
Ask HN: How can I generate side income? - lewisj489
Hi HN,<p>I work as a full time dev earning an OK salary (In UK terms). I find myself often struggling to buy any luxuries&#x2F;pay off debt after my paycheck comes in.<p>I have lots of free time which I just spend doing side projects for fun. I need to turn this fun time into money time.<p>As a developer, what are some ways I could turn my time into money? Obviously I could try and sell some side projects, but I love open-sourcing everything I write.<p>Thanks
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smt88
This is a hard question to answer. For some people, it's easier to A) find a
higher-paying job, B) lower their cost of living, or both.

Is your lifestyle or your city expensive? Do you actively apply to jobs with
better salaries? Have you asked for a raise recently?

Passive/side income often results from luck and lots of hard work, despite the
stories you see on HN making it look easy.

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lewisj489
I'm not currently looking for another job because I'm moving country soon (And
they're letting me work remotely). It's not that my lifestyle in general is
expensive, but when I see a Wetherspoons I can't help but have a cheeky pint
or two (Which adds up at the end of the month).

I have won money from hackathons before but they're normally in the week when
I work, which is a shame.

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eafkuor
You say you are moving country so I suppose you’re flexible. Try giving Poland
a go. Polish language is not required to land a job and dev salaries compared
to cost of life are insane. Just avoid Krakow for the pollution

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BigBalli
I used to be in the same situation. Two pieces of advice come to mind from my
experience.

1) If you have a problem, most likely someone else does too. 2) Although
others can replicate what you have built (proves it is a good market fit),
many will still prefer to pay something reasonable for it (to save time or
simply because they can't build it on their own).

Just make a landing page for a handful of "projects" you already built, post
on HN/twitter, and see how much traction they get (google will also pick them
up if it's a good niche).

At that point, you will know if investing time for minimal packaging (payment
system, user admin etc) is worth it.

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Jack000
#1 is oft-repeated advice, but as a dev this is a great way to end up with
another static site generator, obscure javascript library or css framework.

Might be better to apply this to non-coding domains, or applications that
"normal" people will use.

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BartBoch
Possibly do an occasional freelancer work? Earn a bit when needed.

Also, you can work your way up by offering an additional customization to
projects you release as open source.

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twojobsatonce
I have a full-time office job running mostly automated systems that rarely
need any intervention, leaving me free time to get another full-time job doing
the same job remotely.

Technically I am working the two jobs simultaneously which most people would
consider a no-no, but the remote job is aware of the local job so that's
covered, and the local job really, truly doesn't need full-time attention so
as long as the few tasks are covered I don't really see the harm.

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marktangotango
With remote work becoming more prevalent I wonder why this isn’t done more; ie
moonlighting. Any others doing this? Hiring managers, are you on the lookout
for people doing this on the sly?

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helen842000
What kinds of things do you enjoy building? The best side projects play to
your advantages.

Definitely try to sell some existing side projects on SideProjectors or
Borderline.biz - even a small purchase feels like a success.

If you're stuck for possible profitable ideas, I can suggest quite a few
depending on your preferred tech stack

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aussieguy1234
indiehackers.com is a good resource for this.

Your goals are different from the startups here, in that you're not after
investor funding, but instead want to earn a side income.

Therefore you won't need to quit your job and spend 100 hour weeks on your
side projects, like you might have to with a startup. You can simply build it
and grow slowly.

