettle with filter costs typically £15-£35. Dyson parts are even sillier.
e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Genuine-Philips-Kettle-Filter-HD467...
There may be a far wider range of parts you could profit from than you may think. :)
This is def not viable from my view- at least not for parts that are this cheap already.
That's most of it left for promotion. Domestic appliances, large and small, regularly have small spare parts that attract 25 or 50% of the price of the entire item. Never used to.
That they're already doing well with small appliances in the niche of non-available parts says enough about pricing floor.
I've also considered creating some upgrades to the stock parts, but it's on my "some day I'll get around to it" list.
It's a neat business model: The person posts DIY repair videos on youtube, which drives traffic to his site. The strollers can easily cost $1000 new, and are often handed down / resold, so there is motivation to keep them running, and they have some weak spots which tend to break. The 3D printed replacement parts can be of superior quality to the original parts.
Want to team up on an a milk gallon jug attachment to pour cleanly?
I think sellers may be able to limit the materials to known working ones (each material has it's own requirements).
was it to save money? or for some unique design?
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMECi57zKtD6arv_-sL83gp...
> is there any way to scan it from your phone and hear it?
It's not detailed enough for that, though you can tell the cadence and reliably guess at the number of words. If you know what we said, and only we do, then you can see it.
He was originally in the business of repairing these machines and then discovered he could no longer buy these parts from the OEMs so he learned CAD and CNC and injection molding and started making them a few years ago. He has a 3D printer for prototyping, but he needs to injection mold part of the final product because there is no filament in the particular material that he needs. His business has transitioned from repair to manufacturing and now he mostly sells replacement parts to other repair shops.
I don't want to disturb his business by talking about it in detail, but the point is that I think there are and will be many opportunities around repair parts that manufacturers are unwilling to provide because they'd rather be selling new machines. Aside from the environmental impact, that's fine since there are many people who won't go the repair route, and then there's a secondary market for those who will make parts and repair the machines.
There is a solution to so many problems here (creating usually unavailable parts for machines/devices/products) but the problem is knowing which parts are in demand and currently have no supplier.
A maker would need to have an interest or hobby in such a device & discover a need for the item for it to come into fruition. But just think of how many general 3D printed parts could be printed as solutions for so many products out there that are going unmade.
I was not commenting on the quality of the work. BTE, saying the Chinese quality must be automatically shite is a ridiculous idea.
It's not a great idea to grind or sand Cadmium plated items, because it kicks the Cd into a fine dust that you will inhale and will be absorbed into your system.
The kind of mercury you hear about that is incredibly toxic and can absorb through your skin are actually mercury salts (ethyl mercury, methyl mercury, etc.) and aren’t as likely to be found.
Parts are cheap, I listen to music or a podcast, I do all the “PITA” repairs (replacing wheel bearings, ball joints, tie rods, full brake service) that are really just labor in terms of professional repair cost, perform additional rust prevention, and for sale it goes when I feel a new grandma or grandpa would never give a hesitation to load it up with all their grandkids. They also see a very thorough interior cleaning, and a full exterior detail (including paint correction when required).
It has bought every very nice tool I could ever want, most are 20-30 hours of labor including acquisition, and I’m at the point where I have repeat customers (the put a 2nd alongside the first) and have direct referrals. Now the profit mostly goes towards putting a 2nd interesting car in the garage, and some towards moving up the ladder to try to earn more per vehicle.
Selling cars isn’t bad when you don’t have employees to pay, and it lets you sell really high quality stuff. I keep thinking of how much I couldn’t justify doing, and how much my product standards would suffer if I had to pay help.
As for paint matching, I don't. If I car needs any significant paint work, I'm not interested in buying it. It's also a sign that when I get underneath a car, I'm going to find other issues which are going to be an immediate no sale (as in welding required).
Even at normal, non-insurance repair rates (as in, full price), an independent mechanic charges around twice as much per hour than a body shop does for your average paint work (high end a very different story) -- I can get much more $/hour for my labor doing repairs than I ever will doing anything more than leveling a clear coat.
And the OG of youtube diagnostics, Scanner Danner https://www.youtube.com/user/ScannerDanner
This only scratches the surface of good diagnostics channels on YouTube, but they along with S.M.A. are my favorites.
I've considered making videos, but the reality at the moment is there's not yet the time to do it to my level of quality. At least not yet.
I'd love to see your shop or even just time lapses. I really enjoy watching cnc and hand builds on youtube. It's very helpful to watch these to see what's really involved in say pulling the front end off of a mini-cooper.
The videos would also be too long. Part of why ChrisFix is so well known is he has high-quality, edited, to-the-point content that packs everything into a concise high-quality video. I could not do that on Twitch without great expense, lots of advance planning, and helping hands.
They're 2 different things, eg there's a huge difference between say ChrisFX and a twitch stream for a mechanic, though they're both basically build logs at the end of the day.
Twitch is definitely more the low overhead mass content version of content. Similar to the Howard Stern Show, or Car Talk, as opposed to The Grand Tour. Thousands of hours of contents as opposed to hundreds, or 10s.
I was just pointing out there's a market for the mass quantity content.
It's actually one of the things I DONT like about the produced car rebuild shows, they often edit out stuff just to make it entertaining to everyone, where I'm wanting to watch just to see the whole thing and the techniques. Much more like slow tv. I'm totally happy to skip through parts I don't care about.
One of my favourite channels has much lower production values (not bad by any means though!), and is much more of a hacker. He buys something damaged, figures out how to somehow fix it up and does so. Often a bit of a bodge, lol. But the videos come out frequently and are fascinating. This channel is "B is for Build". [1]
Another channel I will recommend, more for the awe of seeing an absolute master craftsman - "Arthur Tussik". This fine Russian gentleman is almost certainly the most skilled panel beater on Youtube. His videos are bodywork restoration of mangled crash wrecks back to perfect in one short video. [2]
And finally a recommendation I'm sure any hacker will enjoy watching - "Bad Obsession Motorsport", and their "Project Binky" series. Rebuild of a classic Mini, with a twist, almost every part needs custom fabrication. Simply amazing. [3]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl4-WBRqWA2MlxmZorKOV7w/vid...
chrisfix makes nice videos, kingofrandom, dan rohas; for french car/bike chops: '103 mob stories' and 'Garage, Bangers and Rock'n Roll'
matthias wandel and others for woodworking
AvE OldTony for mech/metal
Tons of electrical engineering
It quickly adds up to an insane amount of effort. (Which is why he's got the best auto repair tutorials in human history!)
https://dor.wa.gov/get-form-or-publication/publications-subj...
What if they end up selling it for more than it is estimated to be worth in something like blue book?
Is that considered profit?
(I have several companies in this space)
Unless the laws in their state are solely based on volume, they are almost certainly acting as a dealer, which requires a dealer license and a bunch more legal requirements. In most states once someone buys a car with the intention of reselling it rather than using it, they automatically become a dealer.
Though in my state, in excess of 5 vehicles per year they start to care, and prefer you hold a surety bond -- which as of a few months ago, I do for an amount well in excess of the transaction price of the vehicles I typically sell. I also now have a dealer plate, which never goes on anything because some buyers would get weird if they saw one.
Here's a video of someone failing to get pricing in advance for a medical procedure and an article about how many simple tasks need licences.
The fact that a lot of areas only have 1 broadband provider blows my mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tct38KwROdw
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/02/17/america-should-...
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi...
1. Where do you find buyers? I'd be concerned about inventory either piling up or taking too long to sell at a price that even breaks even when you are spending time/money on fixing.
2. Do you feel your value-add is more on the sales side as a broker or is it in the repairs? I know people who just flip cars and do extremely minimal "freshing up" and are also profitable/successful.
3. How do you keep up with the increasingly locked down and opaque ECUs and other systems? More and more diagnostics require factory wizardry these days.
4. You implied that you do paint and body work. Where/how did you learn and become proficient? Most auto repairs are pretty much "follow the steps" work anyone can learn from YouTube, but body work is artistry.
5. Do you worry about liability? I'm OK fixing my own car since if I screw up it's my ass on the line. I'd be less confident in sending the car off to grandma, even if I knew what I was doing.
2. Repairs and preventative maintenance. We average ~4 feet of snow a year, so tie rod ends, wheel bearings, control arms, bushes, flex pipes, exhaust hangers, etc. suffer since no one really maintains a steel car properly. The reality is when even a Honda or Toyota dealer is $125/hour and a Lexus or Acura dealer is $175/hour, people don't replace $18/ea bushings -- but when things rattle or feel loose, they sell the vehicle like it's going to explode.
These aren't difficult repairs, they just require lifting the vehicle (I have a Bendpak Quick Jack) and doing it. People also don't properly clean their undercarriage, and rustproof. I do. Very easy, very inexpensive. Though when many people treat cars as disposable, it lets a lot of nice stuff come onto the market for the well-inclined.
3. Not an issue unless you're in Porsches on up with encrypted ECUs, and even then, that prevents MODIFYING them, not reading diagnostics. Regardless, this has been a problem 0 times since I've started many years ago. OBD-II is a wonderful thing, and there's no weird shenanigans coming from Honda/Toyota at all.
4. I only do paint correction, as in "level a clearcoat" to a mirror finish, and only for vehicles that merit it (let's ignore that any car sub-$150K new comes with some level of orange peel). I do not buy any vehicle that needs a respray, ever. It can be DIY'd very well, but the amount of labor is prohibitive. Not enough money made for the time spent.
5. I've an umbrella policy, mostly because I have one for my primary business, in the odd event I ever were sued. In general, vehicles are sold as-is. Zero concern here.
I imagine with the cars you're working with rust isn't an issue, but could be needed for minor damage. Are you passing on those cars completely or leaving those as is?
I sorely miss being able to regularly work on and drive cars, but job and salary necessitates being in New York City for a long while. I have a long term project sitting and waiting for me 1000 miles from here. Will involve taking everything off the car, fixing rust, repainting and rebuilding everything. Someday...
Though I've worked on a ton of stuff, the above is where there's A) enough people owning the above who still think all vehicles explode when their odometer hits 100K B) have inexpensive and easy repairs for simple things that are rotting or are wearing out and C) plenty of people who know better and when they test drive a 10-year old one that feels as good and looks as good as new, won't even negotiate your asking price.
I've entertained the idea of selling BMW M cars, Audi S/RS and Merc AMGs, but the reality is there's far more labor involved, far more to usually fix, higher acquisition costs, less demand, and buyers who are completely insufferable. I've sold several, but in retrospect it wasn't ever worth the time and effort.
https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/the-most-and-least-expe...
That certainly matches what I've seen happen with my friend's cars: Toyotas just keep going and are cheap to fix, Euro cars have something bust earlier in their lifetime and usually outrageously costly to repair.
I am from NZ and as a country we keep driving second hand cars until they are uneconomic to fix, and maybe half of the cars imported from overseas are second hand Japanese cars. We don't have a lot of American cars but my own limited experience with them is that they are as unreliable and costly as the European cars.
You can find some individual models within other brands that are reliable, however if you are buying a car that is 5 to 10 years old, you can't yet know if the model you are getting is a good one, so buying by brand actually makes sense. Quote from article about maintenance costs: "Toyota completely avoids the the most expensive models list" which helps averages (although I think they used median costs in that article).
You also get a very different kind of buyer (skews faaaar younger) that honestly, is just insufferable to deal with. There’s more profit per unit, but not more profit an hour, and too much dealing with awful personalities.
That's interesting, when I used to have a shop and flip cars on the side, honda civics and euro cars were the most profitable. Civics because you can fix them up, lower them and throw on a set of wheels and you're good to go are super easy to turn over. Euro cars are easy to pick up at steep discounts when they're older and need repairs, and the parts are actually not bad and once you get the hang of it, they're not too bad to work on.
Of course you'd want to also have accounts with parts stores otherwise you're losing too much on those costs.
However this was 5 years ago so the small crossover suv craze wasn't what it is today.
If you want to get into performance, I'd go gentle: Ford have sports lines of their usual mix (ST/RS in Europe), as do many other makes.
Also a small hatchback with a big engine is a lot more fun per dollar than a Merc...
In my state, Oregon, for example, the DMV has agents watching craigslist, facebook, autotrader, etc. who go test drive private party cars under cover and ask the question, "So, why are you selling?" where answering that question incorrectly (along the lines of, "oh I bought it to fix up and make a few bucks") will net you a several thousand dollar fine.
I conduct a form of ethnography, embedding myself in the lives of consumers the way Margaret Mead did among Samoans. I interviews my subjects and the people around them, itemizing the contents of their home (photographing and videotaping), and accompany them as they progress through their day. Then I sift the resulting information for weeks, even months, looking for connections and telltale behaviors.
The service is used mostly by founders for small businesses and startups. I takes questions about sales figures and product lines and reconfigures them into questions about worlds, the context in which people unthinkingly live their everyday lives. The idea is that examining the beliefs and unconscious biases that people have will eventually yield profitable insights for these businesses.
So far, I've done market entry for a few Chinese companies into Japanese market, helped indie game design company launch a successful game, a boutique lingerie shop launch a new summer line, street musicians, and a few cafes and bars.
I do this on the side with hopes to go full time into it soon.
Studying consumers on their own isn’t enough to be successful. I look at all the data I can regarding technology, marginal practices, client and industry data, and speak to many experts with knowledge on the topic. I analyze the assumptions underlying what I observe happening and identify the gaps (e.g. between the client’s assumptions about their customers and what I observe in the real world, or between the industry’s assumptions about the future and consumers’ marginal practices).
Analyzing these gaps helps me see white spaces that have impact in the market, which allows me to advise my clients on where the market is likely to be years out and ensure that my recommendations are actionable. Since these are new perspectives they often make it actionable. Execution is something they handle and all of my clients have seen a change. Most are repeat customers.
I use psychographics to define customer values, opinions, and life-style.
It sounds like this is a form of consulting where would-be founders outsource the idea-gen / problem discovery work to you.
How does the problem statement from the client manifest -- is it usually something like "I want you to determine if there's a market for X", or "I want you to explore this demographic of people," or something else?
My base of operations is in Tokyo right now and there's a lot of demand for these services once people hear about it. Often people approach it for curiosity and then I work my leads to turn them into clients.
Not all companies were forward thinking but they have a common traits: empathy, more concerned on providing value to their customers, and emphasize long-term problem solving over quick fixes.
With that being said, you might get a handful of, "no, absolutely not that's creepy" responses to the request, but if you ask enough people someone will say yes and be excited about it.
Do not be discouraged by the no’s. Starting with friends and network is an option.
It also helps if you have a code of conduct/governance documentation for them to read and understand how their data is gathered and used.
I usually send a copy of all data to my subjects with a thank you letter and how it helped (with a gift card).
It also helps to build a network, for starters I partner-up with many prominent content producers on YouTube and Twitter and pay them a small fee for introductions.
I also pay the people I study on the field (but not always, some are happy to help once they understand what it's for). A lot say no, but you only need a few yes. It's about drawing insights from a small set of data.
For ethnography I don't have any recommendations. I've read books largely to complement my thinking, phenomenology and existentialism. Here's what I've read (notable ones):
Being and Time – Martin Heidegger
The Principle of Reason – Martin Heidegger
Phenomenology of Perception – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time – Ernesto Laclau
Introduction to Metaphysics – Martin Heidegger
The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy) – Martin Heidegger
History of Western Philosophy – Bertrand Russell
I manage my time quite well, I get eight hours of sleep everyday and the rest I try to be productive. I have a wife who understands what I'm trying to do and helps me out. Needless to say I work on weekends and holidays and gave up all hobbies.
It's not easy but it's a choice. This has helped me build habits and a discipline. I am mindful and try not to bite off more than I can chew i.e. understand my limits.
My side project has also changed the way I think about engineering problems and solutions. Since I work on the growth team its complementary rather than diverging.
That success gave me wings for a while. Word of mouth referring helped and I only took on clients who were recommended to me (i.e. they were aware of it)
Sometimes I meet business owners and founders at meetups or for lunch and we organically start talking about what we do (with no intention to sell). I always try to make the other person curious and then feed their curiosity. Also, I do an initial consultation for free.
The motivation is not money and my rates are pretty compelling (low) for the ROI I promise. Not every small business takes the opportunity but some did.
I do provide remote services to a few startups in california but their audience is usually online and has ties to Japan.
I'm happy to listen to you. You can fill this form [0] out and I'll react out to you by the end of the week.
Nowadays it still only earns a little every month, but that's mostly owing to a rise in expenses (e.g., I pay the contributors more). But profit is secondary for me, my primary motive is to have an excuse to research and write this stuff, and for intelligent people to consume it.
Why the curated section though? I think it distracts to have links to articles from NYTime or Wired on the side.
At first we worked our cabooses off to publish new original content several times per month. This proved unsustainable, partially because we were becoming more ambitious with our work, but especially owing to stressors that had arisen in my personal life, and I burned out.
I spent a year-long hiatus putting things right, and when we resumed our writing, it was with the understanding that we were switching to a marathon-not-a-sprint publication schedule. The curated column arose to fill in the gaps between our in-house writings. Nowadays many readers specifically visit us for the links, so we feel duty-bound to persist.
Thank you for doing this. Your site is a treasure.
Thank you for keeping it going. It’s great story telling.
Thanks so much for all the damn interesting knowledge!!
I suppose without ads there isn't a lot of high-monetization opportunities.
Thanks a lot for creating and maintaining the site. If you ever need any help with the design and front-end development of your site, let me know - I'd love to volunteer some time to the site that I love so much.
The quality there never lets me down. Thanks for it!
I'm an avid saxophone player and am taking evening classes in theory, so I made this to solve a problem that I myself had. Nothing else like it on the market!
Every part of this notebook is automatically generated with a bunch of python scripts: the cover design, the interior, the line placement, the margins. The program basically spits out a PDF which I can then send to print shops (which is the hardest part of the whole thing!)
The product is good, people like it, and the hardest part for me right now is sales - trying to get stores to carry it, or get traffic to the site to drive sales! If you know anyone who might be interested...
edit: Okay I've opportunistically created a coupon code THANKSHN for 10% off.
Couldn’t you just make it in Adobe InDesign? Cool item, btw. I used to play saxophone years back.
BTW those digital sheets are pricey, so I wrote some scripts to generate PDF for my kindle, the output looked quite neat. I used LaTeX, Lilypond and perl to comb out unsupported stave notation from songs I ripped from public sources.
Also need to figure out how to ship to Europe more cheaply, since right now I'm sending everything from my little apartment in Brooklyn!
and it appears they have at least some info for some other european countries :-)
disclaimer: not affiliated with them, though i did some work for them a few years ago
I feel like the hardest part to get into would be finding a way to keep costs and shipping times down without maintaining a large floating inventory. Have you found that is a problem at all?
- Marketing
- Finding a shop which produces at acceptable quality
- Finding the balance between order volume and cost
If you're not fussy about physical characteristics (eg, rounded corners) then I'd prototype at the local office max - pretty affordable and fast.
If you email me I can maybe give some more details! Maybe I should start a business doing print shop consulting...
- combination of staff paper and college-ruled lines
- perforated to easily tear out pages
- three-hole punched
- decent quality paper, binding, cover material
You'll find that there's surprisingly nothing like it on Amazon! My inspiration was those cheap Mead spiral notebooks - incredibly functional.
If you're not fussy about some of the notebook features (eg, the specific kind of binding, or rounded corners) then you can do custom books at your local UPS Store, office max, etc. You'd save money and time by prototyping that way, wish I'd done more of that.
Can you expand on what you mean by this? Seems like straightforward design(s) that you can just keep printing over and over..
I make lots of jellies once the berries in the garden are ripe; I bought a house in a rural area a few years ago and it came with loads of berries. Might as well put them to use.
It is all done manually (in part because it is meant to be a diversion from my engineering job) - red- and blackcurrant and gooseberries mostly. Last year the harvest was some 1200 4oz glasses of jelly - some 1150 more than my family consumes. Sells by word of mouth.
Also, as my mother is quite into weaving tapestry and it was hard to find the exact hues she wanted for her yarns, I started dyeing for her, using traditional colouring. Turned out there was a (veee-eeery small!) market for that kind of thing, and I now make small batches for some 30-35 weavers. Again, fully manual as the idea is to do something completely different from my full-time job.
It helps being an engineer, too - I've found (much to my surprise) that keeping detailed notes to ensure repeatable results is quite rare in both pastimes.
I thought everybody kept log books! :)
I'm about to hit publish on a photo coffee-table book from my three years around Africa, and I'll write an Africa guide book and The Road Chose Me Vol 2 in the next 12-18 months.
* The Road Chose Me Volume 1: Two years and 40,000 miles from Alaksa to Argentina (https://amzn.to/2vfCYvn)
Stories and lessons from two years driving my Jeep Wrangler down the Pan-American Highway
* Work Less to Live Your Dreams: A practical guide to saving money and living your dreams (https://amzn.to/2OD6UtA)
An eBook about how exactly I can afford to take years off work to do what I want and live my dreams.
* West Africa Myths, Misconceptions and Misnomers (https://amzn.to/2veyQMt)
After driving the length of the continent, I collected a bunch of information that is extremely helpful to anyone else thinking of doing similar. The vast majority of the Western Worlds "knowledge" of West Africa is so out of date it's useless. My book is from info I learned during my drip from mid 2016 to late 2017, so it's relevant
Do you work on the road or take off years at a time?
Are you armed, or do you just avoid central conflict areas?
I take it no family? (hence the 'solo' bit) or are they undersganding?
For the first one (AK->Argentina) I just took time off and lived off my savings account. For around Africa I wrote my first book and I write for multiple magazines while on the road.
> Are you armed, or do you just avoid central conflict areas?
Crossing an international border with a firearm will result in instant jail time in virtually every country on the planet. No, it would be impossible to bring a firearm. You might be surprsed to know I have never heard a single gunshot in three years around the continent, and Ethiopia was the only country I ever saw regular people with firearms. In every other country it's only the police/military, who are extremely professional.
> I take it no family? (hence the 'solo' bit) or are they undersganding?
No kids or wife. I did have a girlfriend with me for some of the Africa Expedition - living in the Jeep proved too much for our relationship.
If you do have a family, don't let that stop you, I've met plenty of people on the road with families, ie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc61AxCQQR4
For my published books I want ultimate control over the layout, so I write them in LaTeX to get the pdf to go to the printer. To get it into an eBook I use pandoc to convert them. I wrote a script that does it for me, and massages the resulting ePub until it's exactly what I want.
My published books is about 70,000 words. Writing it didn't actually take very long (a few hundred hours I guess), but then I probably spent at least that much time again editing and revising multiple draft rounds.
Would love to help in any way we can on your next book (I'm the founder of Reedsy, https://reedsy.com)
I've asked you a few questions on Instagram and you've always taken the time to answer my questions. I appreciated it.
I also have enjoyed following your journey, from one world traveler to another.
I also found that you could use the same CAD program that I learned to design PCB's to draw outlines to cut out on the laser CNC machine at the local maker space. I ended up finding a niche on ebay building open air computer cases. Because of the economics of shipping large items from overseas and the low cost of the materials I was using I was able to under cut the imports on price by like 60% and still make a nice amount of money on a $/ hour basis.
In hind sight the best way to find these kinds of opportunities is not to be looking for them. You really just need to get a really deep understanding of a hobby or industry or market that interests you in some way and once you have that then these sorts of things kind of pop out of the woodwork.
> I taught myself circuit board design and found a niche market that I designed a few products for that sold like gangbusters with zero marketing for a few years until the market cooled off and low cost knock offs started entering the market.
Can you elaborate a bit? Did you teach yourself literal circuit board design (but already had a background in electronics/hardware)? Or did you start from scratch and learn how to design an electronic circuit?
What was the niche (broadly?)
> In hind sight the best way to find these kinds of opportunities is not to be looking for them. You really just need to get a really deep understanding of a hobby or industry or market that interests you in some way and once you have that then these sorts of things kind of pop out of the woodwork.
1000% agree. The single best way to find an idea is to be seriously and deeply involved in a hobby/area of interest. There are so many ideas out there screaming you in the face.
The niche was building adapters for old server power supplies so you can re-purpose them for use as general purpose 12 Volt power supplies. It was a thing in the RC community for a while to charge batteries but it got really big in the 2014 - 2017 time frame due to the Bitcoin mining industry needing low cost high wattage PSUs.
I had two part time money making side projects. I was a part time fitness instructor and had some rental real estate.
Teaching fitness classes was fun, I made a lot of friends, and it gave me a release valve from working at a computer all day. Real estate was a headache.
Around 2008 -2011, a few things happened. The real estate market crashed and I did a few “strategic defaults”, I realized I could make a lot more by getting better at software engineering and job hopping, and I got married and gained a wife and two (step) children.
I gave up all of my side projects, concentrated on my career, started building a network of recruiters, former coworkers, and former managers and doubled my income over the next 8 years (not bragging, I still make about the average of principal engineer/architect/team lead in my area).
Even looking over the next two to five years, I should be able to increase my income by 50% (working for local companies) to well over 100% (if I can get into Amazon) as some type of cloud consultant, “digital transformation consultant”, or “Architect”. The only thing stopping me now is the travel requirements. I want to wait until my youngest completes high school.
But, that means I can’t juggle my job, family commitments, working out, filling in some technical gaps and a side job/business.
So no side business.
So instead of in two years being able to command 50% to 100% more as a cloud consultant/architect, I would still only be able to make what I’m making now. I will be spending a lot of time building instead of sharpening my axe.
Even worse, I risk being further behind technically in two or three years and not even being able to find a job in development in the then hot technology.
It’s like the difference between deciding to go to work right out of high school and postponing starting your career and going to college.
I don't have a side-hustle yet, but I'm working on one. As you pointed out, there's an opportunity cost to a side-business. I'm working on a scheme to monetize a hobby; make money off something I'd be doing anyway. I'm just over 10 years into my career, recently married with a teenage step-child. My family-time or my "down-time" is very precious to me. During our wedding, we got some beautiful wedding save-the-dates off Etsy. They were water-color paintings. But then we needed additional stationary: invitations, menus, seating charts, table signs, a gobo (wtf is a gobo??), etc.... I ended up using photoshop to make all of the other stationary and graphics myself based off the initial Etsy save-the-dates (it was important to me that the fonts & colors matched on everything). My wife loves to paint water-colors, and I'm into photography & graphic-design. I'm working on a side hustle to do wedding invites and similar stationary on Etsy based off her paintings and my photography & graphic-design skills. These are (mostly) activities we'll do anyway. So... make some stationary templates once, throw them up on Etsy, and if people buy them GREAT, if not then no loss.
I'm guessing you are helping companies move to Azure or Amazon?
Thank You.
Coming from a development background, with some Devops experience, I want to take companies to the next step - actually taking advantage of what cloud providers offer and interface with the developers and Devops.
As far as “digital transformation consultants”, some recruiting companies offer both staff augmentation services where they hire contractors temporarily on a W2 basis to work for clients and offer complete project management. Companies pay them to actually build a project and/or build up a software development department.
The consultants work for the recruiting agency permanently. A team is built up under them consisting of temporary workers either locally, “rural sourced” by hiring developers in lower cost of living areas domestically, or outsourced.
I don’t like the politics and red tape of large companies and have avoided them for most of my career. Being a consultant I hope gives me the best of both worlds. The total comp that only a large company can offer and the ability to just work on projects without worrying about the politics.
If I were to work for Amazon instead of one of their partners, I wouldn’t have to move - just travel a lot.
Right now, I work as a developer at a small company and the de facto “AWS guy” but I am also filling in some non AWS technology gaps.
The next time they will probably offer this deal is Thanksgiving week. They have courses and hands on training for a AWS, Azure, GCP, Linux, Kubernetes, Docker, etc.
If I open the hive without gloves and veil, I can get stung, but not always. If I have to "work the hive" I have to go full bee suit to prevent being stung.
If you can't handle being stung then raising bees is not a good hobby. If you can stand it, honey is like gold, and people will hound you for it.
If you don't mind, how many hives do you have and how do you sell the honey? I was always thinking I would need more hives than I could ever manage to actually get enough to sell. My goal was to get into gourmet mushrooms and sell through the office or maybe get attached to a CSA or something.
I'll split any hive that looks healthy - walk-away splits almost always work if you are careful to get a frame of brood into the queenless half.
One year I made $5,000 off of 6 hives, but usually $2,000 to $3,000. Except for the glass that is mostly profit. I can charge $12 a pound in a New York suburb. I put a sign up at the end of the driveway and 10 days later I am sold out. I harvest in June/July and again in October (Ragweed and Goldenrod make great honey).
Out of curiosity, how often do you get stung? I would have thought the bee suit prevented all that?
But using your framework of, "if everyone did this, how would this affect the business and others using the business," then I (and many others) are doing a lot of other unethical things. Ad blocking and card counting (in blackjack) clearly would be deemed unethical under this criteria, but here's a bunch of other more tangible examples.
There's a popular pastry place that has 50% off sales on Sunday afternoon because they are closing Monday so they sell the remaining stock at a significant discount before close. I only go there on Sunday afternoons, but if everyone did that, then the prices would go up for all.
Another thing I do is using the books, video games, movies, and streaming services offered by my library and never buy any real media. But if everyone did this, then bookstores, theaters, and streaming companies would go bankrupt.
The cashback was created as an incentive, you found a way to exploit the business model for personal gain in ways that can have an impact on others ability to enjoy the system while having a material impact on the provider of the service. Most in your position will say "but I am only a small piece of the cog" however, if a small minority starts to think the same way, it can have a real impact on a variety of things, including trust between parties.
Everyone tries to rationalize their actions, whether it is or becomes socially acceptable is another matter.
That is different from finding a way through the rules which is clearly unintended.
The service was intended to pay you significant sums to move money back and forth?
- If you have a credit card with decent cash back/rewards program. The interest rate is going to be higher. If you are carrying a balance month to month. You’re doing it wrong.
- If life happens and you do end up with a balance and your credit is decent, you should be able to get a no interest for x months, no interest balance transfer.
Credit Cards aren’t a life necessity. Homeowners insurance and car insurance are. Taking advantage of the rules as they exist is not unethical. Insurance fraud is both unethical and illegal.
Actually no, they pay for it directly out of transaction fees levied on sellers (which are usually around 3-5%). Some of that they take for themselves, and some they use for consumer rewards. It's a great way to make a lot of money and keep consumers incentivized to use them.
Economically, it's sort of like crappy product/service things licensed to prisons (like video telephones) that charge hefty fees to the inmates and their families, and give a significant portion of those fees back to the prisons. They're taking advantage of the incentives they can provide to the decision makers (prison administrators, or consumers in the case of credit cards) to overcharge the other party (inmates, or vendors), and make a lot of money in the process.
A similar thing happens when someone offers "unlimited storage" for home broadband users backups and people start hosting many many terabytes of porn / isos / whatever. Sure, they're entirely within the allowed behaviour, but it's clearly intended to make it easy for people to backup their photos and documents without having to know if a gigabyte is enough or not.
I would say I feel like using something in a way not intended (even if allowed) that is detrimental to the person/people offering it is unethical when considered in isolation.
I'm actually a little surprised this needs saying, is this not a common view?
edit - I guess not if it was downvoted so quickly (I know, I know, I'm not complaining about the internet points, it's honestly very interesting to me). Are people that on board wit h heavily abusing systems just because it's technically within the rules?
Remind me to never offer free pizza at a HN event as someone may turn up, say "you didn't specify a per person limit" and walk off with the food intended for everyone.
My local gym and Moviepass (remember them?) expects people to sign up and rarely use the gym or watch movies. Otherwise, they would go out of business if everyone actually constantly used them. Is my using the gym or watching movies every day unethical? It sounds like you're calling lot of people unethical. Aren't people heavily abusing Moviepass by actually watching movies nearly every day?
In a more hypothetical scenario, let's say Facebook does not want people to use its platform to organize political/activism activities, because it makes the company look bad. It does not prohibit it, but let's say the CEO says on a talkshow that he wants people to use Facebook only for positive things. Would that make organizing on Facebook unethical?
It just seems like your view doesn't match how most of society views their social contract with for-profit companies.
No, that's missing the key part that it has to be detrimental to the person offering it.
> Is my using the gym or watching movies every day unethical?
I don't think so, if you're using the service because you want to go to the gym every day or see all the films. The website for moviepass says "see it all" so it seems reasonable to go and see every film. Finding a 24 hour cinema and living in it because now you don't have to pay rent - seems unethical to me.
Imagine if moviepass said "see a film every week" but technically didn't say you couldn't see many every day. The underlying rules are technically the same - if you knew they had to pay most of the cost of a ticket, would you feel like the ethics of going every day would be different?
I said it was a simple rule, as there will be edge cases for everything and wider contexts (blocking a road as an act in isolation seems bad, but what if it's a protest, etc). There are though obvious answers to me, and getting eighteen grand a year for rapidly moving money back and forth is one that has an easy answer.
> In a more hypothetical scenario, let's say Facebook does not want people to use its platform to organize political/activism activities, because it makes the company look bad. It does not prohibit it, but let's say the CEO says on a talkshow that he wants people to use Facebook only for positive things. Would that make organizing on Facebook unethical?
Comes down to level of harm, just like anything else. Remove the brand Facebook from that as it's a vast empire. What if it were a small local service for residents to catch up, and political fighting would mean they'd have to shut down?
> It just seems like your view doesn't match how most of society views their social contract with for-profit companies
Is it ethical to go to an all you can eat restaurant and if there's no explicit sign stopping you then packing up all the food in huge bags and walking out?
If there's a sample table that says "free cakes" would you take all of them?
On a more meta level, I am concerned about an ethical view where different ethical rules apply if different actors are involved. It leads to one person basically not liking something (drugs, activism, etc.) and calling it unethical because of some broad claims about harm to society.
The financial company didn't run a website saying "want to be paid thousands? Move money back and forth repeatedly with our services!".
> On a more meta level, I am concerned about an ethical view where different ethical rules apply if different actors are involved.
Different actors are different so I don't see why that's a concern. Different intent is also surely not an odd addition here? It's foundational in so many legal systems even.
Also "expected behavior" seems like it could be pretty subjective. Different cultures have wildly different values.
> Also "expected behavior" seems like it could be pretty subjective. Different cultures have wildly different values.
Sure, and it's down to your expectations. Two people can perform the same act with different intentions, and only one may be unethical.
If these are companies like JP Morgan - Chase, then let's also not forget how they were helped by the American taxpayer during the recession and that basically nobody was held accountable.
I'm also of the opinion that it is basically impossible for any corporation to do business ethically, so I largely have no problem with it.
They Make Billions and Billions of dollars... just sayin
As for the ethics of this CC deal: fuck 'em. :) Global speculative capital makes money on arbitrage and legal fictions that produce financial instruments all the time, if a consumer can play that game, god bless em.
https://www.askmrcreditcard.com/news/you-can-no-longer-buy-c...
We did a little twist on the business model. Starbucks sells nice places to sit down. We sold drugs. The model, from logo design to promotions, was designed to create a habit loop where people would get their morning coffee from us.
It was so profitable that I seriously considered making it my full time career, expanding cafes all over the country. The only thing that changed my mind was 1) the startup boom 2) dealing with minimum wage workers is extremely depressing. The tech industry has its abundance, whereas with food and drinks, it was clear that income was limited and had to be managed carefully.
We weren't competing with other cafes. We were competing with cigarettes. We aimed to be daily, unlike Starbucks.
Our key metric was quantity: 1. The more purchases they make, the more the lock themselves into the habit loop. 2. More quantity means we could negotiate cheaper prices for beans, cups, marketing, etc. 3. The main factor for quality was bean freshness. If a bag is opened for more than an hour, it rapidly loses 70% of its flavor. The faster we go through a 1kg bag of beans, the higher the quality of the next cup. 4. By selling 100-200 cups a day, our baristas skill up far better than those selling 30 cups a day.
Unfortunately, this process requires little skill other than the team being charismatic and pulling in more loyal customers. The race to the bottom is part of the business model. With food & beverage, you start at 20% profit margin and save money by controlling the supply chain (roasting, etc).
The system let us create a better product than the competition, but we couldn't really charge more because the target market just didn't have the money.
Starbucks is an entirely different thing. As mentioned in other comments, ours was closer to cigarettes in market size and problem solved.
Reward: Caffeine Reward: Coffee flavor
The caffeine acts as the bubbles in your toothpaste, it's there to remind you of the loop without being too strong.
Cue: Entering work/class, before 9 AM. Promoted with steep 'discounts' during this period - it was already profitable and looked cheap anchored against overpriced coffees like Starbucks.
Cue: Seeing logo on cup. The coffee was all in paper cups, not sitting down. It saved a little money on rental area and training. But the main reason is that people would walk away with the cups and throw it in a trash. They'd bring it up to their offices and their friends could see it. Students would take it to other buildings. We didn't have to put up any banners - the cups were the banner. The logo was bright yellow and black, designed to be highly visible.
Cue: Stressful periods - after classes, before exams, at the end of the day.
Marketing? It was quite straightforward for us. If saw someone walking by, we'd ask them to try. Especially if they were staring at the menu.
Those who were hesitant, we'd offer a 100% refund if they didn't like it. Nobody ever requested a refund.
First day, we sold 100 cups. After that, many were repeat customers. A lot of people are afraid to approach strangers. But if you do it playfully and without any pressure, they never get angry.
It's more fear than greed. As an employee, you're always working hard trying to not drown. As a business owner, that feeling is multiplied. You don't just have to feed your kids, you have to feed your employees' kids. You can lose $500/month as an employee or $2000/month as a business owner.
But even if the pay was doubled, it would still barely be a "living wage". There's an argument that traditional businesses drive down prices and drive wages up, which is true, but it's still pretty bad.
I'd rather focus on startups, which creates few jobs, and destroys other jobs, but there's plenty of incentive to pay people well, and their salary scales well with the company's success.
One cup made about $3* unit profit. We sold 75-300 cups a day. $5k to $20k of profit a month to start with, 5 days a week. Rent is about $1k. So let's say $4k-$19k, with it more likely being around $6k/month.
Peak hours were 6-7 AM, 12 noon, 7 PM and it takes an hour to open and close. We can't miss any of these periods, and often have lines too long to manage. But that's a 14 hour shift or two 7-8 hour shifts.
To sell 100-200 cups, the minimum team size is two, because people get sick, go to the bathroom, pick up kids, etc.
If someone wants to do an 8 hour shift, that boils down to an average value of $1500/month. If they can do 14 hour shifts, we could pay them $3000 instead, but we lose some benefits of redundancy. I'd be paying 2x for a 1.8x gain or so.
Scaling the company means more quantity. If I had 5 kiosks, I could negotiate 10% better prices and push the 20% margin to 30%. My $3 profit margin becomes $4.50. I can give raises, but not double salary.
Let's say salary and rent totals $5000/month. At 1 kiosk, we'd take home about $1000 on an average month, lose $1000 on a bad month, take $10000 on a good month. If I paid them 20% more, that makes it $-2k/$0/$9k. There's a huge incentive to pay as little as possible.
If we expand to 5 coffee spots, it becomes more like $1.5k/$4k/$9k per kiosk because of economy of scale. Multiplied it would be $4.5k per month pessimistically, $20k realistically, $45k per month optimistically. Scale to 20 or 200 spots, and it does become hugely profitable.
In the tech world, if you pay 2x, you'll often bag a 3x programmer. Quality scales very well with salary. The output also scales.
With coffee, not so much - we sold great coffee at low wages, the kind that people come in skeptical and end up buying two cups a day, or take a bus from the other faculties just to buy. If we improved quality by a lot more, I doubt they would buy three cups a day instead.
* not actual dollar value, just normalized for simplicity
Drugs? As in prescription drugs?
That's exactly how they operate - you walk in, ask for an espresso, get it in 30 seconds, down it, slam down a coin, walk out.
Also comparable to Italian coffee shops or "bars" (different meaning from standard English usage) which are also found at walking distance from any inhabited neighborhood. But not open 24/7, because of cultural and regulatory differences.
Rather than continually making bets just for the sake of making bets I only make trades when I think a stock overreacted to bearish news (meaning it's likely to rebound to its old price given that the business' fundamentals are unaffected), was oversold due to underperformance of other stocks traded alongside it, or is greatly overvalued due to some irrational hype (Lyft and most canadian weed stocks). And I sell quickly if the option loses a lot of its value or if the option greatly appreciates to lock in profits and limit losses.
I read some finance textbook when I was just starting out, I think it was "introduction to derivatives and risk management". That helped too. It's a good, gentle introduction to derivatives and you can skip most of it unless you want to work for an investment bank.
I think the best way to learn is to just watch stocks overtime, and read up on the news relevant to them. That's really why I play with options, it keeps me plugged into following the movements of a bunch of different stocks, so I learn a lot about what makes them behave in certain ways. Definitely stay away from paid classes on investing or trading, those are almost all scams - if a "successful trader" has to teach paid classes they're not actually successful. And re: my strategy of trying to identify short term movements that make something under/over-valued and hoping it will correct, just realize that sometimes the market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent, and sometimes you just need to take the loss and get out.
One more thing I forgot. When I refer to "news" I mean real news. A lot of financial news websites are complete bot-written vacuous garbage. Real news is things like deals happening or falling through, large orders, interest rates, lawsuits, recalls, earnings, trade deals, etc.
https://www.amazon.com/Options-Futures-Derivatives-English-S...
I mostly stick with SPY and it keeps climbing. I just buy 30-45 days out calls that are slightly out of money. Usually sell them at 20-30% profits with in a few days.
Of course, it is only 1-2% of my regular investments in index funds. Too risky to put any real money in options.
The thing I'd be worried about with medium term SPY calls is that you will be completely wiped out by a recession. Or even if a correction happened like in December and didn't rebound fast enough. Of course during a bull market that's a fine strategy (as long as theta/IV don't eat any potential profits) , and if you are socking away your gains it's probably fine. But if you are just growing your options allocation by 50% every couple weeks and then throwing it all back into the same position, eventually your double or nothing will come up nothing. Just something to consider
Just joking. Don't downvote please
Granted, I have a degree in electrical engineering, but certification was not part of that degree. I got the certification at a night school, IIRC it took 2 months with about ~5 hours per week in effort. If you don't have experience with electronics it would obviously take a bit more effort, but it's totally doable.
And a good property manager should take away 95% of the hassle.
I've heard of 5% of 1/12th of the projected sale price, which seems more realistic.
There are lots of other things to consider but it’s a great quick rule of thumb.
How many weekends does it typically take before you're ready to sell?
This sounds like something I'd do even if it just barely covered costs (including a reasonable per-hour time cost).
The repairs are usually not that challenging for me, and it won't make me rich, but it's a great way for me to clear my head from challenges with my tech startup. It also gives me access to some very rare and expensive cars. Obviously you need to test drive the car if you just fixed the ECU ;-)
Like I said, I mostly work on older cars, since those are the ones where it makes economic sense to do this kind of repairs. Those cars are usually from the era where ECU's had little to no encryption, or even no software at all (pure electronic based ECU's).
Stuff like early Bosh and Lucas, Porsche CDi.
* Write articles for other people - usually on topics I really don't have a lot of knowledge or feeling about to start.
* Mow lawns - I'm allergic to grass. Builds character.
* Labor - the harder the better. Beats the gym and there is no better way to turn a Budweiser into a $100 beer than sweating your tail off digging a ditch.
* Help startups bootstrap or otherwise avoid "the man" while they find their dream.
* Sell chicken eggs when the hens push more than I can French toast.
* Make films, music, stories, pamphlets...often these cost more than they make, but I refuse to call them losses. Slightly passive income stream.
* Consult - since I was 11 in '81 I've been paid for helping people with their broken technology. I'm not exactly on the edge of all tech like I was, but I still serve a purpose.
* This is an odd one, but I have found it at least as profitable as a few side projects over the years. Be lucky. Actually look for money on the ground ($143 last year), win prizes, expect financial benefits from transactions, assume your (educated) choices will make money.
* Sell plant starts - a little late for this year, but it's one of those things you can save seeds from your regular groceries / food prep at home and early Spring...ba-da-bing ba-da-bang...kind of almost free plants!
https://www.quartoknows.com/books/9780760361603/No-Waste-Kitchen-Gardening.html
Have fun, and profit!
Might work with vegetables, but aren't most grocery fruits derived from cuttings?
For eating, it's fun to toss scraps like lettuce feet, scallion spiders, and ginger thumbs and eventually (almost) never buy them again. Potatoes are fun since they grow so fast and just a bucket by the window is enough.
Of course, a trip to a local farmers market and you'll have an even better starting stock.
Farm it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_seed
And as you point out, most fruits can't be grown from seeds either. _Something_ will grow, but you aren't going to get Sweetango apples from seeds.
Help me understand this. What will grow from the seed? Why won't whatever grows, produce fruit?
That sounds interesting. What kind of people, and how do they find you? Where are the articles published? How much time do you usually have for writing them (days, weeks, months?) Do they get published under your name or the buyer's name?
After that, get old school and check out the Writer's Market Guide 2019 (or anything from the last couple of years). Keep in mind, all the magazines and industry publications out there need a ton of content every month. What are YOUR favorite places to read? Heck, it can be poetry, fiction, DIY, anything.
Timeline, word count, style, pay and all the other tidbits are almost always agreed upon prior to your efforts. Unless you want to pitch a story. Which can be super fun! And these can be blogs, industry rags, magazines, newspapers, and so on.
Enjoy!
eric dietrich who is one of the founders of the company is a frequent speaker on the freelancers show ( https://devchat.tv/freelancers/ ) and seems like a nice guy to work with.
seems like a good way to get started and learn the ropes
how/where do you find such work ?
Since it's Spring, offer to help older folks get their garden going. Once things are planted they can usually manage well enough.
If you live where people dig pools often, sometimes it's easier to shovel than Bobcat - noise issues with neighbors, restricted space, etc. Excellent work if you can get it.
Neighborhood websites around here usually have someone asking for some sort of physically demanding help. Today, for example, someone is asking for help clearing their 10 acre property of limbs that fell off during the winter storms. One could not only pile them up but also bow saw them into kindling.
I'd like to try something like that. I have no experience in restaurants. How would you suggest I go about it?
* not a chain - too many rules
* don't get in the way - harder than it sounds
* bring your own gloves and get used to them before the big show
A few more tips.
* get some copies of the zine, Dishwasher.
* know that the dish pit is the center of the restaurant cycle
* call out all sharps in the water - especially soapy water
* keep a flow and constantly look at the big picture
* always be ready to help anyone in the building
I'm solo, so I don't have any overhead and I can charge far less than anyone else. This is also entirely a side gig, so volume is so low that I can be responsive, helpful and more like a thought partner who is also helping out on legal.
Did you think of scaling your prqctice?
If I'm not handling very many matters, I might affiliate with a firm that has insurance to keep costs down or forego insurance. If I forego insurance, I take care to disclose that fact to the client before beginning the engagement.
It's an interesting niche though, being your own "product". Is it something you enjoy doing as well or do you feel you have to because it's the only way to survive the lean months and keep a regular clientele?
The types of people willing to pay this kind of money generally are looking for someone very specific and are very loyal once they have/you have found them. I've only ever had two clients stop in the past 10 years of doing it or so and I turn down new clients all the time.
(I know nothing about cams, but I'd imagine there is a large supply of people willing to push the limits for profit)...seems like a race to the bottom in hn parlance
Personally, I didn’t think twice about it either way. It was neither intriguing or off putting.
That crazy and cool and good money. And something surprising to see on HNews.
1) I own a small rental property in Florida that is fairly low maintenance and pays for the mortgage + a small amount each month on average. This is a long-term ROI play since after taxes, maintenance, repairs, and everything else it ends up being close to a wash until the principal to interest ratio on the mortgage payments improves after 5+ years. I only say this because everyone and their brother in my age group seems to want to retire on rental properties, but in reality it's really not that great.
2) Basic ETF investing in a combination of value-oriented and dividend-oriented ETFs. This is, in my opinion, the only way to get truly passive income with literally zero ongoing effort.
3) I design and 3D print props and cosplay pieces on a referral basis for commission. In reality it's a horrible way to make money since quality 3D modelling for 3D printing is time consuming to the point of the hourly effective rate being lower than minimum wage, but I enjoy it, so it's kind of a semi-paid hobby.
There’s a huge interest growing around building without coding and any technical people are also jumping in too.
Does not make me rich, but provides in addition work and income for three people doing it also as a side-job. Main problem: the product does not brake and it's a true craft business, so 95% of all customer buy only once.
The increased risk of cancer is a big downside.
I'm father of 2 twins sisters (11) and a boy of 5 years old.
My father have a degenerative disease (fatal but with slow progression), and my mother spends most of her time taking care of him.
I put all my energy with my kids and helping my parents.
As soon as I realized that I can loose my loved ones, I started making selective choices with my time.
In the past, I was course trainer of linux during weekends. It was very rewarding to teach students that "wanted to learn" and the money was good, too. I remember when a student ssh'ed to a station and executed "eject" in the remote machine - he literally jumped in happiness!
I also made some websites in my spare time but it wasn't so rewarding.
I used to be a magazine/newspaper editor. About eight years ago, I made a career change and became a full-time programmer. But I wanted to continue to write. So I wrote a book proposal, found an agent who loved it, found some publishers who were interested, and went with a publisher who offered a two-book deal.
My first book, "Experimenting With Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid" (http://www.experimentingwithbabies.com) ended up selling pretty well.
My second book, "Correlated: Surprising Connections Between Seemingly Unrelated Things," (http://www.correlated.org) did not do nearly as well. In fact, it bombed pretty hard. I assumed my book writing career was over.
But because of the strength of "Experimenting With Babies," I ended up getting two more book deals, each of which follow a similar format.
"Experiments for Newlyweds: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform With Your Spouse" (https://newlywed.science) came out earlier this month. I'm really proud of it. You should give it to any engaged couples you know.
And "Experimenting on Kids: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Children Ages 2-5" will hit bookstores in May 2020.
If you factor in advances, royalties, foreign rights, and other secondary deals, the amount I've made from my books is about what I make in a year as a programmer. So it's a nice chunk of change, but also a decent amount of work.
Advice to anyone else who's considering writing a book:
* You can do well with self-publishing if you're really good at marketing your own stuff, already have a strong platform, and don't need to depend on an advance. If any of those things aren't true, you're probably better trying to get a book deal with a traditional publisher.
* Writing the book is often not the hardest part. Selling the book is often the hardest part. If you just want to write, but you don't want to sell, this might not be the side project for you.
* If you have a literary agent, you typically pay 15 percent commission. And boy is it worth it.
Eventually other people wanted to know if I can make them custom pieces so I began doing it for money, mostly to cover cost of materials and a bit of time for labor.
Not making big money from it but it’s fulfilling work and good to know I could still have a place in a world with no technology. Surprisingly, woodworking shares some things in common with building software.
Wondering what you've found to be a reasonable amount of income vs work for sale? I'm not really interested in making money, but covering costs and feeling satisfaction would be good.
For commonality with software, personally, I like to do a fair bit of up-front design work before building something. Not days worth for most stuff, but hours worth. Scribble ideas, riff on them, iterate to a design I like before building it. And then during the build process, you’ll probably discover something you missed in the design process and have to improvise a bit; software is generally more forgiving in this regard, but it’s the same shape of process.
I find that when I’ve been doing more hands on stuff (small woodworking, welding, car repair, bigger construction), I get better at doing the software design stuff. My brain gets better at thinking through the consequences of design decisions and picking out small details that can have significant implications.
People see computers like a black box that does magical stuff, in the same way they will look at a curved wooden chair and simply sit in it, without thinking how it got to be in that shape and how the carpenter knew it would be a safe design for holding a person's weight. People also don't think much about the types of woods used and their special properties, similar to how people don't think much about technology stacks and why certain applications work better than others.
In wood working it's also common to make other tools and jigs out of wood for you to use, to make other kinds of cuts easier. This is the same as writing smaller programs that do one task to help accomplish other tasks. A woodworker may use a series of tools and jigs to produce some end result the same way a programmer may pipe different programs together to make some end result. Each tool is a lot like a discrete program with input parameters that applies some effect to a piece of wood, and their combination allows for the production of a multitude of wood works.
Also, when you get good enough at building furniture, you will begin to wonder why people would pay so much money for something you could easily build yourself, similar to how people wonder why pay for Dropbox when you could just mount an FTP server on a filesystem and use some version control. $400 for a coffee table is ridiculous, I could build the same thing for maybe $100 in wood, and probably better, because I can be sure it wasn't mass assembled by a crackhead following basic instructions in a sweatshop.
I've been wanting to get into this for awhile, but find myself procrastinating mostly out of uncertainty and fear of failure; but somewhat out of just having no idea where I should start, what tools I need to start, and what is achievable for a beginner.
How about a simple picture frame?
:D
To get a solid feeling of satisfaction from that project, I’d recommend a picture frame that doesn’t require mitres in the corners. Getting the length and angle exactly right is pretty frustrating for a beginner.
There's not much failure in woodworking as a hobby, if what you build isn't great just toss it out and try again. It doesn't matter much if you're just building cheap pinewood prototypes. Perhaps the only failure would be like losing a finger on a table saw or ruining very expensive wood.
That’s where I learned everything I know about investing. It’s definitely the ultimate source of information about passive investing. I spent a lot of time there a decade ago and now I pretty much don’t need to visit much anymore as the whole point is to “set it and forget it”
I have a theory that with a modicum of common sense you can probably increase your gains by 1-3% per year by avoiding stocks that are overbought by ETFs simply by virtue of their market cap or industry (meaning, the main reason these stocks hold their current valuation is that they have a lot of buy-side support from the fact that they are included in many ETFs).
Maybe a good fintech business opportunity since afaik this type of product doesn't exist!
ETF's are low to no rates because they don't have active management, and you are talking about active management.
With active management, you are describing the job of a hedge fund manager, and essentially wanting to create your own fund.
What I really want is a way for a company like vanguard to let me purchase something based on an index but in the form of a weighted basket of fractional shares. That why I can keep the same allocation as SPY but hold shares that I can micromanage to "fix" any issues I have with the ETF. Theoretically that should be possible to set up for not very much money since there's no active management on behalf of the fund.
Or, you define your own ETF, maybe initially based on some existing ETF or well known index, and then you can dump arbitrary amounts of money into it - but without actually having to individually buy the shares yourself. Maybe a product like this exists already but I don't know what it's called. I would be willing to pay a higher expense ratio than normal low-cost ETFs charge to use this product, but not as high as a hedge fund (since I am the one actively managing it).
I like Mike Maloney's youtube series as a start on macroeconomics.
Thanks.
This is the video series I was writing about: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE88E9ICdipidHkTehs1Vb...
Mike Maloney most important part of the film about investing in silver: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAAIwef3dOg
Why you should invest in Bitcoin (Tuur Demester, 2013): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7LQu-eIOO0
Bitcoin Whitepaper: http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Origins of money (by Nick Szabo): http://szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html http://szabo.best.vwh.net/index.html
Also if you decide to invest into Bitcoin, the most important things are:
- Buy only what you can hold for at least 5 years (and expect the 95% downturns)
- Use a hardware wallet (I prefer https://trezor.io/ , Ledger is probably OK as well, but the source code is really ugly, and it has a trusted module that I don't trust).
- Don't buy alt coins, or if you do, make sure that you read the source code, look at the test coverage, read cryptography books to understand their cryptography, see how many bugs they have, make sure that you are really able to run a full node that synchronizes from the genesis block, if it has smart contracts, see if the smart contracts have integration tests as well, look at the energy that's securing it...there are a lot of reasons why I never ever thought of buying any alt coins.
- It has multiple implementations, which is generally a good thing, but not for consensus critical software. When you have a software worth tens of billions of dollars, and people don't have consensus on who owns those billions of dollars, that's really really scary.
- Ethereum has a lot of hard forks and the ice age, which is a way for the dev team to force users to always switch to newer clients.
- With Bitcoin backwards compatibility is one of the main features: you don't need to trust new code from the dev team to send your money (for receiving new money, the situation is trickier).
- The parity multisig theft was extra scary for me, because I use multisig to store my Bitcoin in multiple physical places. The 1 line bug fix without tests was even scarier. If you look at Bitcoin, the devs are working on MuSig, the newer multisig protocol for years now, and they are trying to have a protocol that's proven to be safe and goes through peer review before thinking about implementing it. Ethereum doesn't care about having a provably safe multisig implementation, because it focuses on general smart contracts.
- It's really expensive (more than $10k) at this point to have a machine that have a full sync node from the genesys block, which means that Ethereum has less security than Bitcoin, as there exist only a few full nodes in the whole world.
- State data is not cacheable, which makes it harder to improve on the node syncing protocol
It will never generate the same returns that skilled long/short trading can pull, but I also never have a drawdown. Still managed >50% return last year so I’ll tale it.
I'm also working on making more money with some trading, but I don't want to talk about it, and even in the best case it has only a small of upside compared to just holding Bitcoin itself.
I understand your viewpoint totally, as I saw many friends getting into deep depression because of the volatility of the Bitcoin price. It is very serious thing. One friend of mine got very strong into cocaine, another friend's marriage burned down, another friend started day trading alts and lost half of his Bitcoins, and another friend (the smartest one) realized that he can't take the volatility and sold after a 10% loss. I view holding Bitcoin as a revolution, so I'm emotionally attached to holding it even if its value goes to 0. Still, I'm a software engineer, so even in the worst case I just work and get a high salary and probably start investing again.
One thing you could do is to just buy Bitcoin with 1-2% of your net worth, which is a great hedge for the current financial system, and also maybe that loss / volatility you are able to stomach. You're upside will be tiny, but you will get used to volatility a bit more.
2. This [1] is the guy that you think is a good economist? Really?
Eventually it burned me out -- instructing is a stressful "service" gig; and it turned me off of diving for years. This is something that I've observed with other folks in "lifestyle" businesses, e.g., I know yoga and martial arts instructors that ultimately quit not only the instructing, but the hobby.
If you love something, be careful about teaching it!
There is actually another questions "how much?". There is also no opposite for that.
Rather spend time with family and friends.
However, if I was forced to change job for whatever reason, probably something related with cooking.
Who needs a side project when the day job is enough and there are loved one with whom we have limited time.
Live is short. Take time to enjoy it.
Now I invest my spare time in being better at my full time job, and it’s paid off.
It brings in a steady $1k+/month almost completely passively through Amazon affiliate commissions
On a given day, a customer might buy 1 MIDI keyboard that I referred. But he will also buy books, CDs, home tools and anything else he needs, and I get 6% of all of that
It all depends on how well you already know the keyboard though. A cheap Akai LPK25 is good enough for absolute beginners. But if you have some piano playing experience, I would go for something like an Alesis VI49
Through craigslist, I’ve ended up making components used in the Apple campus, and service pieces used in a 3 Michelin star restaraunt.
Without a CNC it is frustrating to drill those holes reliably square enough to use them in downstream operations like squaring cuts or aligning/spacing.
[1] https://www.redbubble.com/people/nurikolan/works/34221227-i-... [2] https://www.redbubble.com/people/nurikolan/works/34221296-i-...
The last one is the only that is actually working somewhat
Product photography -> headshot/corporate event photography -> corporate video -> field recording -> music production
The "problem" that I've allowed myself to have is that I have the disposable income to take care of the gear bottleneck that many people in these fields dream of, but not the time overall to invest in the skills bottleneck.
It is generating some money, but I am in the process of professionalising whole business and that costs HUGE amount of money so I basically invest all of my earnings and will continue to do so for next decade(s).
Being born into winemaking familly was big gift and a curse. Without having some basic infrastructure there is no way I would be able to afford starting. On the other hand it brings complex familly issues when you try to do something different: I am farming organically, I refuse to use any "modern" additives and even stylistically I prefer doing very dry old-school type of wine instead of what they thought is modern off-dry and semi-sweet wine.
I am reading all these comments with joy. I picked up options trading as a side gig, it works sometimes, it does not work some time. I am satisfied with it, but reading this thread made me wonder if I should not try something "real". If there are other similar threads, please do link to them. This Sunday will then be productive :)
Currently, I have a hobby map business that generates some money (https://www.wellingtonstravel.com/). Recently I created a matchmaking app for people who travel. It's not making money yet, but I expect it to be able to generate income too (https://www.fairytrail.app/).
I believe it's about finding what interests you first. Money is a nice bonus.
MLMs (deservedly) have a bad rap. The focus is usually on recruiting rather than selling, and usually involves converting social relationships into business ones.
For us, it's more like being a franchisee. We do $20-25k in sales a month, have two part time assistants to help with shipping and cataloging inventory. We have non trivial spend on marketing and are actively involved in our local chamber of commerce and various networking groups.
My wife otherwise is home with our kids, and she loves it. It's busy, it's a ton of work, but we have fun doing it.
Essentially you’re sitting at your computer all day, and listening to music while you do it right? so there is plenty of opportunity to find and save interesting (or basic) music.
Combine that with maths and counting (what’s 4+4?) some practice, networking around, and you can land yourself some very well paid nights out, they pay you AND pay for your drinks. Only big downside I’ve experienced is the toll on your health if you regularly stay out drinking all night.
Email in profile if you have context-specific questions.
Also, one random question: do you find most of your clients are from the UK? For some reason I've always associated Wardley maps with the UK but I'm not sure if that's actually the case.
2. No, US only. Wardley does originate in the UK. The US is slowly catching up. I predict this will be taught in college in 10 years.
Newsletters can generally charge a much higher CPM than a social media accounts or even podcasts in some cases. You can start making beer money with only a few thousand subscribers.
We’re also thinking of hosting a few live events as well once our audience is large enough.
(P.S. for the curious, the newsletter is called TechLoaf: https://techloaf.io)
I am not very well versed with direct stock investing. The risks are just too great for me.
Doesnt make much but covers its own bills with some extra leftover. I've gotten further in my actual career than I thought during the same time so leaving to bake full-time would be large risk.
Mostly, I just really enjoy the direct interaction and happy emails, really lights up my day and gives me a sense of fulfillment.
I help mentor managers, leaders, and founders, totally for free. I’ve worked with dozens so far and I’m always taking new mentees!
You can sign up for a slot in seconds, as I do sessions five days a week:
0 - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe1gNnS8EDytTYqSG0IEbXw
Organizing events is obviously very different than programming and shipping software, but it's nice to create something that programmers enjoy and it's been awesome to meet so many industry folks whose work I really admire.
I also have a couple of super simple apps in the iTunes Store that earn about an iPad a year worth of money.
So far it's been slow; like @memset, I've got the product done but struggle with driving traffic/sales.
Have you tracked how many people ordered the sampler and than also ordered a real one after that?
I don't want to bother with the customize UI too much so I think you can do two things:
1. push the sampler as the main tool to find out what fits (so have it as the primary sales target)
2. make it easy to order what you like on a sample.
In general the wizard could be easier by doing:
- a step by step guide
1. choose pattern (only one possible, maybe link to the old UI for "experts")
2. choose distance
3. choose color (maybe go with a nice color picker directly)
4. done or tweak expert settings (with bug UI)
- and always showing roughly original size-zoom and full page
edit: and I agreed shipping, general pricing and payment methods would be great upfront.
And for the paper + cart steps: Keep it consistent, I accidentally skipped to the empty basked instead of putting something in the basket. I'd even make those steps part of the step-by-step guide I suggested instead of the current hierarchy.
It might help to have some simple styles pre-done and allow me to choose the one I like as the builder is pretty intimidating.
i did some research for what else is out there and found http://www.susanjmorris.com/dd-for-kids/ and also https://www.wired.com/2010/09/rpgkids-a-critical-hit-with-li...
but most helpful was this review which i found inspiring to come up with my own ideas https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/137660/great-introductory-d...
basic setup: there are no monsters, just NPCs that block your path. role the dice to decide who needs to give way. if the player "wins" they get to keep the NPC as a score. if the NPC wins they need to move back as many steps as the NPC roll, and try again when they get there later, or go another way. there can also he other surprises such as treasures or cards that add to your rolls (+1, +2 etc)
the rest can be like any d&d game, but this avoids the whole battle scenarios which is not something i want my kids to grow up with when i don't even like it myself. (when i play online RPGs, i find fighting just a nuisance that prevents me from enjoying the rest of the game)
Right now it is just a bunch of Angular and related stuff; but I Want to expand to React.
I make ~$200 a month, which is pretty good considering how little I put into promotion. I consider the platform my own personal reason for learning / experimenting with new stuff.
Most of my clients have photo booths, but I do have one researcher using it to try to treat scoliosis in children. I'm actively looking for new markets. It barely brings in enough money to make it worth doing, but the system is essential for some users, and I like doing it.
In Japan, several people asked me to teach them English. So I teach them English, some pay me in food and drinks. I also figured out that I was good in helping others prepare for standardized exams TOEFL/TOEIC/GMAT/GRE/USMLE so that became my primary side gig.
Now that I think about it, it's how I got together with my wife. I met her running in a marathon of all things and she wanted to learn English. I said I'd be happy to teach her and after 2 lessons I asked her out on a date :-) I never did teach her English beyond that!
I've been doing it since I was a teen, before I started programming, and the first significant amount of money I made was after I invested all my savings in a small festival I organized with my friends.
As for recording, it's been a fun ride because equipment go so much better and accessible since I started 15 years ago. For recording, having portable stuff is nice, but affording to pick studios because of the room instead of the equipment was a real game changer.
Not sure what I’m going to do with the site now, but I went all out and built a fully delivery management platform for they side gig. Hit me up if you have ideas.
- I've made stickers for the LINE chat app
- I have various affiliate links in my old blog
- I have some ebooks that I wrote years ago
- I currently make screencasts to teach people the Elixir programming language (https://alchemist.camp)
The revenue on all of these things except for the screencasts is gradually falling to zero. The screecasting revenue has roughly quadrupled from October through March (~6.8)% weekly growth rate), but still not quite up to $1k/month.
It can be tedious sometimes but boy it did pay well. I stopped as I decided to get back into the workforce instead of going solo.
I’m not a dropshipper myself, but I know a couple of people who have gotten into it.
Even if you do find a successful niche market, it won't take long for a low budget clone to jump in, which invalidates a lot of the up front work in marketing and product validation.
Also, most poker players are American - so they're going to need to cover health insurance.
Maybe when I retire I'll give it a go, but I don't think it's practical to envision retiring early to play poker unless you amassed enough savings you could live without the poker income.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_probability#Frequency_of...
Makes quite good money but does not fulfill in anyway.
It's been very satisfying making and selling a physical product.
The profitability part isn't quite there yet. But we're working on that.
We use a piece of home brewing equipment right now to fill our cans and bottles, the beer gun [1]. The beer gun allows us to purge our cans/bottles with CO2 (oxygen is bad for alcohol), and then fill them from the bottom to reduce foam.
I was able to find a local supplier, that wraps cans in plastic. So rather than printing them, they shrink wrap our label on to them. They're a bit more expensive than printed cans (if I recall 34¢ sleeved vs 19¢ printed). This allows us to order a single pallet at a time, decreasing our storage needs
The last key was the can seamer[2]. I found this early on, and it's been a great little work horse for us. We've put over 6,000 cans through it, and it's been one of the best purchases we've made.
Bottles are the easy one, we just use the beer gun [1] and then a manual capper to seal them.
Happy to answer any other questions! It's been a fun ride trying to figure out how to "mass produce" something on a smaller scale :)
[1] https://www.morebeer.com/products/blichmann-beergun-v2.html [2] https://oktoberdesign.com/shop/canseamers/mk16/
The “money-making” part is a bit of a stretch.
Most passive income just comes from Index Funds/miscellaneous investments. But I don't really see it as income since it all stays invested/just grows until I retire some day. Still trying to find the right app/site/tool to build to bring in real passive income from something I have built.
Generated from https://hncynic.leod.org/index.html
My winrate online is only a couple dollars an hour. I don't play live very often so I don't have the sample size to say what my winrate would be, but I'd guess $10-20/hr. So, ultimately, not too much money. But if I keep improving, my winrate should keep going up.
It also makes a lot of sense because I'm developing a poker app - https://premiumpokertools.com/. So I guess it is sort of tied into programming/CS for me in a way.
Started it in University as a hobby, and just built it up from there. 20 years later, still doing it (although never once imagined I still would be)
Extremely thankful for it, has helped to weather the storms a few times between job changes and has provided me and my family with a few extra little luxuries that we may not have otherwise been able to afford!
At first it was just a project of passion, but years later and a not insignificant investment in gear, software, and other equipment has left me with a side business that nets a tidy bit of income.
It’s also something that I adore doing, and hence a massive plus. I get to mix and master a whole variety of music, from classical to ambient, to EDM, and it’s always a pleasure to work with artists whether they’re new to it all or seasoned professionals.
Now I do a bit of consulting, helping bands with production, composition and chops in general. The plan is to get back to teaching but only through apps.
I sell payment processing services for First Data
I run a while label payment gateway
I build custom apps for payment terminals.
I have a rental property.
I'd say I make roughly 2k a month with out really having to do any work. But Payment processing with in the next six month could generate me around 6k/m. I have some big deals in the pipeline.
50% off if you're interested http://leanpub.com/rubyisforfun/c/IQrM7FYyuepX
I’m not a recruiter - I’m a CTO who’s done a lot of hiring myself, and it’s more about how to understand who you need and how to talk to them.
(I’m currently working on some free resources/workshops on the topic to build my pipeline, so if the above sounds useful to you then get in touch - my email is in my profile)
I’d also be happy to chat more about this one on one, if you’d like. No obligation to actually schedule a session; I don’t charge for chatting and answering questions. :) Shoot me an email: david@quietstrengthhypnosis.com
Like others in this thread, it started as a hobby and evolved as I made contacts. It feels quitte good to know that a hobby is now earning me more money that I spend in it.
You get part of the video revenue?
It's like investing on steroids. There is a lot of money to make, with a little more risk, and a lot more work than ETFs.
Have a handshake deal with a hollywood actor/martial artist to partner with his 500 affiliates.
Edited the original post.
I also make a few bucks a month from Patreon for my YouTube guitar performances.
I used to buy old furniture, refurbish it and resell it on craigslist. I made generally about $20 - $30 an hour. I also kept things for myself sometimes and slowly replaced different furniture items with nicer and nicer items. One year, I had 4 different coffee tables in succession. I found a cool coffee table and kept it, then I found a cooler one weeks later so I kept that and sold my previous one. Repeat that 3 times.
I'd mostly troll a certain thrift shop for antique-ish and mid-century items. It doesn't take long perusing Pinterest and design blogs to get a bit of an eye for what people want to consider collectible. Plus often if you look at something and squint, you an see if shaping it up will make it into something people want. I occasionally hit some garage sales, estate sales were too high priced and competitive. Sometime going an hour before they closed, they would drop the prices super low. %75 off would be better for them for them than not selling AND having to move it to get rid of it. Not always though.
I mostly just used Old English oil or Minwax furniture wax on items. It wasn't unusual for me to buy a $20 dresser, spend an hour giving it a cleaning (with Windex or other dollar store cleaners) and an oiling and sell it for $80 - $125.
I would do some small carpentry repairs on items, usually broken drawers, loose legs and occasionally a crack in the piece that was on a non-essential or non-structural area. You learn to avoid the repairs that are time consuming, difficult to get right or especially those--this is hard to describe--that will either be super easy or will fail no matter what you try with no in between. I avoided painting things, too time consuming plus I hate covering good wood. If anything is missing a knob or matching decorative hardware--it was an instant "no". You'll never find one that matches just right without spending a ton of time--if at all--and if you replace them all, it's expensive. Plus new knobs usually look weird on an antique and ruin the aesthetic of a mid century item.
I have had dozens of people tell me that I am a magician because I could take an old dried out looking item and bring the finish back. Honestly, it was the oils and the wood itself. I's take a piece like a dresser, table or chair, and after cleaning it for 5 - 15 minutes, just spend another 20 wiping the oil on. You just go over every bit over and over to rub the oil in well and also that takes the excess off. Give it a 2 minute wipe down an hour later if you can, using the same rag but without adding oil. (sometimes the wood soaks the oil into itself, but then it's wet and starts to expend. Then the oil gets pushed back out and sits on the surface. This step gets rid of that.) Give it a super light coat of oil the next day, looking for areas you missed or that soaked up more or less oil than others. This takes maybe 5 minutes.
Dressers were my staple. Everyone has at least one dresser, people use them in other rooms for storage or decor. Chairs were okay deeding and also would sell in even number better. Coffee tables, especially mid century items went easily also. Headboards and foot-boards I would buy if they were exceptional in appearance or super, super cheap. With those, any physical repair needed would also deem them a "no".
All my supplies fit in a dollar store plastic basket that was about 14"x14"x12". A few bottles of surface cleaner, oil in dark medium and light and a can of wax. Then a bunch of rags, use the same rag for the oils, one for each color. and one for wax only. Some steel wool for scuffs or hard stains, a small hammer, a few screw drivers and a ton of different sized screws and nails, almost all in the smaller than average to tiny varieties. I very occasionally used a drill and do have a couple long bar clamps for gluing.
The skill needed to bring a finish back is minimal. I'd say if you can clean a bathroom well or polish a chrome bumper, you can make a $10 thrift store item look like a $150 one. Just rub the stuff on and it does the work. People will call you an artist and not realize they could do the same.
I sold on craigslist and usually the people came by in the evenings when I was just making dinner or getting stuff ready for the next day anyway. I have a covered porch so they'd never come into my house, I have a large dog with a scary bark, plus I had a few hidden aces up my sleeve in case anyone got cagey. No one ever did. Craigslist can be a gutter of society but the people wanted what I sold were about 20 somethings, soccer moms, "artsy neighborhood dwellers" of varying demographics or empty nesters. I had a 4 text limit and if someone texted me more times than that, I'd do my best not to arrange to meet with them. That sounds like a dick move, they just want to know about the item, right? But like clockwork, those were the people who would no-show, super low-ball me once they got here or reschedule 20 minutes before they were due. People got one strike and they were out.
The thrift store I went to to was near where I would run errands and so I would stop in there for 5 minutes every time I went to get groceries or whatever. I made one special trip a week on Saturday mornings, right when they opened. I was there 1 - 4 times a week, usually about 3. So it did not take much time out of my day or routine to get stuff. It came to a close because the one thrift store I used to get stuff from really fell off in their selection. In the Pinterest craze, more people started keeping things and "Up-cycling" them themselves. My store also lost a deal with some organization and suffered a drop in items. They also used to make regular pick-ups in areas and I think they just saturated it an sort of squeezed the sponge dry.
I've written two intro tutorials. Doesn't make much money though.
As a software engineer by day, I find it quite pleasant to be a host and have a more direct human connection with my customers.
Back in the day, my brother and I would use Legos to build tracks for marbles, using roof pieces as ramps. Eventually I started making marble tracks out of popsicle sticks. Over a period of some years, I built a track 2+ feet (70cm) tall with lots of tracks intertwining each other all the way down.
After moving and leaving that old track behind, I made Marble Track 2 over an eight-month period in my free time at work.
I posted the finished track on YouTube[1] and comments fell into 2 categories.
Trolls: U suck, it's garbage, get a gf, etc.
Fans: U rule, it's amazing, make a tutorial, etc.
Me: "Make a tutorial? about how to make a marble track?? hmmmm that gives me an idea!"
So far, I have about 11 minutes[2] worth of (silent) video of little pipe cleaner characters placing wooden pieces onto a stage. They are answering the question "how do you make a marble track?"
The project has its own website[3], which reinforces the story that the characters are building the track.
(fake spoiler) However, it's actually me behind the scenes moving the characters to make the movie in which they build the track!
300+ hours of livestream[4] answer the question "how do you make a stop motion movie which answers the question of how to make a marble track?"
The livestreams are long, dull, often quiet, interspersed with a few ramblings that go through my head.
So, back on track (ahem) for this thread, I believe there are people who'd be interested in this project, and eventually we will figure out how it can be monetized. I am just enjoying the creation process and open to possibilities.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlUqu6QE7bw
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KjsYc4Mb5g&list=PL0osPGt21F...
https://www.wired.com/2013/02/provos/
i don't know if nils is doing commission work or selling his swords, but i am pretty sure he could sell those for a good price.
I have rental properties in Detroit and Atlanta.
Would appreciate feedback if someone has experience with this.
www.escape-team.com
I have to visit the USA about 8 times per year, so every time I do I buy 10 phones in a state with no sales tax (usually Oregon) and make about $5k in profit selling locally (which does eat up a ton of time, but not $5k worth).
It's a very honest business. Could you say the same about Google, Facebook, or Twitter?
Is all the comments here only from men, or are there any women here who make money from side projects?
Do you often have issues at work when you feel you're "just asking questions"?
I haven't seen a single person mention their gender yet. For all we know everyone who has replied is female.
Maybe don't assume someone's gender based on data like hobbies?
That's why, in order to establish the answer to OC's question, it is necessary to ask.
> Maybe don't assume someone's gender based on data like hobbies?
Directly asking is the opposite of assuming.
Your attitude is why OC made a throw away.