
Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2018? - schappim
Any side projects, Game, OSS, Hacks.
======
greysteil
I built [https://dependabot.com](https://dependabot.com) to be passive, but
ended up going full time on it (the startup I was working on feel through).
Generates $9k/month passively, but I put my full-time energy into growing it
(adding new languages / improving support for existing ones).

~~~
eloff
Your pricing seems way too cheap for the value you're delivering.

~~~
greysteil
Haha, thanks, I guess that's one place where Dependabot shows its side-project
roots - I just want as many people to use it as possible, and am less fussed
about capturing the biggest share of value.

~~~
ezekg
You can still get that benefit with the lower tier. I would definitely raise
the prices for your higher tiers, because those are going to be for
businesses, and they have money to spare. You might see your ARPU go up
considerably. :)

------
tstegart
I built [https://basicbands.com/](https://basicbands.com/) a fashion blog
about watch straps. Its not very much work. Brands send me photography and I
post it, or go to websites and request it and people send pictures to me to
post. When I have time I write an article, but now most of the obvious
articles have been written (how to replace your watch strap, etc), so I don't
do that as much.

It's an affiliate income model, and it makes me enough to buy groceries and
have a few nights out a month. It's much more fun than I expected it to be
though. Turns out there are a lot of custom leather workers out there doing
watch straps as a hobby and they produce AMAZING work, just incredible.
Stingray leather, horween, lizard, I had no idea this stuff existed before I
started. They are also a lot of fun to contact and hear their stories, so now
I send them interview questions by email and post those. All in all I'm very
happy with it. I got my inspiration from this subreddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/juststart/](https://www.reddit.com/r/juststart/)

~~~
minhaz23
So how much are you making exactly monthly?

How did you decide on a niche?

How did you research your niche?

How long have you been doing it?

How did you do keyword research and such?

How much content do you write/produce?

Do you do reviews? If so whats your method?

Who are your affiliates? It sounds like you work with independent strap
makers, how does being compensated for sales work with them?

How long did you blog before you started seeing a profit?

Do you think one day you’d be on track to promote your own watch/strap?

How did you make the actual site?

Thanks in advance. Hope you dont mind the questions

~~~
tstegart
I make anywhere from $100 - $300 a month, once over $450 when someone bought a
Rolex. I came across the niche browsing reddit's r/watches. There are a lot of
watch blogs and websites, but almost nothing devoted just to watch bands &
straps. It turns out a lot of people have an old watch they'd like to fix up
because the strap broke.

The research wasn't very hard. I bought some straps and installed them to get
the hang of it. Its actually very easy, and now they make quick release
straps, so you can change out your strap every day if you want. Mostly it's a
fashion blog, so the companies do the work for me by putting out great
photography.

I've been doing it about a year and a half. The first 6 months I hardly made
money and almost gave up, but then I wrote a popular article and managed to
rank quickly and and people purchase watches through it.

I don't really do keyword research. Most of my money comes from two or three
articles, one of which is about a particular watch. So I could write more
articles about other watches when I have the time. But I have a full-time job
that I love, so I only do this for fun. I've done some advertising on
Pinterest that seems to have been useful, and Pinterest itself brings in
visitors.

I used to write a lot of content but got a new position at my full time job
that's been taking up a ton of time. When things settle down I'll write more.
Other people hire writers, I'm not sure about that just yet. I don't do
reviews, mainly because I didn't want to handle the shipping of bands back and
forth. Seems weird to keep the review bands, although plenty of companies have
offered free bands I've never accepted any.

I'm an Amazon affiliate, and also Etsy & Jomashop (a popular online watch
seller) and one or two others that I've never got a sale from. I usually don't
get compensated from featuring independent strapmakers, unless someone buys
through Etsy. But they provide the interviews and a lot of great photography,
so I basically feature them for free. The blog would be boring otherwise and
they're very talented artists and fun to work with. Check out Combat Straps
([https://www.combat-straps.com/GALLERY.html](https://www.combat-
straps.com/GALLERY.html)) or Jones in Tokyo
([https://www.etsy.com/shop/JonesInTokyoLeather](https://www.etsy.com/shop/JonesInTokyoLeather))
and you'll see what I mean.

I'm not interested in my own straps or watches, there are enough people doing
that already so I'll stick with my quiet little niche. My website is just a
WordPress theme.

Hope that helps. Check out the reddit link for r/juststart. It really is very
informative and fun. This is my second business. The first one was an iPad
travel magazine that failed miserably and never made a profit, but was also a
lot of fun.

------
kohanz
I've posted about this before, but years ago I made a blog about completing
the application and exams to obtain a professional engineering license in my
jurisdiction. It is just a WordPress blog. Over a year or two, it started
getting organic traffic since it provided information in an underserved niche.

After making next to nothing with Google ads, I was approached by another site
that sold help packages for the licensing process and we struck up an
affiliate deal. It didn't work right away and had to build up, but nowadays it
generates anywhere from $200 to $800 per month in completely passive revenue
(haven't written a new post in years). The revenue has been growing too. It
will have done about $5k in 2018.

------
bemmu
Back in 2015 I wrote an ebook called "how to start and grow your subscription
box from 0 to 1000 subscribers", as I felt I had learned enough about the
topic while running my own business to have something useful to share. Odd
thing happened though soon after releasing it, I'll get to that in a bit.

I recall it sold about $2k right after release, as Product Hunt happened to
have just opened a book section back then and it got to #1 place for a day. I
put it on Amazon, iBooks and Gumroad. Basically all the initial sales were
from Gumroad.

But the cool thing is that although comparatively sales slowed to a trickle,
now 3 years later it's still selling about $10 worth each month, now
completely from iBooks and Amazon. It's not much, but at this point it's
completely passive.

So the odd thing? While I was writing it I had just crossed 1000 subscribers
myself. But after I released the book, I soon found out that a lot of my
subscribers were actually using stolen card numbers and I had to cancel about
a third.

So now I have a book out about how to get 1000 subscribers, but I don't
actually have 1000 subscribers, and turns out I never really did, although I
was convinced of it while writing it. It feels a bit like karma from being too
proud too soon.

~~~
minhaz23
What do you mean exactly?

Your subscribers were using stolen cards?

So technically you did have subscribers they were just committing fraud to pay
you?

~~~
tinco
They commit fraud to test their credit cards, not because they're interested
in the product. Patio11 has a good article on this phenomenon.

------
itprofessional4
Listed a paid vm on azure,aws and gcp . The VM has all the required setup for
learning Etherem and Truffle. Created video tutorials alongside to help use
the VM. I have made around $1500 so far in 6 months and still counting.

[http://techlatest.net/products/products/](http://techlatest.net/products/products/)

[http://techlatest.net/support/ethereum/](http://techlatest.net/support/ethereum/)

------
t0mislav
One small geography site, bringing "only" like 600-700$ a year, but it is
passive. [https://random.country/](https://random.country/) I made few more
similiar sites, but they all failed.

~~~
uvu
From ads?

~~~
t0mislav
To be honest, I don't even know how to montize such small and simple site.
This is not service where you return every day, or every few days. It's like
you use this site for a minute, two, than you forget about it.

~~~
minhaz23
What about a newsletter? Like random country/city facts emailed daily/weekly?
Keeps traffic and interest in your brand more consistent and eventually you
can funnel it into a bigger project?

I imagine it would do well with the trivia crowd

------
lukasluke
Started an online course on algorithmic trading at
[https://algotrading101.com](https://algotrading101.com) and some Udemy
courses 4 years ago.

Revenue peaked at $20k/month 2 years ago and is less than half of that now.
That's probably because my SEO rankings plummeted this year, and that people
seem less and less eager to pay for online courses. Maintaining the course is
quite passive (answering students' questions by email) but growing revenue is
an active process.

~~~
minhaz23
Did you ever feel imposter syndrome about teaching?

Are you qualifications ever questioned?

Do you think anyone with a self evaluated passion and knowledge of a subject
can teach a course online?

How did you entice people tk buy your course? How did you market? Build a
reputation?

~~~
lukasluke
1\. At the start, I do feel it. But over time as I receive good feedback from
students, it goes away. The key is to deliver (or rather, over-deliver) value
to your students.

Many online teachers think they are not good enough because they compare
themselves to the top 1% in the field. But even if they are far behind the top
1%, they are far ahead of the bottom 50% and their teaching is still valuable.

Sometimes, they turn out to be better teachers than the top 1% because they
are nearer to their students level and can empathise and hence teach in a more
effective manner.

2\. Rarely. Some students ask for my trading background and performance. I'll
tell them the truth. Don't be afraid they will think you are under-qualified.
If they do feel that way, they won't enroll and move on. There are plenty of
people who will enroll in your course regardless of your qualification (I only
realised this after I started teaching).

3\. Yes.

4\. I did an interview piece, you can find more info on how I started there:
[https://hackernoon.com/founder-interviews-lucas-liew-of-
algo...](https://hackernoon.com/founder-interviews-lucas-liew-of-
algotrading101-250a58b50e34)

------
tinktank
I sell erotic stories online through Amazon Kindle. Made more than $200K last
year but it's hard on the imagination

~~~
enraged_camel
That doesn't sound very passive to me.

~~~
max76
Authoring a book is very passive income.

Passive income is defined as high upfront work and very low maintenance work.
Other than possible marketing tasks the author's job is done once the book is
published and collects money on every sale.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Authoring a book is very passive income.

Authoring _a_ book, sure. But the parent poster implied that he/she
continuously writes these stories, i.e. many of them, hence why they said it
is "hard on the imagination".

~~~
max76
Each book is passive income. I'd consider a prolific author as someone that
makes a series of passive income intellectual properties.

~~~
enraged_camel
I guess with such a generous definition of "passive income", anything is
passive income.

I mean I'm still getting paid for the features I wrote for my company's
software two years ago!

~~~
bighi
If you're getting paid for things you're not ACTIVELY working for, guess
what... that's PASSIVE.

------
sixhobbits
I published a video course ("Rapid Flask") and a book ("Flask by Example") in
2015 and 2016 respectively. I've made on average $100/month in royalties
since. It wasn't a great financial decision considering the amount of effort
required, but I learned a lot and feel like I could produce something
moderately more successful next time (if I could find time) based on lessons
learned from the failures.

------
thrower123
Real estate. The downstairs apartment gets me a cool $1700 a month for almost
no work.

If you're going to buy a first house, it's worth it to go for a multifamily;
up to four units you can still get in under FHA, you just have to live in one
for a couple of years.

~~~
anoncoward111
Until they stop paying rent and trash the place and squat and sue you for any
imperfection such as accidental loss of heat in the apartment, while
simultaneously not letting the boiler repairman in the house.

~~~
justaj
Couldn't that be covered with a decently written contract though?

~~~
anoncoward111
Cant collect damages if the tenant is flat broke :/

~~~
jakobegger
Yeah, that's the problem. Tenant stops paying, illegally sublets the place,
then disappears, and by the time you finally got their stuff out you've lost a
year of rent and had to pay their utilities.

It's not that common, but it's a possible outcome, and a contract won't help
even a little bit.

~~~
jaworrom
1\. Invest in pro-landlord states. I know plenty of investors that haven't
even walked the properties they own and invest out of state without issues.
2\. Interview potential tenants and verify income, rental history, references,
credit check, background check, etc. 3\. Have a strong lease agreement that
outlines all of this. 4\. Account for vacancies every month as an expense -
3-5% is pretty reasonable. And don't touch this money.

------
fadys
I built [https://hnrecommends.com](https://hnrecommends.com) a little while
ago. It's the start of a curated list of Hacker News recommendations. I'm
adding recommendations and products daily.

It's made a few dollars from affiliate links so far.

~~~
fdw
Thanks, that looks quite interesting. I have already found a book I might
like.

> I'm adding recommendations and products daily. Do you add the
> recommendations manually or do you use a crawler/API to copy the comment?
> How automatic is it?

Finally, I have two suggestions: You're only selling to people in the US.
Maybe you could also add links to other Amazon domains (or use a service like
geni.us)?

And how about linking back to the comment thread? Sometimes, a comment only
makes sense in its context, and I couldn't find a link back.

~~~
fadys
I do it all manually, but I use the API to get the actual comment text. I have
been collecting recommendations for years. This is my way of organizing and
sharing them.

Amazon has a service called OneLink that supposedly routes users to the Amazon
store that's closest to their country (presumably, from their IP address). I'm
using it (a simple script tag) but I don't know how reliable it is.

~~~
fdw
Thanks, I was wondering if you can parse all comments for a link to Amazon or
something (but even that probably wouldn't get the recommendations without
links).

At least for me, OneLink doesn't work. Apparently you need to be in the US,
Canada or UK; the other countries aren't supported so far. Pity.

~~~
fadys
As you noted, you would still miss many recommendations without an Amazon
link.

But even so, that would kind of defeat the purpose; I don't just want to
aggregate recommendations. I want to include, more so, the ones that are
interesting than frequent.

Additionally, besides books, I'll be posting other types of recommendations
(travel, hardware, etc.).

~~~
fdw
Ah, thanks for clearing up my misunderstanding. That makes it even more
interesting!

------
AlchemistCamp
I built [https://alchemist.camp](https://alchemist.camp). It started as a
screencast YouTube channel focused 100% on the Elixir language and after a
some initial positive feedback, I created the site and added some premium
content for paying subscribers.

At first I only charged $12/month or $96/year. As the library of screencasts
grew, I raised prices to $15/month or $135/year and I'll probably raise prices
again pretty soon. So far, it's been slow, steady growth and nobody has
unsubscribed.

I think a key thing that helped me is that I made very different content from
the other Elixir screencasters. They all focused on short, highly-edited
content that taught specific language features or small libraries and I chose
a project-based approach where I introduced language features as needed and
videos sometimes reached nearly an hour. It made my service a bit less of a
rival good to the others and instead something that people might buy _in
addition_ to one of my competitors.

In 11 months of 5-10 hours a week, Alchemist Camp is covering the rent and
it's also lead to me meeting a few famous Elixir devs, including José Valim!
Definitely a fun indiehack and I'm glad I'm doing it.

~~~
orliesaurus
I remember this site from Indiehackers, glad to see you're getting some
traction!

------
Simon_says
Alright. I'll be that guy. I look at your list of side projects and I see
nothing that's remotely passive. They all look like tons of work! My best
passive income this year is my index funds -- for instance, the S&P 500 is up
3.9% year-to-date, and I've cumulatively spent under an hour this year
thinking about it. Hard to imagine what else besides investments qualifies as
passive. Maybe real estate? But how passive that is is questionable and very
dependent on your particular circumstances.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
I think it's pretty well understood that passive means without requiring on-
going work, support or maintenance.

Even investing takes up-front work in the form of research and to actually
setup the investment.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
And the work to get the money in the first place of course

------
technological
Made 2$. I created WhatsApp Business Account ( Basically WhatsApp Business App
for Business) and I help people with their questions. For example someone
pinged and asked what is best tv to buy during black Friday. I see people
value for real human feedback

~~~
minhaz23
So you’re just a person people reach out to? How do people find you? How do
they pay you?

~~~
technological
Basically I let everyone know in my friends circle and relatives. They contact
me with any questions or search queries (like best tv to buy within 1000$).
Affiliated links by which I earn

------
bbx
Wrote my first ebook about CSS last November [1]. With little marketing, I
sold hundreds in the first few months, and after a year it’s still bringing
around $500/month.

I’m thinking about writing a new one, but I’m not sure about the topic.

[1] [https://jgthms.com/css-in-44-minutes-ebook](https://jgthms.com/css-
in-44-minutes-ebook)

~~~
minhaz23
How did you market it?

~~~
bbx
Mostly through Twitter and my newsletter.

------
deanmoriarty
About $2000 a month of pure passive income coming in from a diversified index
fund portfolio (us + international + reit + small cap value) under the form of
dividends.

It’s somewhat more consistent than the appreciation/depreciation of the
underlying securities due to the recent volatility, and I get the distribution
straight into my bank account, which I usually just reinvest since I have a
full time job that easily supports my expenses.

Dividend yield based on the current high valuations is pretty low though, I
believe for my portfolio is around 2%, but hopefully in the long term that’ll
be just a small portion of the returns.

~~~
news_hacker
How much capital is driving that?

~~~
deanmoriarty
Roughly $1M.

~~~
ArrayList
<off-topic:> Cool username btw, huge Kerouac fan. I'm also from Lowell.

------
wyclif
Is anybody doing "Parrot Secrets" type eBooks? And if you have and are reading
this, what have been your best selling books?

Referencing this sort of thing:
[http://www.parrotsecrets.com/](http://www.parrotsecrets.com/)

An explainer: [https://www.cringely.com/2009/03/14/parrot-
secrets/](https://www.cringely.com/2009/03/14/parrot-secrets/)

~~~
Leftium
"Sales Safari"[1] is probably one of the best ways to find which topics will
sell.

General guideline from Russel Branson's "Expert Secrets": Pick one of the 3
major hot markets (health, wealth, relationships), pick a sub-market, then
create a new niche in that sub-market (not recommended, but you might succeed
competing with an existing niche).

"Stop your Divorce" [2] was written in the same way, and seems to have sold
pretty well. (Also netted the counselor a lot of leads because his phone # was
in the book.)

Interestingly, there's a counter argument to the advice presented in the
"Parrot Secrets" book: [3]

[1]: [https://shop.stackingthebricks.com/sales-
safari-101](https://shop.stackingthebricks.com/sales-safari-101)

[2]: [http://www.stopyourdivorce.com/](http://www.stopyourdivorce.com/)

[3]: [http://goodbirdinc.blogspot.com/2013/06/internet-fraud-
targe...](http://goodbirdinc.blogspot.com/2013/06/internet-fraud-targets-
parrot.html)

------
tosbourn
I have three sources of decent (return on effort put in) passive income this
year.

\- Membership fees and sponsored posts on
[https://thefootytipster.com](https://thefootytipster.com) (I maintain the WP
site, but no real ongoing work) (roughly £300 per month)

\- Advertising on my tech blog [https://tosbourn.com](https://tosbourn.com)
(roughly £30 per month)

\- Advertising on [https://howoldistheinter.net](https://howoldistheinter.net)
(roughly £15 per month) - zero effort put into this once made and one redesign

I'm hoping to grow [https://cbdscores.com](https://cbdscores.com) over the
next few months and add it to the list.

------
aswinmohanme
I have an App on the PlayStore which generates around 400$ per month on
average, liveable money when you're from India

~~~
learningram
LessPhone ?

How long did it take you to develop the app ?

~~~
aswinmohanme
Around 2 days for the prototype and 3 months for refinement.

------
xem
Real estate

Bought 3 student apartments in 2012 (when I was 24) and finished paying them
at the beginning of 2018.

The apartments are entirely managed by an agency that finds the student,
collects the money, does all the maintainance, and give me a fixed, guaranteed
income.

This income is about 50% of what the students pay (about 330€ for me when the
student pays 600).

So now I have 1000€ of passive income per month and only need to do my
accounts once a year.

(In France, you can use a company to rent your apartments and avoid paying
taxes, so I do that)

I'll probably buy 2 or 3 more in the future to be able to "retire early" and
become an indie game dev full time.

------
MegaLeon
\- I have a self-published book at [http://discover-
haxeflixel.com/](http://discover-haxeflixel.com/). Makes around 70£ per month.

\- I've got several android apps at
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=leoncvlt](https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=leoncvlt).
together they bring in about £80 a month. One of them, however, was recently
picked as 'editor's choice' by google and this month alone brought in £600,
hopefully it keeps some of that steam.

\- Built [https://cosflowy.com/](https://cosflowy.com/) in the last year, my
biggest project to date which ironically brings in the least, just enough to
pay for server costs. Need to do more marketing work, but I find it twice as
tiring than actual development itself.

Lots of small things but no golden bullets yet. I'll keep trying!

------
WAthrowaway
I translated some well-regarded public domain works into English. I make
around 2-3k a month from the ebook sales. If you find niche areas of interest
or research it can be quite lucrative. Of course you invest the time to
translate but I find it rewarding and less like actual "work"

~~~
curious991
You just search for them and translate them by yourself? Or do you have some
kind of publisher?

~~~
WAthrowaway
I often have specific authors or periods in mind - such as when I am reading a
book and come across a reference to an untranslated author or piece - and so I
just search for the source text (usually on wikisource or gutenberg) and make
sure its public domain.

I publish them myself, yes - there is a "press" I put them under but its just
me. I have a few friends who do reviews and I am also on several academic
mailing lists

------
manuelescrig
I have 3 apps on the App Store and I make around 500$ a month. It's not fully
passive because I invest time in order to improve them and do bug-fixing.

[http://emailmeapp.net](http://emailmeapp.net)
[http://www.digitalphotoframeapp.com](http://www.digitalphotoframeapp.com)
[https://www.peopletrackerapp.com](https://www.peopletrackerapp.com)

------
purplezooey
I found a $20 in an ATM

------
dglass
I set up [https://sketchpads.co](https://sketchpads.co) as a simple shopify
site and I've been selling mobile and browser sketchpads to rapidly iterate on
your wireframe designs.

I did some initial marketing and it's been bringing in steady income of about
$200 every month. I've sold out of inventory multiple times and keep ordering
bigger and bigger batches of sketchpads each time.

------
atom-morgan
Self-publishing my first book
[https://www.theangulartutorial.org/](https://www.theangulartutorial.org/)

~~~
wayoverthecloud
How much are you making? How did you market it?

------
wwasilev
I developed a trading model on
[https://www.portfolio123.com](https://www.portfolio123.com) for my own
personal use but that I later decided to open to subscribers. P123 calls them
Designer Models and they're offered under a publishing model were subscribers
assume responsibility for whether or not actual trades are made.

Subscription revenue is about $500/month.

~~~
SirLJ
Where I can find your verified track record? Thanks!

~~~
wwasilev
P123 maintains a record of simulated trades. Those trades are recorded at a
price of trade day (High+low+2*Close)/4\. They also make a slippage
adjustment. Trade commissions are added under their Book system.

There isn't a direct link. You may find my models under Models->Designer
Models
([https://www.portfolio123.com/app/r2g](https://www.portfolio123.com/app/r2g))
and then filter by my username - wwasilev.

------
fiatjaf
[https://piln.xyz/](https://piln.xyz/) has earned me 918 satoshis so far.

------
docsapp_io
I built [https://www.docsapp.io/](https://www.docsapp.io/) while learning new
programming language. Now DocsApp generating passive income for me, not a lot,
but small profit. Next step is to build content around my product to generate
more traffic.

Anyone know where to find good technical content writers?

~~~
goldfeld
Depends on what level, you can probably find the more creatively independent
on here, and even judge work sample through the comments. Email is in my
profile if you're interested.

------
wordpressdev
Built
[http://www.vitiligotreatmentinfo.com/](http://www.vitiligotreatmentinfo.com/)
some time back. It generates income through Adsense and Amazon associates
program. Planning to update the content whenever I have a few days off. So
far, it is on auto-pilot.

------
singularity2001
An app in the iOS store which generates $0.20 per day on average. That's the
best;) All other income is active.

------
dragosbulugean
I made about $4000 from my newly created product
[https://archbee.io](https://archbee.io) with very little maintenance. Not
exactly passive, but close. With the knowledge earned I'm launching V2 early
next year hoping to build a solid company :)

------
dalacv
I created two udemy courses a few years ago. Been generating money ever since.

[https://image.ibb.co/b75uVL/B77-D6-BA2-7-EBB-4645-8946-C5-C8...](https://image.ibb.co/b75uVL/B77-D6-BA2-7-EBB-4645-8946-C5-C83-C846-CB0.jpg)

~~~
rapfaria
You think they pirated your course on March?

~~~
minhaz23
What happened in march?

------
Hoasi
A small pre production, storyboard & film treatment templates shop on Gumroad:
[https://gumroad.com/storyboards](https://gumroad.com/storyboards).

------
expertentipp
Salary from the employment contract.

~~~
plaidfuji
Daddy’s trust fund

------
anoncoward111
My bank account pays me $93 a month in passive income. This is truly 0 effort
and is almost enough to afford Thai rent

~~~
blastofrocks
93 $ a month, how much rate of interest does your bank pay ?

~~~
yurishimo
If you have a 2% interest rate, 10-15k in your account will generate that
amount monthly. Totally doable if you’re living in a country with a COL that
low to begin with.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Due to inflation the value of the money is going down though, so I don’t think
this is really income, unless you’re getting returns greater than inflation.

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atemerev
Market making on various cryptocurrency exchanges. Not entirely passive, still
a lot of work. But can’t really complain.

