
Ask HN: What are the good old ideas that still make money on the web? - spIrr
HN, i'm wondering, are there still any ideas from the ages of web 1.0 that are still working? For example, software license key stores etc. I feel like there are many of ones i couldn't think of as being still profitable. HN, i want some heavy TIL experience, please help me! :)
======
patio11
Not good ideas but lucrative: porn, pills, casinos, rebelling fraud, diet
scams, Make Money Online, etc etc.

Oldies which add value and continue to make money: affiliates (travel,
mortgage, credit cards, insurance, etc continue to print money, though
barriers to entry are much higher than they once were). Lead gen remains a
multibillion dollar industry.

There are _many_ companies with six/seven/eight figure sales of unsexy
software, not all of which is SaaS on a monthly basis yet. (Though it probably
should be :) ). Time tracking, invoicing, collaboration, and all the other
usual suspects for freelancers each support more than a dozen companies.
Business productivity/communication/collaboration tools. There are thousand
niche things you'd never think of if you didn't love a vertical to death.
(e.g. Solving the problems of multi property landlords... with software.
There's one guy whose supports four families with a _very_ specialized
spreadsheet wrapped in a Swing app.)

Traditional web page hosting continues to make money. (Not everyone loves
VPSes or AWS. Your local bakery has to get on the net somehow...) There are
ecosystems around e.g. wordpress themes and shopping carts for getting the
Fortune Five million on the Internet. These support marketplace sites,
affiliates, etc etc.

Niche publishing plus ads remains lucrative in many sectors. If you dominate
the Internet for Christmas cookie recipes, that is about equivalent to a full-
time job as a cookbook author. Every similarly sized field of human endeavor
makes someone the 68% that Google isn't taking.

E-commerce still exists. Pick something you can buy: fishing rods, for
example. Someone makes a living selling fishing rods online, I'll guarantee
you.

~~~
bilbo0s
I know this may sound like a dumb question...

But is it true that people still make money in porn online?

When is that business going to dry up? Aren't there 50 bazillion porn sites
already? They can't all make money.

I know this is a sample size of one...but I don't pay for porn.

~~~
streptomycin
If nobody made money on porn, no new porn would be made. But there is tons of
new porn being made. That money comes from somewhere.

~~~
flomo
My impression is that's largely a nickle-and-dime business (at least on the
production side), but the lifestyle attracts people.

------
DanielBMarkham
I'm going to say something trite, then try to explain it.

"Ideas are useless"

A business is a combination of dozens of little ideas supporting a large one.
The large one could be anything. Maybe it's a "good old idea." Maybe it's
something new and freaky.

Doesn't matter. You get zero useful information from the large idea. It's the
dozens of supporting ideas -- the execution model -- where the money is.

So you can take something done to death and make really good money off of it.
Or something totally new and unique that people might want -- and screw it up.
(Most likely screw it up in either case.)

Maybe a better question would be "Which broad categories of web money-making
ideas are hard to screw up?"

I'd be interested in that one too. :)

From many years of HN-watching, I find lots of folks more than willing to blog
and go on at length about the broad-but-useless ideas. It's extremely rare
that you actually get a peak into how the cookies are made.

~~~
spIrr
Thank you, this would be a better title for the question i was essentially
thinking of. :)

------
toumhi
I quitted my job 1 year ago and basically set out to make my own living on the
Internet. I went from making an adsense-supported website offering free gift
certificate templates to a Body Mass Index calculator with affiliate revenue,
an online guide to help choose travel insurance, and now a SAAS offering for
sending large files for small companies.

All of these websites make money to some extent. However I found the process
of developing niche websites not to be too enjoyable (lots of focus on
specialized content, nitty-gritty of building links for SEO etc) which is why
I now try to focus on the SaaS file sharing solution.

If you want some money on the side, then niche sites are a good way to educate
yourself on how to do it. On the matter of how to choose a specific niche, I
found the ebook by Rob Walling (start small and stay small) to be a real eye-
opener : <http://www.startupbook.net/>

Also, I would recommend you to check out <http://www.flippa.com> every week or
so. You can see which websites are selling, and try to understand why they're
successful and hopefully using this knowledge to advance your own ideas.

~~~
yogrish
Flippa is useless and Lot of cheating happens. I am a victim of it. Will write
a blog on it later. But stay away from it. IMO, warrior Forum and DP Forum are
best places for buying/selling.

~~~
toumhi
I haven't actually bought anything or sold anything there. But I check it once
in a while to see how fast people have developed profitable websites, in which
niche, using which link building methods, etc.

IMO it's valuable knowledge for somebody who wants to make money on the web.

------
cheez
Um, depends on how you define making money. Is $60K making money? What if I
told you that the author puts in less than 5 hours a month to make $60K a
year? Is that making money?

If that is your definition, then the answer is "everything". If your
definition is "lots of money" then the answer is, as always, very few things
which are a lot of hard work.

~~~
spIrr
Tell us more about that 5 hour per month thing, please. You know, a lot of
people from developing countries, including myself, find $60k a very big pile
of money.

~~~
csomar
That person makes $60K/year from 5hours/month but you can't imitate him. It's
not really time = money. He is using some kind of personal/company brand that
took years to build. There is value, but it's not in the time he is putting.

Okay. An example: Spend 10 years building knowledge and reputation on some
field and become really good at it. Then give a one monthly paid talk at some
conferences. That goes $5K/talk. Pretty much achievable. You can even make
more, depending on the experience and value you bring.

~~~
cheez
Nope. Not even close. Anyone on here could write it in two days but they'd all
dismiss it because it's too small minded.

------
csomar
As an Internet citizen, there goes my 2012 bill estimates

\- Desktop Software (around $1,000)

\- Hosting + Domains (around $300)

\- SaaS (around $50)

\- Mobile Apps* (around $5)

That should give you an idea where my money goes. I still believe that desktop
software has lots of potential. Especially, when your target market is
educated about purchasing a license. You eliminate the server costs and their
data maintenance.

*My (probably) only purchase will be for AirSync (doubleTwist) on Android.

~~~
pragmatic
> I still believe that desktop software has lots of potential.

Shhhh... don't let anyone in on the secret. :-)

I'm glad that everyone is now looking at the mobile space for the next pot of
gold. More room to maneuver in the desktop space (where many companies spend
most of their money each year).

------
HeyLaughingBoy
If you're looking for a product idea; here's one that I have thought of since
it's something that both I and enough other people have wanted that I think
it's profitable.

A _simple_ invoicing and shipping application, SAAS at a fairly low rate for
tiny businesses.

You need to be able to enter customer data and product/service info, generate
a nice, printable invoice and envelope and also offer the option to email the
invoice. On the ship side, it should print out a packing list and a shipping
label. Bonus points if it an print USPS postage paid labels, or FedEx, or UPS.

A very simple app to be sure (so why the hell haven't I done a basic version
for myself yet but still keep doing it manually???) but I've seen enough
people online looking for this that I'm convinced it's worthwhile. Go build it
and make millions with my blessing!

~~~
hrayr
You should look into <http://www.freshbooks.com/> I use this for my invoicing
needs, and they do offer to send paper invoice as you describe. They have
awesome customer service and the people behind the company are great too, I
think they send a cake to a randomly selected new subscriber every month.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I have tried Freshbooks. Nice service, but it only does the invoicing part,
leaving me to do the packing list + labelling myself. The service I
want/should program myself does both automatically.

~~~
hrayr
Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly but Freshbooks has a service that
will print out the invoice, pack it, and send a physical envelope to the
client on your behalf. You don't need label or pack, they will do this for you
for an additional charge.

------
Tyrant505
My college roommate and I embarked on a social network(elephantunderground) to
change the way people collaborate/share/media online. This was before RoR and
much of the web advances. It was more ambitious than we were able to handle
honestly. Then we created yourbarguide. A bar scene type yelp social network
competing with Yelp but we could not monetize. He went on to create an online
store called Revzilla and is CRUSHING IT. Selling Motorsport gear. Found a
nitch(there were no real competitors), had the knowhow, and is growing like a
weed. Sell something, drop ship, and grow!

~~~
danneu
My 21-year-old roommate sells security devices on a website he updates in
Dreamweaver. Parts of it break on my 9" screen. Makes good money.

------
user24
With certain audiences, forums are still popular and profitable. For example
<http://candlepowerforums.com> is still _the_ place to go for advice on
flashlights, and has a thriving marketplace and following.

~~~
yabai
Wow. I can't believe there is forum dedicated to flashlights!

~~~
spIrr
On the other hand, flashlights are not that cheap, if you think of a decent
xenon/led light in the middle to upper class. So have to think a bit before
you make your choice about a flashlight.

~~~
thechut
If you think flashlights are expensive. Go checkout CPF, it will blow your
mind. I was a member for quite a while, and those people SERIOUSLY love their
flashlights.

Flashlight porn:
[http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j95/schiesz/XR19%20Ti%20PD...](http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j95/schiesz/XR19%20Ti%20PD/Ti-
Xr19-PD-Proto.jpg) [SFW]

~~~
lytfyre
Assuming that's the flashlight I think it is (mcgizmo haiku?) - it's actually
a bit of an interesting response to this question in its own right.

AFAICT, mcgizmo is one guy, who builds ultra high end flashlights. I believe
his only sales channel is the aforementioned candlepower forums. He seems to
do rather well with it. HDS systems is another flashlight maker that's one
guy. Not as high end as mcgizmo (they run up to about $200). He even has his
own (design circa 98) website. And it's apparently working for him - orders
were backed up for weeks when I ordered mine.

A few people, making a product for an extremely narrow niche.

~~~
thechut
You're right that its a McGizmo, and one of the more coveted Titanium models.
I believe that light retails for about $699. On the CPF secondary market it
could easily go for more than that. There are also a couple other business
that sell parts and accessories for custom flashlights who survive almost
solely from the patronage of CPF members. See The Sandwich Shoppe:
<http://theledguy.chainreactionweb.com/index.php> [Warning: Truly terrible
design]

The more I think about it people will dump tons of money into their very niche
hobbies. And the internet has only recently given people with niche interests
a place to gather and hawk their projects and products. Look at how successful
Kickstarter has been, doing something similar. I don't have any idea how much
money Kickstarter itself is making, but they have certainly enabled people to
make a decent profit on their projects that may otherwise never see the light
of day.

I agree there is certainly money to be made in these extremely narrow niche
markets, but is it really a sustainable living? I ran a couple projects
selling flashlights or flashlight pieces on CPF, and I always broke even or
made money, but I certainly couldn't have made a living doing it.

I've never seen McGizmo's financials, but I assume he makes a good chuck of
change. However, I think he is the exception. He has set himself apart from
everyone else and can charge whatever he wants. Maybe thats an answer to the
original question in its own way too. But I really think people like McGizmo
and PhotonFanatic make flashlights because they love flashlights, so its ok if
they aren't making a ton of money doing it, but if they do, even better. I
guess you can just lump this argument in with the do what you love crowd. but
heh

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I think you're absolutely right. I've been a CPF member for a few years and I
look at people like McGizmo and their flashlights as artists and their art.
They work hard at producing something they enjoy creating and once in a while
someone with lots of money purchases one. It's an enjoyable way to make a
living, but you probably won't get rich doing it.

IOW, just the kind of thing I would love doing :-)

------
jbuzbee
I have a little bit of a funny story regarding web 1.0. In 1996 or so, my then
grade-school age son put up a web page on one of my sites with his then
favorite subject, the Goosebumps book series. Somewhere along the line, I
helped him add a few ads and he maintained the page for a bit, but he
eventually lost interest. Now, 16 years later the page hasn't been touched for
at least 11-12 years, but it continues to bring in a couple of bucks per month
from the ads. And my son went on to get a job at Google. So, good investment
all the way around!

~~~
spIrr
Nice stories for your son to share with his grandsons.

------
callmeed
I'll repeat some of the other answers here, while giving examples from my own
company and industry. I'll provide numbers when possible.

You can still make money by taking: (a) a moderately-sized vertical (excluding
_hackers & developers_)

(b) and doing any/all of the following:

\- Web hosting

\- Email newsletters

\- Forums

\- SEO

\- Publishing tools (web & print)

\- Ecommerce

Ok, now details from my own industry (professional and semi-professional
photography).

 _Web hosting_ : at BIG Folio, we provide web hosting for photographers. We
host the sites we build as well as WordPress blogs. We charge $20/month with
very low space/bandwidth limits. If we tried to be a generic host, there's not
way we could compete with GoDaddy at those prices. But in a vertical, people
don't mind. Even though we use expensive, managed servers from Rackspace, our
margins are really good.

 _Email newsletters_ : Take a look at Photojojo's ad rates:
<http://photojojo.com/advertising/>. $6K for a 1-week sponsorship.

 _Forums_ : We advertise on one paid forum that is focused on only wedding and
portrait photography (a vertical of a vertical). They have roughly 5,000
members that pay $100/year + they get good advertising rates and run an annual
convention. You can do the math on that.

 _SEO_ : If you know SEO and/or social media, my guess is you could easily
make $50K or more by publishing an ebook on "SEO & Social Media for [insert
vertical]". I published a DVD on SEO for photographers a few years ago. I
pressed 1,000 copies at Discmakers and sold them all within 18 months ... for
$79/each. <http://photographyseo.com>

_Publishing tools_ : This could be anything from website tools/CMSs, WordPress
themes, or even tools for printing (yes, people still print stuff). One of our
competitors just sells a "WordPress theme for photographers" ... they get $200
for a theme that is no better than themes you buy for $29 on Theme Forest. I
know people that sell Photoshop templates for borders, albums and greeting
cards. In my recent foray into restaurant tools, I've notice that a lot of
people search for restaurant menu templates (the kind you print). I could go
on and on in this section, but just know that people have all sorts of
web/print/mobile/social publishing needs and are willing to pay for it.

 _Ecommerce_ : Not selling things directly but helping people sell things and
taking a fee. We do this at NextProof (nextproof.com). We take 7-12% of sales
and _it's the lowest I know of in the space_. The forum I mentioned above has
a classified ad section and it's one of the few places I trust to find used
camera gear. People are used to giving Apple 30% and Groupon 50% of their
sales. I think there's lots of room to monetize (either through fees or ads) a
vertical sales platform, classified system, or "Shopify for [insert
vertical]".

~~~
pastaking
Hey ed, you briefly mentioned your foray into restaurant tools. I'm interested
in this area - can you elaborate a bit more on what restaurant tools are
lacking in your opinion, or in general, what problems restaurants are facing?

~~~
callmeed
It's been tough, so far. All I can tell you is that (a) restaurant owners have
ZERO time to learn or use new tools and (b) they just want to get more people
in the door.

What blew me away was hearing that restaurants in my town are getting hit with
2 to 5 people _per day_ trying to sell them on some coupon or daily deal gig.
And I don't even live in a big city!

I've gotten decent traction on the website front so far (cilantrosites.com)
but I've also run into some language barrier issues (a lot of ethnic
restaurants with ESL owners). I've tried coupon subscriptions (think BirchBox
meets Groupon) but none of them wanted to give up 2-for-1 coupons. Next I'm
trying some Facebook page tools ... seems promising so far (we've got 2
customers at $99/mo and several leads this week).

------
olalonde
Not sure if it's still profitable but I used to know a few people who would
rent dedicated servers and sell shared PHP hosting to small businesses. See
<http://www.webhostingtalk.com>, <http://forums.cpanel.net/forum.php> and
<http://www.directadmin.com/forum/>.

~~~
Monotoko
I tried this and couldn't really get off the ground... it's a very saturated
market, do you mind sharing any ideas?

~~~
handzhiev
Go vertical, even if it's all just a web host in behind. For example "Web
hosting for dental cabinets". Of course something with value added over the
host may work better

------
executive
\------Ads------

Content | Ads

~~~
user24
Confirmed. I make $100 per month with this exact formula on my blog, which I
update about once every 2 months.

~~~
prawn
One of my smaller sites is like this. Five short pages, about 30 page views
per day, and makes $100+/month. I haven't changed the content in a couple of
years.

Have got another that makes 20-30x that and I spend no time on it.

~~~
yogrish
wow.can I check those sites to get some idea?

------
rhplus
TechCrunch profiled a company called Mind Candy recently that is dominating a
market in the UK you might not immediately think of a big money spinner:
social gaming for 6-10 year olds.

The money comes from subscriptions and... merchandising. Lots and lots
merchandising. To the tune of $100 million dollars last year and growing.

[http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/11/moshi-monster-madness-in-
wh...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/11/moshi-monster-madness-in-which-i-get-
a-snookums-tattoo/)

------
nandemo
Selling pet food.

~~~
patio11
Someone seems to think nandemo is joking, so to clarify, there exists at least
one HNer whose business does sell pet food over the Internet. They tried to
hire me at one point.

Yeah yeah, pets.com blew up. Banks have gone bankrupt before, too: that
doesn't mean banking can't make money.

~~~
nandemo
Yes. There was nothing especially wrong about the idea of selling pet food
online then; another company started by selling books (a worse idea if you ask
me) and they did go fairly well.

That's not to say that it's a good idea to start an online pet food business
now. By now the margins must be pretty low. But it is an "old" idea for which
the market is still big.

~~~
Retric
The problem Pets.com had was trying to build a billion dollar company selling
pet food online. There is nothing wrong with selling pet food today as long as
you stay lean and focus on the niche items and or bulk.

Exotic pet food (Squids) + supply's + information. Bulk shipments of food +
breeder information for show dogs.

PS: I have a friend who has been making good money selling cookies online.
It's a classic small business with a few workers in a low cost of living area,
and it's been steadily growing for a while now.
(<http://www.thebestcookie.com/>) There secret IMO is simply high quality and
high minimum order sizes.

~~~
spIrr
If i understand you correctly, one does have to pick a big industry, pick a
niche, (sell in bulk,) combine it with something else to add more value
compared to similar products?

~~~
Retric
All companies make money by adding value, the goal is to maximize value
created while minimizing the cost and then benefit by charging people based on
that gap. The niche is really the type of value your creating and you need to
pick a niche is the correct size for your needs and capital. There is a world
of difference between the ideal niche for a collage student trying to make
some beer money, an unemployed coder trying to make rent, and 3 collage
friends who just got 2 million in funding. The smaller the company the more
nuanced it's approach and the smaller the niche, can be. What might look like
a product feature to Microsoft may support 5 different tiny software companies
all going after different angles.

The specifics relate to the market and the kinds of product sold. You are not
going to make money shipping individual 50lb bags of dog food to people, but
you might be able to make money shipping pallets of dog food to people. Things
like building communities or creating content are really just another form of
advertizing that is theoretically cheaper to create in the long run than
Adwords.

------
jeffool
Just go to any company and see what they do poorly. Ask them what problems
they face.

Working in TV in the past, you would not believe the hassle phone numbers and
email addresses were.

I would've killed for a spreadsheet-like layout for contact info that
userbased contact lists, department based, then company based. Bonus points if
you let people pick up the phone, then click to dial out.

Or, working in a relay center now, I have to wonder why no one has created a
simple TTY automated menu system for the deaf. Sell it to companies, let them
associate an 800 number to that line, and deaf people could call in and
navigate themselves, largely rendering my job obsolete. (Well, when someone
also does a good voice-to-TTY mobile app.)

------
TamDenholm
I think turnkey website scripts (mostly in php) are doing well. People that
want url shortners or image hosts or some such things can buy a turnkey
website for $50 or something. I know a few people who make money from scripts
like this.

~~~
ulvund
It takes a hell of a lot of $50 websites to pay an average programmer's salary

~~~
_delirium
True, but the average programmer typically has to show up for work at least 40
hours a week, while "passive income" like selling off-the-shelf WordPress
themes doesn't take up your whole week. It can also be done by people who
don't have particularly extensive programming skills.

------
mVChr
I think the hidden subtext behind this question is "what are the good old
ideas that still make money on the web THAT SOMEONE CAN BUILD ON THEIR OWN?"
At least that's a question that half of the replies answer and one that I'm
also interested in answering. Most of what I do can only be done to make a
livable amount of money when done at a company with other talented people to
fill in for aspects of the business that can't be covered by an individual
even if they had all the necessary skills if only because of the limited
amount of time in a day. Any ideas for the lone wolf?

~~~
Joeri
You can solve problems in any space, as long as you think about the problem
first, and not about the exact kind of solution you want to make. I can't
think of any problem space where the lone programmer can't do something useful
if they have the domain knowledge.

------
kalpakd
Clickbank. Seriously, i made a few bucks using it. Unfortunately, i could not
redeem the money as i was 17 and now I forgot my account username. Also, you
can buy domains names which are somewhat related to the current web phenomenon
and then sell them at a much greater price. (eg. the domain fb.com was bought
by Facebook for $8.5 million)

------
bartonfink
Porn.

------
veyron
Designing, building, and maintaining websites for businesses.

------
fHbjKlf6
Buying up second hand books in bulk (think 5k+) and selling them individually
on the Amazon marketplace. Incredible markups. Need lots of storage space
though.

------
shaydoc
content is king! as it always has been. If you have fresh, unique content
about your passion, damn sure there are a stack other people looking to find
out that information.

As cheesey as it sounds,I personally think you are better off not chasing the
money, but fulfilling your mission, be that success or failure and learning
from that experience and doing better the next time.

------
amirkhella
Creatng a downloadable product and selling it :)

~~~
molecularbutter
Requires you to have some expertise with Adwords and Facebook ads, otherwise
you'll blow tons of money attempting to generate leads and sell nothing. It
can work though.

------
kappaknight
Sell business cards. No matter how big or small, rich or poor, established or
not, the startup, they will always buy some. =)

------
jjoe
There's relatively OK money to be made from repackaging OSS and making it
easier to use.

Cheers

~~~
spIrr
If possible, could you expose any more details on this? It it more re-packing
like bundling it with other software, or just using your own logo, or more
like customizing? Many thanks in advance!

------
mopoke
Classifieds : cars, jobs, houses...

------
franze
people search

huge market and growing (growing with every new person which gets online, with
every new person which gets into employment ready age)

dominated by a few big players, just waiting for smaller niche players.

the only downside is, that you get about 5 "i will sue you" emails per day if
you reach a certain size (just ignore them,....)

said that: www.facesaerch.com is for sale

~~~
nollow
Why do people want a 'people search' in the world of google & facebook? Also
what's the business model?

~~~
franze
why? google and facebook are a distribution channel for people search. just
google the name of you mother, grandmother, father in law, anyone not in the
nerd, hacker, geeks segment and show what turns up (note: on the resulting
pages, turn off your ad-block)

in non US countries the business model is mostly ads (from the sh*tload of
pageviews), in the US the business model is mostly affiliate (delivering
traffic to the thousands premium "criminal record / financial record
background check" companies)

------
kingkilr
Selling things (e.g. Amazon).

------
fendmark
Payment Processing.

~~~
spIrr
Wondering, are there any vertical niches in payment processing? For me, the
average customer of a payment processing company is a business owner who is
capable of selecting a good provider (paypal for being around for ages or
stripe for being loved), so how do other payment processors survive?

~~~
patio11
Digital River, who basically consolidated nearly every payment processor for
shareware devs, has revenues revenues in the nine figures. (Oh, by the way,
shareware the word is pretty much dead but selling software on the Internet
makes more money every year.)

~~~
spIrr
Patrick, i sincerely want to thank you for participating in this thread. I
feel like you have the accumulated amount of knowledge everyone trying to do
business both online and offline has to know (or, at least, trying to). Do you
ever feel like you are not using your knowledge in full or allocating it
properly?

~~~
patio11
Suffice it to say I know a few things about a few things and get enormous
satisfaction from sharing them with people. I'm privileged in that a couple of
things I know how to do are worth stupid amounts of money, and perversely the
more I try to give them away the more money gets thrown at me for them, so my
businesses essentially allow me a lifestyle similar to that of a tenured
professor except with less academic politics and an even more flexible
schedule. Downside: a regrettable lack of cool faux-medieval robes to wear
once a year.

I'm pretty happy with the pace at which I'm getting to take on new challenges,
and pretty happy with my net impact on the world, including through building
stuff and teaching folks. Besides, I'm not even 30 yet, so I've still got
plenty of time to achieve total world domination through smoothing out market
inefficiencies on the Internet. (I think I'll hire a tailor to get me robes as
that point. Something in silk maybe.)

~~~
ovi256
Patrick, let's fund the 21st century blend of the Rotary Club/Skull and
Bones/freemasons/"secret society" just so we can wear robes :)

I nominate thee honorary head, benevolent tyrant for lyfe.

~~~
Danieru
You guys could play bingo!

------
ssgrfk
Porn

------
LeonidBugaev
Ads.

------
paulhauggis
Buying and selling goods and arbitrage still make money. It's not easy and
takes awhile to figure it out, but it's not a bad way to make money.

This is what I'm doing while building my startup. I arbitrage web services on
Craigslist and other marketplaces. The difficult part is figuring out what
makes money and finding reliable service providers.

It took me over a year of trial and error to finally settle on what I have
now. It will never make me a million dollars. But I have more than enough time
to work on my startup and I don't have to work a FTJ or consult (which I've
tried and really don't like).

