
Ask HN: (Devoted time):(revenue) ratio for side project - selmat
What are (devoted time):(revenue) ratio for your side projects?
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musgravepeter
I have been developing odd-ball physics apps (ThreeBody, Geodesic Asteroids
most recently).

I'd say I put in about 10 hrs/week => 520/yr.

Last year my revenues were up 400% (to $88) with expenses of about $400 (apple
developer fee, web host, test device, couple of books) - so a loss of about
$300.

Time/revenue = 88/520 = $0.17/hr

~~~
GFischer
Good to see I'm not the only one losing money :P

I'm in the same ballpark of time and losses. I'm selling a WebRTC-based video
chat solution (pretty much vanilla at the moment), which we wanted to turn
into a bigger platform.

Earnings should be a bit higher though (they're going to be $ 500 / year if I
keep the customers because it's a SAAS model), but they come nowhere close to
covering the time invested - and I still have a LOT of basic stuff to
implement.

Let's say Time/Revenue: 500/600 = $0.83/hr

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LoSboccacc
Infinite. Can't make many things public nor open source either because nda,
non competes or because I didn't ever put them past "it could work" phase.
Mostly the latter to be honest. Figuring solutions is so much more interesting
that working out kinks and corner cases

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cheez
Until the last few months, the ratio was stupendous: ~$300/hr

I've been working on upgrading the technology and business model. It's a risk
and I think I'll fail...

~~~
GFischer
What are you working on? Hopefully learning a new technology is worth the
investment?

~~~
cheez
Just boring enterprise software. Yes, the new technology makes me more
valuable in the job market but other than that, I think I'm just getting old
as I see choice of technology as bikeshedding these days.

~~~
GFischer
Amen to that, but unfortunately if you want to stay employable as a dev, you
have to :( .

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desfan
I have an Android and iOS game that took me around 125h to do (including
learning time). In the last 12 months it made around $25000, so about $200 per
hour.

I'm not counting with time spent maintaining the game, but it should come to
about 2~4h/week in the last year or so.

~~~
TimeWaster
What game is it? if you don't mind sharing

~~~
shivakaush
is it Line?
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nmssoftwar...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nmssoftware.line.android)

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adzeds
I have a project that I now maintain on just 2 hours a week... But I worked on
it for 4 weeks, 10 hours a week...

So that is 136hr/y.

Revenue for the past 12 months is £26,500

26500/136 = £195ph

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safeharbourio
I'd say fairly good, first side project, so no other to compare to. Also an
invaluable source of experience.

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samfisher83
5hrs month: 0 revenue.

