
Ask HN: Best passive income method for a solo developer? - nullundefined
I&#x27;d consider myself a pretty experienced developer with diverse skills. I want to create some passive income streams using my abilities.<p>What are the recommended methods for a solo developer? Which method of the following would you recommend?<p><pre><code>    ebook in a niche technical topic
    SaaS product that solves a niche issue 
    mobile or web based game</code></pre>
======
acangiano
There are a few common options available to most developers.

1\. Create a course or ebook plus screencasts. Charge a lot (e.g., $199 for
the highest tier that includes everything in a bundle). Typical income range:
$2K - $100K.

2\. Create an ebook. Charge a lot (e.g., $49). Typical income range: $2K -
$50K.

3\. Write a book for a high-royalty publisher (e.g., PragPub). Typical income
range: $10K-100K.

4\. Create a SaaS product that solves a consumer or business problem in a
given niche. Typical income range: $0 - $1M per year (mostly the $0 end
though).

5\. Create a mobile game. Typical income range: $5 - $100K (the majority below
$10K).

6\. Create a blog and leverage affiliate commissions and ads. Typical income
range: $5 - $1,000 per month.

7\. Create a template or plugin for a popular platform (e.g., WordPress).
Typical income range: $100 - $100K a year.

All require work. Some will be more passive than others after your initial
outlay of work (3 being the most passive).

How good are you at marketing? Because for software we have Market > Marketing
> Design > Code.

My suggestion is to go for 1, 2, 3, or 4. Four is the most challenging among
these 4 options and the least likely to succeed. But if it does, there isn't
much of a cap in terms of how much money it can make.

Plus you get to hone your development and business skills further. Not to
mention that you get to pick your own stack so you can experiment with new
languages, frameworks, and technologies of your choosing if that floats your
boat.

In general, I would recommend spending your spare time doing what excites you
the most. Does the idea of a web side project excite you more than writing a
book? If so, go for that.

My other suggestion is to create many micro-launches. Create small projects.
Many of them. Stuff that you can launch in 1-3 months. See what sticks. Kill
what doesn't. You'll end up with multiple revenue streams. $500/mo quasi-
passive income here and there adds up quickly.

~~~
greggman
5\. given 20k games ship per month on iOS alone while it's true that the
majority make below $10k it's probably also true the majority make below $100.

On top of that, passive income suggests that you make it and then collect
money with no work for ... 1+ years? Games generally make all their income in
the first 1-4 weeks and so are unlikely to turn into passive income

~~~
benguild
Seriously, this. This post is so misleading, hah. All of this assumes
traction.

~~~
amelius
The sad bit is that the party who can actually provide transparency in these
matters (Apple) has an incentive to keep the numbers secret, so developers
keep coming and taking a chance at launching an app.

~~~
evilduck
I think a lot of people just build for themselves and publish as a final "I
did it" effort.

Games are also such a flooded market and user expectations are high, but
because the top 5 earn millions, small devs keep playing that lottery hoping
to win.

------
davekiss
As a solo developer who builds products for a living, I'd caution you to think
more about what it is that you actually like to do, rather than what will earn
you a quick dollar.

You don't want to be put in a position where you have to support something
that requires you to perform tasks that you don't enjoy (eg. a particular
niche, writing blog content) just to make sure it brings in that extra $nK a
month.

You might also face the anti-scale issue - what if you do end up getting your
first 30 users, but it never really grows more than that?

You are now in a position to either believe in your product and push on it
without knowing that this is as big as it will get, or, have to face the
process of killing off something that 30 people now depend on in their
workflow.

If you're interested in more of this stuff, I give a talk on my story of going
from full time to solo product dev and have a video of available below.
Quality isn't great, but the audio and content is worthwhile.

[http://davekiss.com/through-the-backyard-shortcuts-for-
selli...](http://davekiss.com/through-the-backyard-shortcuts-for-selling-your-
side-project/)

Good luck!

~~~
k-mcgrady
The issues you point out are completely unrelated to passive income. If I'm in
a position where I have to support something just to make sure it brings in
the money I require it's not passive. Scale also isn't an issue. If I have 30
users and that makes the money I require it doesn't need to grow more than
that.

The point of passive income is that it makes you what you want with little to
no work. So for example a SaaS product that doesn't require too much
maintenance (a couple hours per week) netting you a few thousand $ per month.
Or outside of software a physical product that you source and then sell using
drop shipping so that people purchase products from you without you ever
getting involved.

~~~
massysett
"The point of passive income is that it makes you what you want with little to
no work. So for example a SaaS product that doesn't require too much
maintenance (a couple hours per week) netting you a few thousand $ per month."

So the point is to get something for nothing? Money without work? Everybody
wants that.

So what SaaS product requires little maintenance but nets a few thousand
dollars a month? Maybe something like that exists. But creating it would have
required considerable investment of time or money, which eliminates the
"little to no work" part.

Likewise for selling some physical product. Tons of people are doing this on
Amazon. It's not taking them much work. It's also not making them much money.

I think the OP's question just doesn't make much sense. The only reason
someone asks about "passive income" is because they want money without working
for it. I can think of only two ways to do that. One is to inherit it. One has
no control over that. The other is to build up political influence so one can
seek rents (in the economic sense.) Even this method requires some work
because it requires investment in capital or influence (neither of which is
easy.)

Some investors are said to get "passive income" but that's because they got
some money in the first place. Plus, they use resources to get more resources.
Buffett's income really can't be said to be "passive" when he spends time and
talent doing research and analysis.

Yeah one can get "passive income" by putting money in a bank or in stocks or
something. Good luck getting decent returns with that...which is why investors
are seeking out higher rates of return...which takes work...which, guess what,
is not "passive".

In short, "passive income" does not really exist. Unless someone is going to
give OP money through inheritance or dumb luck or Powerball, she's going to
have to get out and work for it like everyone else.

~~~
k-mcgrady
As jasonlotito points out I mean that after the initial investment, i.e the
creation of the product or system, you will generate money with little to no
involvement. You're likely going to have a few hours work a month with most
passive income streams but the point is, after development, you generate money
without focusing on it. For example: I created a simple iOS app that netted
~50k users. It generated about £1k per month and the only work I needed to do
on it was answer a few emails a month. You pointed out in your comment the
example of people selling physical products on Amazon. I know several people
making the majority of their income, passively, from that. So your 'it's also
not making them much money' comment, which you failed to back up, is wrong.
It's possible. For most people passive income doesn't need to be very much,
just a nice little supplement to their salary. For others it can be their
entire income and more than enough to live on.

------
hyperpallium
"passive income" means regular income that does not require your activity.
Common examples are bank interest, stock dividends, real estate rent,
copyright or patent royalities.

In the big picture, some activity is eventually required, it's just a matter
of time - books fall from favour, patents are superceded, even banks can go,
well, bankrupt. So it's a question of degree, and of how much return.

Of your suggestions, SaaS requires a lot of ongoing work. Most books and games
have hit or fad-like popularity - so a low chance of on-going income after you
are done.

Your "niche" idea is the best of the three - but it's completely dependent on
finding a niche that is under-served, and will continue to be under-serves.
That way, the income can continue for as long as the technical niche exists
(it eventually will be superceded, and perhaps the surrounding ecosystem also
swept away). The downside is you generally can't make _much_ money this way -
but you didn't ask for that, so it's fine. Remember the saying "you won't get
rich writing books".

So the tricky bit is choosing the niche with these market characteristics AND
that is personally easy/interesting/attractive to you and not to others.

BTW: I wrote a couple of chapters for a book, got a decent advance on
royalties, and IIRC about $4 royalities after that (most books don't "eat out
their advance"). This was on a technical topic, but not really niche.

A word on passive income: I succeeded in this with a software product... but
discovered that my life became about invoices, negotiating license terms and
international taxation law. I was so much happier actively developing!

Since you'll end up doing _something_ , I now think _active_ income has a lot
going for it! [Of course, you're only requesting some passive income, so this
may not occur.]

------
acesubido
Ebook is the most recommended, I know a lot of people that wrote books and got
something out of it. Even if it didn't sell well, they learned a lot while
writing said technical topic.

The other two requires a lot of marketing and business development more than
programming. The HN posts about side projects make it look like it's as easy
as `git push heroku master` and 'post on HN', but it's not. The successful
ones are outliers rather than the norm. Don't get me wrong, you'll also learn
a lot while writing your own game/SaaS. Finishing a game/SaaS on its own is a
big achievement no matter how small, but you did ask for a "Best passive
income method".

~~~
dante9999
> I know a lot of people that wrote books and got something out of it.

did they self-publish or went with some known publisher? what kind of money
can you make on ebooks?

~~~
acesubido
> did they self-publish or went with some known publisher?

My former boss self-published a book on Leanpub. For the "known publisher",
I'm a little acquainted with the author of "Docker High Performance" (Packt).

For the leanpub one, it was organically easy to get the word out through local
meetups and clients. Packt reached out to the "Docker High Performance" guy,
he reviewed a few books for them then they emailed him.

> What kind money can you make on ebooks?

For the people I mentioned, I can't say. But if you do get a good book out
with a good following you can hit Nathan Barry's numbers:

\- [http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-stats/](http://nathanbarry.com/app-
design-stats/)

\- [http://nathanbarry.com/designing-web-applications-2nd-
editio...](http://nathanbarry.com/designing-web-applications-2nd-edition/)

------
Uptrenda
You would be surprised how far a few hundred dollars spent on Adsense can take
you. It might take a little bit of practice before you figure out businesses
that are worth advertising but when you do -- you can get leads that pay 1000
- 100,000+ times what you're spending on Adsense (and even repeat customers.)

This is probably quite ordinary advice but as someone who hasn't done that
much marketing before -- I am still blown away by how effective search engine
advertising is. I feel like with just Adsense I could make virtually any
website profitable as long as it was cleanly designed and the margins were
high enough. After that, its really just rinse and repeat. Maybe throw in some
promotion on a few other channels and you've got yourself a solid business.

Advertising is practically modern day alchemy.

~~~
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The problem I have is how to promote my sites? Do I have an advantage if I
build sites in languages different from english?

~~~
iends
Usually, non-english sites have lower payouts but there is also less
competition generally.

------
andysinclair
I have a 4 iOS apps on the App Store, however only one of them makes
significant income, approx. $500 a month. It's a road traffic app for the UK
which I originally built to satisfy my own need - I searched the App Store and
all the apps I could find were either very clunky to use and not very
reliable.

So if you can find a niche, and improve the UI/UX on existing apps, then there
is definitely scope to make some "passive" income on the App Store. I put
passive in quotes as anything you do will require upfront time and effort and
also some ongoing support/updates.

In my case I spent a few months (evenings/weekends) building the app and now
spend a few hours each month either responding to support emails or fixing
bugs/releasing small updates.

Don't underestimate time for sales and marketing; whatever you decide to do
will require some form of promotion/marketing and getting the message out
there that you have built something. I regularly update a Twitter account for
the app as well as maintain a website showcasing the product.

Good luck in whatever you do.

[edit to mention sales/marketing].

~~~
calsy
People always target the wrong aspects when it comes to promotion of apps.
Websites and twitter accounts won't do much of anything to grow your app.

+60% of all app downloads are through app store search. You need to be
extremely diligent in optimising your keywords for both App Store and Google
Play. Products like sensor tower give you great tools to research high
traffic/low difficulty keywords. Then it's a matter of trial and error.

Better search results equals more downloads, more downloads equals high
ranking, high ranking equals more visibility. People are not going out of
their way to view app 'landing pages' I can tell you that.

------
Jach
Use your dev skills to get a high paying full time job, and dump your savings
into an index fund. Not very glamorous, but over time...

~~~
EvgeniyZh
i'd say diversified portfolio of stocks index, bonds index and, say, gold.

~~~
cheriot
Bonds returns are highly correlated with stock returns and gold gets eaten
away by inflation. For money you don't need to spend in the next 7 years (so
you can wait out a recession) it's hard to beat a stock index.

~~~
EvgeniyZh
"For example, a “simpleton’s portfolio” consisting of one quarter each U.S.
large stocks, U.S. small stocks, foreign stocks, and U.S. high-quality bonds
had a higher return, with much lower risk, than large U.S. stocks alone
(represented by the S&P 500 index). The S&P 500, in turn, performed better
than 75% of professional money managers over the same period." (c) W.J.
Bernstein, The Intelligent Asset Allocator, based on a study by T. Rowe Price,
from 1973 to 1992.

The gold was used as a replacement, because I'm not from US, and it worked
well for Russia, giving average yearly 48,9% compared to 24,4%, 31,5%, 28,1%
for stocks, bonds and gold for 1997-2009 period.

------
amnesthesia
I've thought about this as well but haven't come to a conclusion.

Some ideas I've had are:

* Website templates (i.e WordPress). Downside: Will require constant maintenance to stay up to date with latest versions, bug free, and, secure

* Apps. Downside: Very competitive field

* Very NICHE apps.

This last point, is what I think would be really useful. For example, there's
a sync for Fitbit / Apple Health. The guy who made it, has made two different
apps, one for each direction, and they both cost $7 each. If you want to sync
FROM Fitbit to Apple Health, that's $7. The other direction? Another $7. This
app does it well and because it's such a niche thing - only for Fitbit and
Android users who want their data into Apple Health or from Apple Health, it
seems to work.

The problem here is finding these niche areas where there's a void to fill -
these apps are so simple because it's basically just 2 UI controls (to/from
date, and a button) and then two API calls.

I'm now trying to think of these things whenever I end up in a situation where
I felt "damn, other people must want this too, why is there no simple app that
does this?"

~~~
SmurfJuggler
I would pay for an app that let me take a picture of the ground and circled
anything that looked like a 4-leafed clover.

~~~
amnesthesia
NICHE DETECTED

SPRINT PLANNING BEGINS NEXT WEEK

------
gremlinsinc
I'd think some good ideas would be use API's/WebScraping and build fresh
content stuff like Wallpaper sites, or Movie Reviews/Ticket Ordering Sites --
sure there's tons of showtime/movie sites -- but if you can get even a small
marketshare in google searches - you can earn a couple hundred a month.

You also could aggregate content from reddit subs into a site, or clone
ThisIsWhyImBroke.com -- but automate it via scraper/etc... and focus your
effort more on marketing using social media. In that case make money off
affiliate commissions.

You also could write a course for everything to do with Wordpress --from
setting up a domain to finding a host, etc---and promote your own hosting
service in the book -- signup as a reseller for hosting services and start a
small hosting business. Too many clients is obviously a drain on
time/resources to provide support but 100-1000 clients could bring in 3k per
month and take roughly 9-10 hours per week to support, and you can even hire
someone to help with that on a part-time basis. If you only do support via
ticket you'll save time as well. -- This was actually my plan, but I've been
working too hard at my day-job to focus much energy on this.

~~~
01230139120
Correct me if I'm wrong, but half of these suggestions seem to say: Steal
other people's content and become a search engine spammer.

~~~
Xiol
But if it's making you money, do you really care?

~~~
richrichardsson
If you have no morals, no.

------
andygor
> 4\. Create a SaaS product that solves a consumer or business problem in a
> given niche...

Like it. Let me share my story.

Six months ago i read articles how Buffer, Drip and ConvertKit started and got
an inspiration to do a SaaS project.

I love reading and trying to hack the process using different tools and
projects. Some of them worked, some not, but no one gave me back.

The question was: to make a reading habit? And i found an answer: bite-sized
reading — 5-10 minutes a day.

Next steps:

— i bought a domain
([https://bookcelerator.com/summary](https://bookcelerator.com/summary)) for
$12;

— hire a freelancer to craft summaries of books a want to read ($35/summary,
$70 total): «Zero to one» and «Hooked»;

— created accounts on Mailchimp and Paddle (payment provider);

— and launched an automation.

It took me 10 days to read summaries by myself, broken down into 5-minute
daily emails. Then i realized i really like the process and it helps me with
my reading habit. I posted a link and my story to Facebook and Twitter and got
first 4 clients from my network. Now Bookcelerator is $200 MRR in two months,
has 5 summaries to read (i will post 3 more on every weekend).

The problem is i don't know how to grow to $1k to quit my job and make it the
full-time project.

~~~
iamben
Check [https://www.blinkist.com/en/](https://www.blinkist.com/en/) as well - I
use these guys. Particularly pay attention to their 'pricing for teams'
option...

~~~
mikebotazzo
Look at their promotional video too [1], it’s very concise and goes straight
to the point, showing good examples of why using the application is worth.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWO-
Hedsr8E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWO-Hedsr8E)

------
calsy
When you have a 'wouldnt it be cool if there was an app' idea, write it down.
I use something like trello to collect ideas. Then i'll see if an idea is
feasible and discard or move forward with it, for e.g. Can I develop something
useful on my own, what are the competitor options like, what data do I need to
make this work.

If you feel like you can make something useful start working on it, day,
night, whenever, wherever. You only have so much time outside of work hours so
make them count. I have a few apps, most just 'exist' but one of them is now
earning $12K/month.

I work extremely hard on ASO and invest my own money into marketing through
normal channels (facebook/adwords).

I quit my job so I can just focus on my apps now. Im my own boss, I can push
out updates fast and I manage my own support. Finally moving out of the city
now to the coast, to a place much quieter with great views. People might say
i'm lucky but I don't. I had an idea and I built it well, i'll never say its
luck.

------
swanson
Free suggestion for an ebook/screencast: building an Android app that is not a
tutorial todo list using stock Android libraries. The book must cover
connecting to a web API (with Retrofit/Moshi/OkHttp), caching data locally
(Sqlite, correct lifecycle), correct usage of RxJava and/or message bus, unit
and functional testing, creating custom views (in lieu of fragments). These
are the tools and techniques that professional Android developers are using
but there are no good resources for them -- you have to piece things together
from one-off blog posts and sift through massive amounts of crap to find the
good stuff (Jake Wharton, Dan Lew, etc).

------
mseo
Do you know [https://www.indiehackers.com/](https://www.indiehackers.com/) ?
They have interviews with coders on their stories. Maybe it's a good
inspiration for you.

~~~
andygor
These new media is awesome.

------
dalacv
I'm making about $200 a month on Udemy for the last couple of years.

[https://teach.udemy.com/course-creation/hot-topic-
courses/](https://teach.udemy.com/course-creation/hot-topic-courses/)

If you know any topics in this list , you could easily make much more with a
well defined course

~~~
SmellTheGlove
Just for laughs I opened that link, figuring I'm really behind on emerging
tech since I'm basically a Fortune 500 lifer at this point (and not for a tech
firm). And there I see SAS on the list. That ancient dinosaur that I still use
and love.

I might need to give this a go. If my past 15 years are any indicator, a SAS
course wouldn't need much updating :)

------
hackerboos
I used to buy and sell domain names on Sedo.com - I'd hunt down good names on
SnapNames and NameJet. List them and just wait. Pulled in about $3000/year for
the last 4 years.

~~~
SinomaSo
I appreciate that you showed the whole process on how you are making money in
2 lines. Excellent. Thank you.

------
sheraz
Agree with @acesubido on the ebooks. In fact, I would abstract this to any
intellectual property that you can put into a marketplace. (books, apps,
designs, etc).

I have an old account at Zazzle.com where I throw up funny sayings and designs
from time to time (I'm not a designer).

It nets about $100/year from royalties and is completely passive.

I've met other people who make 10x that (they are designers).

~~~
shadowbit
do you advertise it in any way? or is it just organic traffic?

~~~
sheraz
purely organic. no advertising or social media promotion.

My stuff lives in the Zazzle store. Just like in all the other marketplaces.

For certain items to do optimize the keywords and headlines to make them a
little "click-baitish" :-)

All said, I've been thinking of making a script to auto-tweet and post to
certain places, but that takes real work.

~~~
spaceman00
currently working on an auto-tweet script. Takes some time, but worth it

------
erik
Games are a super competitive field. I wouldn't expect commercial success
unless you can clearly identify an undeserved market niche that you can fill.

Though of course market demand is also key in creating a successful ebook or
SaaS product. Of the ideas that you have for ebooks, SaaS products, and games,
which has the biggest unmet market demand?

------
callmeed
Buy a house/condo in a college town or near a military base and rent it out.

If you want _mostly_ passive, you can move the entire application, document,
and payment flow online (no paper, no mail, no deposits at the bank). You just
need to find a couple good contractors/handypersons. This is my approach.

If you want _purely_ passive, hire a property manager. But they will take
5-10% of your rent and sometimes a fee for new listings/leases. This is also
best if you aren't in proximity to your rental.

Obviously, paying cash is best but if you can put enough down, you can make it
work as long as mortgage+taxes+expenses < rent (I'm simplifying, I know). Also
depends on how long interest rates stay this low.

------
cantbecool
My recommendation is to find a small niche and run with it. I generate a very
small amount, just enough to cover hosting and internet bills with my niche
meta movie torrent search engine
[https://moviemagnet.net](https://moviemagnet.net)

~~~
mrswag
Why is Donald Trump in the cast of home alone?

~~~
cantbecool
This is for you: [https://youtu.be/YXE3Ku-mGrk](https://youtu.be/YXE3Ku-mGrk)

~~~
mrswag
Ooh thank you, I thought it was somehow added to the database by a troll.

~~~
k__
Home Alone 2 is about a boy abandoned by liberal parents who meets an American
hero!

#TrumpExplainsMoviePlots

------
vladdanilov
My actual experience with making commercial design plugins for Photoshop and
Sketch ([http://designplugins.com/](http://designplugins.com/)):

1\. Exporting image assets from Photoshop, <$100 in 6 months, >1 year of work
on and off

2\. Optical adjustments in Sketch, <$1000 in 2 months, ~1 week of work

3\. Exporting ICNS/ICO from Sketch, <$50 in 1 month, ~1 week of work

~~~
charlesdm
So, I would consider 1 and 3 a failure. But have you considered raising the
price for Optically? $1000 in 2 months equals ~110 units sold at $9. If people
go through the trouble to buy/install a plugin, my guess is it's a large
enough problem they'd be willing to pay $29 or $49 as well.

I once increased the price of an iPhone app I had built from $2,99 to $4,99
and I lost exactly 0 sales due to that. Revenue just doubled (an extra few
thousand dollars per month). I bet you $10 your revenue will increase
significantly!

~~~
vladdanilov
It could have helped probably. There are plugins still charging $20-30+. But
the recent trend is free and quality plugins around services and other tools.
So that price felt right.

------
maaaats
This isn't "passive income", this is a side-gig. Yes, it may in time generate
recurring revenue that you could consider passive, but probably it wont be ("I
only have to answer a few mails a day and develop stuff every weekend!")

------
danmaz74
A long time ago I created a free website/service to play with scenarios and
forecasts for variable-rate mortgages - it was specifically for the Italian
and Spanish markets (where those kinds of mortgages are very common).
Monetization was only adsense and one affiliation program. I made around
$100/month for at least 3 years, with almost 0 maintenance and just some SEO
work - until the server broke down, and I was too busy with other projects to
set it up again.

Don't know if the same approach would work today with falling ads revenue, but
having something that is completely free to use has the advantage that there
is no customer support and no stress.

------
po1nter
Similar thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10726489](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10726489)

------
webrender
I'm surprised no one here has mentioned Amazon or eBay arbitrage. Completely
legal and you can create a script to do the work for you.

~~~
wordpressdev
any examples?

~~~
webrender
[https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/278622](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/278622)

~~~
wordpressdev
Thanks for sharing. I don't have Amazon or eBay in my country. Not sure if I
can start a business like this.

~~~
bakli
Then you should start a local amazon or ebay for your country!

------
tomtemplate
I've often thought about writing some website templates which could then be
sold through a marketplace such as wrapbootstrap or themeforest. I've been too
busy to invest any time into this, but would be interested to hear if anyone
else has had success doing this.

~~~
acesubido
I've done some.
[https://wrapbootstrap.com/user/acesubido](https://wrapbootstrap.com/user/acesubido).
In it's lifetime across 3 years I got around 5000USD~. Back then when
bootstrap was still new it was lucrative to write website templates, since it
was easy and there were few templates going around (circa 2012-2013). The
process was:

\- Look for a famous template

\- Rewrite it in bootstrap

\- Get it approved

As of 2016, the front-end ecosystem has grown big. Material Design and other
UI/UX innovations (fancy modals, fancy sidebars, scrolling animations, etc.).
This causes the market/buyers to look for themes that will allow them to look
like the next AirBNB or Google. Theme marketplaces are looking for
bootstrap/foundation templates jacked full with these javascript libraries and
fancy stuff, increasing the barrier to entry for stuff to get approved.

Here was my experience writing a template last year:

I spent 2 months of weekends and weeknights to scout out the competition and
worked on an admin theme. Made it with fancy charts, animations and a few
javascript libraries embedded in that the market would probably want. I
proceed to try and get it approved. Then, I found out I'll have to fight
through other big agencies that crank out these themes like pancakes for a
living while they price it 20-30% lower than mine. These agencies also sell
these themes in other marketplaces that make them very popular choices over
others since they can support customizations and what not.

~~~
vijayr
Do you have link to the template?

------
farorm
I can just talk from my own experience. I have a mobile app in a very specific
niche, that is used when people tune in their tv antennas. Typically gross
about 100$/month took 5hours to build and I have not made an update in 3years.
Maybe those types of incomes are to small for you but you gotta start
somewhere. So my tip is mobile utility apps, they don't go out of style as
quick. You wont get rich but its a nice additional income!

~~~
jimlawruk
Sounds interesting. What is it?

~~~
farorm
It's an app that shows you the direction to the nearest radio tower. You
basically turn it on and it points to the nearest one, with a compass so you
know the direction to point your antenna in. I have only done it in Sweden so
far, so feel free to develop a similar app in your country ;)

~~~
jfoster
Do you know much about how/why people find your app? When playing with a TV
antenna, I wouldn't think to search for an app that could help. Seems like you
are getting plenty of people finding it, though.

------
krzrak
> ebook in a niche technical topic

It won't get you much passive income, if the topic is very niche. If it is
more popular, there's bigger competition, so you have to be lucky.

I wrote a technical book (ebook + paperback) in veeery niche technical topic
(and it's the only book on this topic on the market), got one-time moderate
paycheck from the publisher and that was it. If the book gets me any passive
income it will be just a few buck a month, not earlier than in 2-3 years (when
the book will be obsolete anyway...)

What I earned was invaluable experience and some insight into how I work and
how I can improve it, but that's it.

------
nicholas73
I get $100 per year with [http://sudokuisland.com](http://sudokuisland.com)

Throw me a bone, brogrammers, and add my sudoku widget to your site so it
counts as a link to Google.

------
anupshinde
Same here - looking for some advice to generate a modest passive income
source. I am a freelance web developer and have delivered some awesome SaaS
products (both solo and as a team) in the last few years. And have been around
for 12 years.

But when it comes to starting my own thing, I just get stuck - unsure what to
start at. I used to blog based on unique problems, and have pretty much given
up on it as its not that passively-rewarding unless one likes doing keyword
based blogs. It does help getting more work which I don't want as of now.

------
favoriteof
$5-$10/mo from [http://favoriteof.com](http://favoriteof.com) \- It has been
passive for almost 2 years now.

------
_jdams
I have an idea for a blog that could also easily be an ebook or video series
of tutorials. So, which comes first? Wouldn't it be easier and smarter to
release free content on a blog and build up a following while capturing emails
for a newsletter before creating a marketing/landing page for ebook/video
tutorial sales?

Are there any good resources or plans available I can follow from people who
have already done this?

------
programminggeek
Work your ass of building and promoting something useful and charge money for
it.

------
progx
None of them are really passive. E.G. an ebook is a lot of work and you need
much time to write a good book, especially on a niche.

And when you have it, how long could it be sold, until the technical thing is
outdated?

A SaaS must be updated from time to time, bugs must be fixed ....

A mobile web based game is much work too.

A 100% passive income is really hard to find. Do something you like and try to
sell parts of it (ebook, blog, saas, game, whatever).

------
wordtoyourmom
Focus on getting better at your regular job. Raises and bonuses will outweigh
any "easy" money over time.

------
emjoes1
In regards to games, you may also want to look at alternative stores than just
Google/Apple.

[https://itch.io/developers](https://itch.io/developers)

There also seems to be a healthy market for game assets (3D models, textures,
etc.) and multiple stores you can sell them in.

[http://www.turbosquid.com/](http://www.turbosquid.com/)
[https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/](https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/)

In regards to tutorials I have noticed many people using Patreon. Some seem to
be making a decent passive income.

[https://www.patreon.com/catlikecoding](https://www.patreon.com/catlikecoding)

------
orasis
Passive income is hard, becoming an AirBnB host is easy. In July I made $5700
on my 3 bd house in a tourist town.

If you're a solo developer you likely have the flexibility to get kicked out
of your house when you have a guest.

------
sebslomski
There's lots of good advice in here. Don't underestimate what it takes to
build a successful, sustainable SaaS business.

My #1 advice: Learn more about the stock market. Read blogs about ETFs and how
to invest passive.

~~~
eterps
I haven't seen many (good) blogs about ETFs, any suggestions?

~~~
baccredited
Two tickers are all you need. Put 90% in VOO (S&P 500 index fund) and 10% in
BND. Rebalance once a year and keep adding every dollar you can spare. This is
what Warren Buffet advises should be done with his money after he dies.

Here is a good blog:
[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/)

He actually puts his money in betterment.com which is another strategy that
works.

------
Mizko
It really depends on what skills you're equipped with. I think building a
product or course is only 50% of the work.

How comfortable are you with marketing? I truly believe being able to market a
product effectively is where the game is. Evident in the Rdio and Spotify case
study.

I think a subscription based SaaS or community powered product would work best
with your skills. However this requires a lot of work, however it would
definitely pay off in the long run.

In the end, think about problems that are evident in your life and just try
solve those. You'll go along way with passion.

------
gargalatas
Alternatively you can work on freelancer.com There are many rivals but surely
you can take a small job in 1-2 weeks. After that it will be much more easy to
have a steady income whenever you wish.

~~~
kbart
Online freelancing service is usually race to the bottom as you have to
compete with people from all other the world. For many of them, 100$ is a lot
of money. I've done few projects this way then gave up, it's simply not worth
the time. If you are willing to invest so much time, getting a part time job
might be a better idea.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It's worth it if you can find the right niche and stick to very small
projects. I do a few hours writing code for people all over the world (my most
frequent client is in Dubai) each week that works out to around $40-$60/hour
and it's fun. Larger projects come in closer to $100/hour.

It's the kind of thing I'd be doing as a hobby anyway, but I get paid for it.

Hint: avoid the freelancer sites and instead hang out on developer/hobby code
sites. You'll soon see that there are a fair number of people asking for help
and are willing to pay, but most of the experienced developers just make fun
of them. That's your opportunity! It's amazing how much money you can make by
just being nice.

~~~
tomdeleu
Care to elaborate on the hobby sites? I can't imagine these kinds of deals
happening on Stackoverflow to just name an example.

------
lucaspiller
Probably not the sexy answer you are looking for (i.e. "using my abilities"),
but if you have enough free capital (for the mortgage deposit) buying a house
and renting it out is a pretty good option.

Depending on where you are you can get 5% - 15% ROI/year, and if you pay
someone else to manage it, it'll be very little work.

Compared to creating something from scratch and selling it, this is much more
likely to pay off, and most likely requires less work up front.

~~~
amelius
Why is this possible? Shouldn't the market automatically eliminate such easy
income? Can an economist explain this?

~~~
patrickk
A few off the top of my head:

\- Not everyone wants to lock themselves into long term mortgages, renting
keeps their future options open

\- Getting a deposit together for some is tricky

\- Risk-adverse attitudes to getting mortgages after 2008

\- Outside the US and the English speaking world, renting is quite popular,
perhaps the default option, e.g. continental Europe. Therefore the demand is
quite high for renting and lower for buying

The real question is, why aren't banks and hedge funds moving into this area,
using their clout to access cheap financing and then buying attractive
properties en mass and renting them out. This would take advantage of the
current low interest rate environment.

~~~
conjectures
Banks are involved. In the UK most buy to let landlords use mortgages to buy
properties.

\- The banks earn interest on these mortgages.

\- The landlords foot the first $deposit of losses on a bad choice.

\- The banks don't have to pay legal fees or stamp duty during the
transaction.

\- The banks don't have to hire scouts to find suitable properties, or
management fees to run them.

I'd say they're probably doing quite well out of it.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Indeed. If you require a mortgage for BTL, you're effectively just an agent
for the bank. You take all the risk and pay the up-front costs, and the bank
gets a good return for signing off a few forms.

BTL has been a good deal for the last few years, but it's getting squeezed now
by tax changes. It looks like a sure thing but it really isn't, because
profitability is very dependent on:

1\. Tenant quality. One bad tenant can wipe out a few months of income.

2\. Tax changes. The trend in the UK is clearly not in favour of landlords.

3\. Interest rate changes. A good chunk of BTL property is overleveraged, and
a change of a couple of percent will make it unprofitable. This seems unlikely
now, but I think it's quite possible after Brexit a few years from now.

4\. Legal changes, including rent controls and tenancy terms. We haven't had
much of this in the UK, but it could happen with a different government.

5\. Expenses. Insurance and replacement can take a gross rate of 5% down to a
net rate of much less.

Some of these are UK-specific. But it seems likely that AirBnB is a better bet
for property in a good location.

------
ballbrian
Learn how to systematize - even if it just means a checklist + calendar -
marketing tasks. You can have a great product, but without eyeballs, you can't
have sales. Then, create something with a clear value proposition. That is, if
they buy / use your product, the $99 the invest will easily save them $1,000
in lost time or lost opportunity.

------
j45
Creating a 100% passive income is much harder than a <100% reasonably-passive
income.

Of the option you listed, creating a SaaS that is in responsive web design for
a niche B2B business need is a great bet for the first business. As long as
you can have the discipline to shut up and listen to the paying customers
needs first instead of taking stabs in the dark.

------
ninjaa
Google Apps Referral pays the referrer $1 per month per account AFAIK ...
needs only to be refreshed every 12 months.

------
joshontheweb
I've never done this but I always hear that wordpress plugin/theme developers
do well with passive income.

------
tarkusso
great thanx! for very interesting topic and valuable input. I got a few
"niche" ideas and I have found out that doing a Saas is a real pain especially
in the terms of attracting some users/traffic. Doing a Saas is good due to
gaining knowledge and experience but marketing and promoting is very
painful.E.g. I am working on anonymous messaging & password generation web &
mobile app [http://anolog.net](http://anolog.net) unfortunately it is too
niche product and almost nobody ( except my son, his girlfriend and me ) gets
the idea.

~~~
turtles
Some honest feedback. I can see you put a fair bit of effort into making this.
However, I don't fully understand the idea and this is a big problem.

From what I do understand is I can create passwords using this, and write
anonymous messages. 1, why wouldn't I use a simpler password generator in a
password storing app. 2, why wouldnt I just post on a forum with an anonymous
account.

In addition to this, the gui is not obvious and does not flow well.

I'd suggest personally investigating these points further, for learning
purposes. Then each time you come up with a new idea, Google the crap out of
it and see if anyone else has made anything similar, or if you could do it
better. Both of these points could have essays around them! This will
drastically help you assess your market before putting in a lot of time to
build something.

I've been in your position a number of times.

~~~
tarkusso
Great thanx for honest feedback! IMHO both features have some useful use cases
and I have put an effort to convince myself that this is good idea. Let me
explain and present some use cases. 1\. password - you forgot everything and
you do not have your mobile with your pass manager, but you remember your
favourite rockband, actor etc. You do not have to remember your critical
password just start typing your favorite band name and you will see the
wikipedia article , so your favourite rockband will be converted to your
password. Also you can write down on the paper sheet just a first words of the
lyrics of your favourite rockband you will get the idea how to reproduce your
password. 2\. anonymous messages - let's imagine your are driving and you are
receiving a phone call from your new customer. You cannot write down his email
and contact details - you are driving! So you ask him plz drop me a message
under my favourite rockband, composer, actor... ( choose the most convenient
scenario ) with your contact details. anolog.net uses easy to remember
associations ( instead of hard to remember URL's and unique identifiers )
which are easy to transfer during conversation without typos. Thank you for
honest feedback!

------
akrymski
So not only do developers want to make money doing things they enjoy, they now
also want to do it without putting in much effort? I wonder how long this
bubble will last.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...like any other capitalist. Factory owners rarely build any widgets.

~~~
j45
Factory owners often start with the financial resources to do so

------
aaron695
Saas - the service bit doesnt sound passive

Technical book - sounds like it might get out of date quickly so perhaps also
not passive

This gets asked a lot on hn you might benefit going through the search.

------
garettmd
If you want _truly_ passive income, throw your money into a Betterment account
and watch while your money grows.

------
eli
I think you'd be better off taking an occasional contract gig.

------
douche
Real estate. Landlording can be a sweet, sweet revenue stream, and with the
right tenants, almost no work can be involved, other than cashing the checks.

~~~
amnesthesia
^^^ this. But this requires capital to even begin. I've considered buying an
apartment in a country way cheaper than where I live, and AirBnB'ing it, and
paying someone to manage cleaning and key exchange.

In some countries you can get a central apartment for $35k, and a normal wage
is $600 per month. If you manage to rent it out on AirBnB for $6-700 per
weekend or so (what I paid for an AirBnB in one such country last week with 5
people in a large central apartment), you could make nice profits.

Even renting it out to someone over long term would be profitable; lower
profit (potentially) but less risk (definitely)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Renting is negative cash flow for years, in most markets. Its an investment,
but you have to start with significant cash.

