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Comment by HenryBemis | Hacker News Reader

> Low compared to...

"I worked on this project during my free time (weekends, evenings, holidays) for approximately 12 months, from April 2018 to March 2019."

If by "free time" the author means 1h per working day and 4 per day on weekends, that would be ~680h -> 85 days (8h per day)(back to back). Not that's not a good ROI at least for me. I won't count the deeply unique value of "time not spent with family/friends/children".

I sincerely hope that this picks up and gets 4000 paying customers, but so far for a year's worth of work it's not impressive.

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They spent their time working on a project that they enjoyed, successfully completed, and ended up with 40 customers. I would not call that a waste of time at all. Even if it dies off in 6 months it's a great learning experience and the kind of thing that's great to talk about with a hiring manager.

And that's without counting the level 2 / 3 benefits. Hard to measure, but one of his customers or people having read that blog might offer him a good job one day, or start something with him/her.

All time spent can't just be measured straight in money / hour can it.

In any case, if he's happy and proud of his project that's the worse I wish him

A lot of people don't have family (at all, or perhaps near enough to spend time with).

Also, young people's time has a different value from an older married with kids people's time.

(most young people I know spend tons of time on youtube, yik yak (zip zap? or whatever it's called), playbox x-one things, etc...)

Yes, people spend their time to have a life. If that's YouTube, so be it. What matters is that their time is worth at least minimum wage, probably more if you are a skilled professional. So saying 'I did it for $0' is not useful.

Example: I could spend a week learning carpentry and build a dinner table, or I could buy it from IKEA for $40. That's a dumb move for most people, unless I am super interested in carpentry.

> ... saying 'I did it for $0' is not useful.

He spent time, not money. His statement is accurate.

Edit: It's a subjective point of view to say it's not "useful". I found it helpful to see what he did.

For a year's worth of work IMO it's still impressive

I have tons of side projects I've spent months on that never made a dollar

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