Ask HN: For your side-projects, how do you avoid the 'money' question? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: For your side-projects, how do you avoid the 'money' question?

13 pointssh8712 comments

I've been working on side projects for the past 3-4 years on whatever caught my fancy and have thoroughly enjoyed experience and the rabbit holes some of them have led me into. I like it and I feel I'm at a point where I want to get more people involved in side projects. But, any discussion about these projects with (nearly) anyone ends with 'How will you make money'. I don't have a way to avoid or answer that question without losing people's interest. I'm curious about how others handle that one.

To be clear, I do not work on side projects for money. Neither do I intend to. Thats what my day job is for. I just want to involve more minds interested in similar things that I'm racking my head against.

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Hackerspaces are full of people who do it because its fun.

guerrilla knitters. billboard spraypaint agitators. music makers in pubs. choirs. scratch orchestras. the guy who makes kites or the professor who shows kids how to do astronomy on street corners.

the mens-shed movement is about older people (yes, I know the name is offputting but they aren't all men actually) who are bored and have skilz. Also, not about money.

likewise tool libraries. or, computer upcycler schemes for the unemployed: these are people who do things because they think they are worthy (tm)

It may be you need to lay it out in front, that nobody is going to get rich and very possibly building the worlds first custard-throwing robotic tyrannosaur is going to cost a lot of money, having said which ROAAAAR - Splat..

If I were you, I would answer with this eloquent quote: “I do not work on side projects for money. Neither do I intend to. Thats what my day job is for. I just want to involve more minds interested in similar things that I'm racking my head against”

I seriously don’t know a better way to put it. Why not use your own words?

Many people have side-hustles in which money isn't —at all— the goal. Generally, they like creating stuff (software, bikes, whatever, really) and the process is what they truly enjoy.

Try to find like-minded people at Meetups

It's just a language argument, so there's no "right", but to me "side-hustle" implies money-making or at least career-building, as differentiated from, say, a "hobby" or a "pastime" which mostly costs money (or for some people, maybe includes enough transactional stuff to break even).

And then "side-hustles" became fashionable, so people talk about getting into coffee, or beer, or fixies, or ukulele orchestras, or scuba diving - as their "side-hustle".

I "play with" coffee making, electronics, drones, motorcycles, electric bicycles - none of them are a "side-hustle".

Have you tried framing it as pro bono or a not-for-profit project?

I know of a non profit project that tried to set up a formal non profit corporation and ultimately threw in the towel. It still exists. It still does what it has always done. But there is no board, no heavy paperwork, no budget, etc.

It's run as a website and a collection of email lists, same as it ever was. Trying to turn it into a formal non profit turned out to involve a lot of hassle and, seemingly, little to no upside -- or, at least, not enough upside to make the bureaucratic overhead make sense.

Especially side projects can avoid that question, as long as they can stay at the side. I love them for that.

(And I also prefer to take either no money or decent money for jobs for friends and acquaintances. The middle ground just lacks in reward, monetary and in gratefulness.)

It's more difficult for something that you have to invest time in heavily to have any form of success. That's when this question has to be answered and might be the most important one.

I work solo on my latest side project, but if I were recruiting others I would think of my side project as a mini nonprofit. How do nonprofits recruit talent despite the (usually) bad pay?

It could be that the utility of working for an organization whose mission they are passionate about outweighs the money they "lose", or it could be something else, but it's a good place to start.

Also depends a bit on the thing you work on. But we have used local arts funding for this. It helped us be a little bit more formal, while having a small amount of money for the people helping out. It does comes with its paperwork/obligations though

I don't know about you, but I often do side-projects to learn things. It try apply my knowledge into something to understand it. Maybe you have the same reason and you can say it's for improving or maintaining your competence.

Also, perhaps you shouldn't think too muchs about how to justify things you do to others.

I have an excel sheet with the following:

Project Name - Project Description - Learning Potential - Earning Potential

The one with a 'Y' in both the last columns are I prefer to work on. They are very rare though!

I quite enjoy avoiding "the 'money' question" by doing things so stupid that nobody would ever think it was a "business", or so grey-area that nobody would ever expect me to associate my real name with it...

Call it a hobby. A side-project has to sustain itself to be able to continue existing. I think that's what confuses people.

As for the money question , one can just say "i might sell it"

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