
Ask HN: Are there 'dumb' ways to make money as a developer in your spare time? - mabbo
As a 30-something, I&#x27;ve suddenly come to realize that retirement savings are important, and that small amounts of extra savings can add up. Suddenly an extra $100&#x2F;week actually sounds worth thinking about.<p>Are there simple ways to earn a few extra bucks as a developer in your spare time? Or is it just down to &#x27;invent some SaaS offering and hope people like it&#x27;?<p>What simple things have you do that have brought in a small bit of extra income?
======
beambot
Focus on cutting unnecessary expenses... As that serves double duty: saves
that $100 and simultaneously reduces the savings burden to retire.

As for "dumb" things you can do: cook more at home, pregame before going out,
do activities that are cheap or free (eg bike rides instead of theaters), bike
more instead of driving everywhere, read library books, etc

(The benefit of these over "do consulting" answers also lies in the added
quality time with family rather than more work.)

~~~
mabbo
This actually works even better than you think. My father explained to me
once: 'Earning an extra $100, you have to pay half[0] to the government.
Saving an extra $100, you get to keep all of it.'

Still, I'm a pretty dull guy, don't spend much, and have most of my savings in
order. My goal is mainly to see if there's easy ways to better use the time I
currently waste on video games, use my craft to make some money.

[0] I'm in the 47% tax bracket (Canada), so any extra income is hit at that
rate, if I'm not dumping it into a tax-deferred account, which I totally would
be.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
You've already paid the tax on the amount you are saving.

~~~
mabbo
Yes, but $100 feels like $100. It feels equivalent, but it's not.

Saving $100 is worth a lot more than earning $100, is the point.

------
raphaelb
I think the simplest is doing small consulting projects. There are often
people looking to launch an app or build a prototype or whatever it is where
you can work a couple hours a week on it and make a pretty good rate.

In my experience if you are a pretty good developer and good at communicating,
you can find small bits of work without much effort. Now I'm doing a lot of
consulting so charge more, but previously I would pick low stress / low mental
fatigue projects, with people I enjoy working with (often pre funding
prototypes), and charge between $65-$85/hr which could be another $500-600 /
month at 2 hours per week.

I also never used any of the freelancing sites, and always found work through
personal connections, since it dramatically lowered the risk of getting a bad
fit for me.

~~~
maworo80
How did you get these connections? Where do you get to know so many people who
would pay to get software prototypes done?

~~~
raphaelb
It's not always prototypes necessarily but mostly it's about reaching out to
people you already know and letting them know you are helping people on the
side with software work.

I was very lucky in that I happened to be good friends with a super-connector
type person who always has people asking him for help. If you know other
people who are doing consulting work, you can talk to them, if they are good
they won't be particularly protective because good people always have more
work than they can do.

In general, it can take time to build this up but in my experience it's
valuable to see how you can help / give to others around you, and it will come
back to you at some point. You have to learn to avoid the time wasting clients
and people who look for you to do spec work, but after you've learned to spot
them it's not so hard.

~~~
vram22
Good advice. What is spec work? Read the term somewhere recently, but forgot
what it means.

~~~
gbrits
spec = specifications. This could be 1. requirements gathering (use case
focussed in words of client) -> 2\. functional specifications (use case
focussed in terms of developer / exhaustive) -> 3\. technical specifications
(low level plan on how to implement). Often 3. and sometimes 2. aren't done
explicitly, but are part of iterative / agile methodologies. 1. however, must
still be done imho

~~~
moflome
I think in this case, the parent meant working speculatively [0] which can be
seen as risky for some, but also a way to get some reputation & awareness.

[0] [http://www.nospec.com/what-is-spec](http://www.nospec.com/what-is-spec)

~~~
vram22
Thanks. Yes, I think this is what the original comment meant that I was asking
about. Now I remember where I read the term "spec work" \- it was some weeks
ago on avc.com, Fred Wilson's blog. And someone gave the same answer there as
you, IIRC.

~~~
qohen
It's not specifically a tech term, e.g. spec scripts in the entertainment
business:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_script](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_script)

------
xeonoex
On this topic, I've always wondered how profitable it is to develop a site
meant to make ad money. People love to talk about their interesting, cutting
edge projects on HN, but no one talks about making websites whose main purpose
is ad revenue. The web is littered with clickbait sites and sites that just
make money off of Amazon affiliate links. The people that create them usually
don't share their revenue, although sites like buzzfeed make a ton of money.

It makes me wonder if it's a good idea (in regards to passive side-income) to
make a benevolent site that appeals to the general population or a niche with
targeted, unobtrusive ads, rather than trying to make the next amazing service
or killer app.

~~~
csallen
I make a decent amount of money from ad revenue for Indie Hackers every month.
You can see a breakdown of my traffic and revenue stats for January in this
blog post: [https://www.indiehackers.com/blog/month-in-
review-2017-01](https://www.indiehackers.com/blog/month-in-review-2017-01).
After focusing on this type of revenue for about 3-4 months, here are my
takeaways:

* If you're going to use affiliate links, e.g. Amazon, then you really need the content on your site to appeal to people who have an intent to buy. For example, nobody really comes to Indie Hackers to buy hosting, so affiliate links for hosting companies don't do well. However, people come to learn more about building profitable online businesses, so links to websites and books and other educational resources in that area get lots of clicks. (This is true of any business, really: understand your customer and provide what _they_ want, not what _you_ want to sell.)

* I haven't tried Google Adsense, because I find the ads ugly. But I do use BuySellAds, and the revenue isn't great. I make something like $1 per 1000 visits. It probably doesn't help that ad-blockers tend to block these ads (unless you render them server-side).

* If your audience fits into a valuable niche, individual advertisers are often willing to pay quite a lot for some real estate. Of course, this requires some manual upfront outreach on your part, but it's easier to do than it sounds. I've had 20 minute phone calls that resulted in $1000 or $2000 ad buys.

EDIT: Also, if you're going to run a content site, create a newsletter that
visitors can subscribe to. Make sure it goes out at least twice a month, so
people don't forget who you are and unsubscribe. (You can completely automate
it if you don't want to spend time maintaining it.) Newsletters are valuable
real estate for ad revenue, and they also help you build an audience that you
can potentially sell to if you ever create a product in the future. In fact, a
newsletter can be your entire business:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13630163](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13630163)

~~~
franciscop
Congrats on your recent 100 posts

Which makes me bring the question, is it worth it?

$3.500 / 100 posts = $35 / post (per month) = $420 / post (per year)

I understand it's a marathon though and that value compounds. When you had 10
posts you were probably not making $350 and when you have 1000 posts you will
probably be making a lot more than $35.000.

I'd love to see the associated _human_ costs and how many hours/week you are
spending here, doing what and how that has evolved from the beginning (more
automation, new challenges, etc).

~~~
csallen
I do some time tracking in my monthly blog post (scroll down to the chart), so
you can actually see exactly how much time I'm spending.

Is the revenue so far worth the time I put into it? No, not by itself. But
everything that I've done so far is really a launching pad for more, bigger,
and better things, so I see it as an investment. At the very least, I've
reached a point where I can survive on my own and work on my own projects
indefinitely. Beyond that, I've built up an audience and community that I
love, and I've got lots of plans in the works to try and deliver even more
value to them + generate revenue in a more scalable way.

~~~
franciscop
I totally didn't mean it in a bad way, I'm an open-source person (
[https://github.com/franciscop/](https://github.com/franciscop/) ) and do it
because I love it, both writing code, learning and the community. I'm curious
because I'm thinking on how to get some money out of it to be able to keep
doing what I love. I'll read more about it, thanks!

------
csallen
I've interviewed about 100 developers on
[https://IndieHackers.com](https://IndieHackers.com) about how they're making
money online. Based on what I've seen and what I've done myself, here's what I
would do if I wanted to quickly ramp up some side income:

1\. Pick a topic I'm interested in, or that I would like to be interested in
and follow regularly. It could be anything from sci-fi to front-end web dev.
My only requirement would be that I know where to find other people who are
interested in that topic, and that they're a group that's comfortable with
email.

2\. Start a regular newsletter where I'd aggregate content around that topic
and maybe editorialize a little bit by adding my own summaries. I'd keep it
short and simple and send it out 3-5x a week.

3\. I'd throw up a simple landing page where people can subscribe to the
newsletter, then advertise it by sharing my insights on Twitter and in various
online communities every now and then. If this is your only focus, you should
be able to sign up at least 250-500 ppl/mo. If you can't get that, then your
content probably isn't compelling.

4\. Sell ad spots in the newsletter to advertisers, specifically advertisers
who are in the same niche that your newsletter is. You should be able to make
at least $50-100 per 1000 subscribers for each email you send out, which is
one of two reasons to send frequently. (The other is that high frequency helps
people become familiar with you and turn into regular readers.)

Ideally it's a win-win-win. You get motivation to keep yourself up-to-date
with a topic that you care about, and you also make money. Your advertisers
make sales. (Hopefully they're good companies that you hand-picked.) And your
readers get free high quality info on a topic they care about without having
to do the research themselves.

~~~
thenomad
Good tips, but I'd add one more requirement: the group who are interested in
what you're writing about _should be a group with money to spend_.

Advertisers generally have a lot less interest placing ads with audiences who
will never pay them.

There are certain niches where you can passionately write about stuff, amass a
large audience, and discover that audience is very poorly monetisable. Best to
avoid that if you're looking for income.

~~~
csallen
Great tip, definitely helps to have an audience that advertisers consider
valuable.

------
adzicg
I've hired a bunch of people through fiverr to do small gigs for my writing
(eg copyedit, add a few jokes, do illustrations). One "dumb" way to make a bit
of extra cash for programmers could be to take on gigs like that. Depending on
your skills, there are plenty of web design/automation gigs that you could
offer there. This doesn't need you doing time-consuming marketing or sales, or
chasing consulting clients. It also doesn't require you to come up with a SaaS
product. On the other hand, the gig market tends to be a race to the bottom in
terms of prices, so the income won't be that amazing, but then again you asked
about dumb income ideas.

a slightly less dumb idea is to write a book. it's more upfront/unpaid work
than when doing gigs, and more risk because it's up to you to create a good
story, but significantly less risk than building a SaaS system. I've self-
published five books so far, and books have three benefits over the gig
economy idea:

1) you get to learn a ton of new stuff while researching for the book. writing
a book is effectively forcing yourself to learn

2) even if books do moderately well, when you self-publish you retain most of
the profit. my passive income from previously published books is roughly 3-4K
USD per month now

3) books have an extra effect that they tend to bring name recognition and
incoming work for consulting, and that can last a few years even if you don't
plan to freelance and work as a consultant at the moment.

~~~
karzeem
What kind of books do you write?

~~~
adzicg
I wrote one on how to use an opensource testing tool for which there was lots
of interest but not a lot of documentation at the time. That was quite popular
for a while (almost 11 years ago).

Another book was on an emerging technique for collaborative analysis for
software projects, that started becoming popular some time back in 2008-9 but
was still not well understood.

Two more were on practical tips for how to work with user stories and how to
come up with good testing ideas.

~~~
vram22
Interesting. If you don't mind saying, do you self-publish on sites like
Gumroad, Leanpub, Softcover, on your own site, or both? If on your own site,
you would need some system to accept payments, right?

~~~
adzicg
I publish using leanpub and KDP (amazon kindle) for ebooks and using Lightning
Source for paper books. I used Lulu 10 years ago but their customer service
was appalling back then so I moved to LS, which gets the print book in almost
all good online stores anyway.

I used to sell books on my own site as well until a few years back when EU
created the stupid VAT on private electronic purchases that requires stores to
adjust price according to the country of the buyer. I figured it's less hassle
to just use leanpub for that.

~~~
vram22
Thanks for the info.

------
kejaed
Another side of the coin is at $100/week that's $5k a year. What if you
'worked on your career' and got a $5k raise? Do that once and that $5k will be
there every year from that point on.

~~~
loeg
At what point does that stop panning out, though? My pay is somewhat above
average and management is unlikely to give me a big raise going forward
without a promotion. (And at my work the next promotion would be a sort of
'team lead' position, which I'm uninterested in.)

I guess that was just a long winded way of saying: I understand where this is
coming from, but in some situations the logical next step may actually be a
side gig :-).

~~~
tacostakohashi
It's often the case that one needs to leave and get a job at a different
organization to get a non-trivial increase in salary.

------
t0mislav
Well, I made dumb website just for fun. I thought it will be fun only to me
and few other people. Then after one year I decided to put ads there, just to
cover hosting. Now it is making 35$ monthly, completely passive and growing.
Not much, but it's paying Linode server and domain cost for all other websites
I have. [http://random.country/](http://random.country/)

------
atmosx
Off the top of my head:

1\. Consulting

2\. Small SaaS (few hours per week for maintenance, bug fixes & new features)
- more challenging than (1)

3\. Teaching - only if you're naturally inclined/extrovert (this is a big
space and I'm starting to believe that even a medium resume is enough to teach
to people who never saw a command prompt before)

4\. Blog in a semi-professional way (requires passion/research)

5\. Write a book (novel, howto or technical). This is probably the most
challenging and less profitable solution, but IMHO it could be something that
_matters_ (if you're going to novels, theatrical plays, etc.)

~~~
IndianAstronaut
>Blog in a semi-professional way (requires passion/research)

What are some examples of this?

~~~
ryanlol
>What are some examples of this?

A friend of mine makes a pretty decent living wage in CA (not bay area
however) running a relatively small blog
[https://opentrackers.org/](https://opentrackers.org/)

It's pretty easy to make decent amount of money running blogs if you're
willing to do a bit of research first.

------
mathgeek
One classic example would be to spend time teaching others. Whether this is
generating an online course or tutoring/teaching in person, $100 a week is a
pretty realistic goal if you're willing to spend the time.

Still, it's probably a more efficient use of time to either work towards a
better paying career move for long term income, or just cut expenses.

~~~
ryanSrich
> Whether this is generating an online course

Seems like an incredible amount of work for not a lot of payoff. I attempted
to create an online course before and stopped around 3 months in because I
couldn't see an end in sight. The amount of research and planning that goes
into a quality online course is massive. This is why most online courses are
through larger organizations where professors are teaching an already existing
curriculum.

I got the sense that the OP was looking for "dumb" easy ways to generate
$100/week.

~~~
mathgeek
It really depends on what type of online course you're talking about. A MOOC-
style course is certainly all the rage these days, but a good old fashioned
text course is still marketable, whether you promote it as a book or a blog-
style site.

------
DivisionSol
Make a website that focuses on making a certain part of an upcoming videogame
easier. Add ads. Make a Reddit post. $$$.

Personal example:

[http://cases.goaggro.com/](http://cases.goaggro.com/) (CS:GO case opening
simulator)

Other examples:

[http://www.survive-ark.com/taming-calculator/](http://www.survive-
ark.com/taming-calculator/) (ARK taming calculator)

[http://www.wowhead.com/](http://www.wowhead.com/) (World of Warcraft loot
database)

Any of the wikias that popup for a game are also good examples. I feel someone
could make a targeted wiki for a game, add their own ads, and become #1
community resource for a game by doing it early enough. Who doesn't want to be
#1 on Google for "<Game> Guide" with an ad per page?

~~~
proexploit
Your personal example seems simple enough, the other 2 seem like massive
undertakings for one person though. I'm sure they started simpler. Are you
willing to share any profit or traffic stats about your site?

~~~
DivisionSol
[http://i.imgur.com/dAkAa8z.png](http://i.imgur.com/dAkAa8z.png)

Posted on Reddit twice, (first initial spike once I finished it, second spike
when I added more of the cases.) That's about the extent. Got me all the
Google-juice I need to ride it out.

Total work probably around... 40 hours, at most. I stopped supporting it in
2014. HTML + Canvas. Used images hosted by VALVe instead of hosting my own.
Never had the motivation to make it better. Hosting was provided for free by a
friend.

Was at the top of Google for a while. Got knocked down by a much more active
developer (which is monetized even better than mine.) I only display 1 banner
ad instead of an aggressive 3. I didn't improve it at all since then. However,
I feel I had a technical advantage over the Flash-based competitor, as mine
ran great on mobile. I assume the competitor has since improved that aspect of
theirs.

I get ~$100 payout every 4 months now (~$25 per month)

Spikes in January 2015 and Sept 2015 coincide with new CS:GO game updates.
They added new cases to the game, which I never got around to implementing in
the simulator. No doubt missed opportunities.

Things I could've done better:

\- Actually keep working on it. (New cases, new features, better backend,
trade-up simulator)

\- Better monetization (Only 1 banner ad, when Google allows 3 on one page)

What went right:

\- First person on the playing field. (Still was delayed, since cases were
released in Aug 2013 and I released it on March 2014)

On the subject of the others: They're just aggregating data about the game.
You can start with the smallest, easiest bit and slowly build up from it.

For Wowhead it was: Aggregate item data. Then quests. Then zones w/ maps.
Resource spawn points. Raid information and guides. Etc. etc. They were one of
the first information providers for World of Warcraft and then they got
acquired by Curse.

In the case of the Ark calculator, it started as: "This algorithm in the game
is mysterious to players, I'll recreate it in the browser." Then they added
stuff like "this Dino destroys X stuff", "this Dino can do Y"

------
xiaoma
Teach people on CodeMentor. If you're not quite up to that level (or just want
to scale up faster), then offer to tutor people on Fiverr.

------
rexreed
Run a monthly tech meetup. Find a sponsor. Make sure you're getting at least
$100+ more in sponsorship than your costs (in your case, maybe 2-3 sponsors @
$200 each per month). It's as easy as it looks. If you have connections to
potential sponsors, even better.

------
shostack
This may sound basic, but get your finances and investments in order. There
may be free cash in the couch cushions so to speak.

Due to various life events I got behind on that this past year. As a result, a
decent sum (for me at least) piled up in my checking account earning a lovely
.05% interest rate. My savings account earns 1%. Needless to say, a few mouse
clicks later and I earn much more interest every month. Enough where I want to
punch myself for not making it a priority earlier in the year for something so
stupidly simple.

The next step is to complete my final 401k rollover (god do they make that
tedious) before rebalancing my investment allocations and opening a Roth.
Those tasks will earn me considerably more than $100/mo on average,
particularly with the magic of compound interest over a span of decades.

My whole point is, don't just focus on jobs/SaaS/whatever while ignoring basic
management and optimization of your personal finances. For many who do not
actively manage their finances, pulling a few of those levers can add up to
significant amounts and the actual work involved outside of research is
(typically) less painful than doing something like starting a SaaS business.

~~~
lj3
> There may be free cash in the couch cushions so to speak.

There's always money in the banana stand.

------
manarth
I know a dev who moonlights as a cycle courier.

Aside from the extra cash, it's a good way to mentally decompress away from
tech, and to get the sort of exercise you tend not to get in an IT job.

~~~
kogepathic
> I know a dev who moonlights as a cycle courier.

Like, on weekends? I can't imagine the demand for bicycle couriers after 5PM
is really that large.

I've often seen bicycle couriers in my city and wondered what it would be like
to do that part time to get away from the stress of work. Then I see them from
the tram on days when it's raining, snowing, windy...

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
The product I've most commonly seen being delivered by bike courier was high
quality medicinal cannabis. I think there's a considerable demand for bike
couriers after 5PM.

------
raintrees
One thing I wished I had done earlier is study money enough to have figured
out my favored investment vehicle and how to best utilize it, preferably
before my first dollar earned at any job/trade. That and the tax code
(incentives) of my country/state (US).

Of the main three (building businesses, real estate, and paper
assets/commodities/derivatives) I figured out that I personally favor real
estate. So that is where I choose to focus and feel most comfortable.

I also learned that an over-funded whole life insurance policy can be used as
a savings account with benefits (thanks Grandpa!). Depending on the company
(and there are specific criteria), I found one that is paying 4% on amounts I
over-fund, as well as on distributions (it has to be a mutual company), which
I can borrow against for down payments on the next property, while still
having Life Insurance addressed for my spouse/other survivors. They (I have
more than one) are also the foundation for a family trust my partner and I are
setting up for our families.

Finding mentors who have already walked the road that fits is key for me. She
or he can point out things I am missing, help with obstacles, suggest areas to
study, etc. For example, there are many Life Insurance policy types, and the
one that I favor is not well known or recommended by most insurance brokers
(they stand to make quite a bit less commission). It is also at times railed
against by the Ramsey/Orman crowd, not always for the right reasons based on
my values/strengths (everyone is different). With real estate, there are so
many markets and sub-markets, figuring out what best suits can take a bit of
effort. Same with paper assets/commodities/derivatives, and obviously (as this
community is fairly well familiar with) businesses that are grown into
IPO/sale/other-exit-plan candidates. And a good CPA is constantly studying the
tax code (it is always in flux) so they can be a great source of planning
information for the various financial endeavors I get into. Oh, additionally a
knowledgeable attorney can assist with the right entity and liability
limitation planning, among other facets.

For what it is worth, of course.

~~~
mkaziz
You need a lot of capital to get involved in the above, no?

~~~
raintrees
We purchased a single family home in Florida for $11K down, so not
necessarily. It currently cash flows for around $200 a month (all expenses
paid, including property management - we live in California).

There are also ways to partner with others to combine a down payment, as well
as putting together a deal with no money down (funded by others). It is
incredibly important to study/investigate ahead of time before creating a deal
with more than one partner, as there are financing rules that may apply (for
example, the SEC can be involved with syndication, if it gets to that).

There is quite a bit of money in the world looking for good investments, so if
you can become someone who puts together good investment deals, attracting
capital will not be an issue. Some have started by creating a deal where they
had no money down but instead received 10% or 20% for putting the deal
together and making it happen. The next deal can be a higher percentage
(success builds trust), until eventually you have built up enough capital to
be doing your own deals, if that is your preference.

The team you build is more important - Attorneys, CPAs, Property Managers,
Insurance Brokers, etc.

------
zengr
So this was one of my last year's goal. Here is how I achieved that $XXX/week
extra in saving.

1\. Switch to debit card and pre-assign how much you want to spend/month: A
translation I made on Credit card was paid automatically in full by the end of
the next month (due date), that made me not think about what I am spending on
at all. Using debit card (simple.com) made me think after every transaction.

2\. Set goals if you want to buy something non essential: I use simple.com for
this. If I wanted to buy something, I would first set a goal that I want to
save up $300 in N days. This reduced by impulsive buying habit. I still buy
few books randomly but you can cheat at times (try BookBub.com, really saves
money on ebooks).

3\. Map out your cashflow: Just create a note of your incoming cash (after
tax). Now send x% of high yield saving account (I use barclays bank), x% of
monthly expenses (rent/mortgage/food etc), keep a little in your checking
account. This helps you understand where your money is going. Its ok if you
are not able to save much, the key is first tracking it manually (mint.com etc
is great but start with a simple note).

4\. Invest a part of your cashflow: I am not a huge fan of investing all my
savings (after 401k): So I invest about 10% of my cash after tax to an index
fund on Vanguard (you can use betterment/wealthfront too).

These 4 things gave a much better overview of my finances and where my money
is going. This doesn't mean stop spending less (difference b/w being frugal vs
being cheap) but at-least start understanding how to deal with money.

Hope it helps.

------
LusoTycoon
Work in a bar.

Make some extra change, develop your social skills.

------
wheaties
Teach math. SAT prep or other forms of "higher level" math such as AP calculus
is best. That said, go over to one of the math name brand teaching places and
find out what you earn from them an hour (half what you make on your own.)

------
jrs235
Donate plasma. While donating read (instead of during your "work" time).

EDIT: This assumes the time and distance to travel to and from the center is
short.

~~~
kluck
It would be cool to know how to regenerate one's plasma very fast in order to
be able to donate plasma more often. But even if those methods exist, they
probably cost money too thus decreasing overall profit.

------
morgante
Contracting is by far the most efficient way to make money in your spare time
as a developer. Make sure it's okay with your employer, but you can generally
find plenty of small projects to do (~5-10 hours a week) which will bring in a
large amount of extra savings.

------
bsvalley
If it would be easy to make $100 per month, then it would be easy to repeat
the process 1000 times and become rich.

There's no such things as easy when it comes to making money. You'd have to
put time and energy into it.

~~~
sametmax
Generalization doesn't help.

Define "easy". For me it's relative. Some stuff are easier than others. There
is not an "absolute" easy. My job is 100x easier than most jobs I know. But I
know many people making more money with less effort doing other tasks that are
not necessarily jobs.

Then of course morality and legality enter in the equation. Very often, making
something illegal or immoral increase the ratio pay/effort in your favor. E.G:
spam or drugs.

~~~
bsvalley
He used the word "dumb", which make me think he's talking about something
anyone can do. If anyone can generate $100/month then we should all be rich by
now.

Dumb = "simplifying or reducing the intellectual content of something to make
it accessible to a larger number of people."

~~~
alashley
Or "dumb" in developer terms? There are things that are easier for developers
than the general population and there are also things that are easier for
developers with experience in a particular niche.

Also, not everyone has the capacity, time or even desire to pick low hanging
fruit. For some the extra additional effort, even if small, is just not worth
it outside of a full-time job and other commitments.

~~~
bsvalley
This is just a sub group. Same rule applies. We, developers, would all be rich
by now if we knew a dumb way to make money. to make money as developers we
need to sell something. The selling part is the non-trivial aspect I'm
refering to.

~~~
sametmax
No we would not. I could make easily tons of money by doing spam, advertising,
selling viagra only and phishing idiots at macdonalds. I don't do it because
it's not the way I want to make money.

Last week a friend of mine came around. He had too much money sitting on his
bank account and was looking to spend it on a flat. He is a terrible
programmer. He just spams. He make 10 times what I do.

------
_mg
Investing.

Not "developer" specific but worth mentioning at a general level.

~~~
morgante
If by "investing" you mean picking and trading stocks, this is terrible
advice.

~~~
nurettin
If by "picking and trading stocks" you mean putting money on type A funds when
the market is trending, it can be quite profitable at a lower volatility rate.

------
icedchai
I've been doing small consulting projects off and on for the past 20 years. It
brings in between $10k to $50k/year in additional income. Average is probably
closer to $20k.

~~~
loeg
How do you find work? Word of mouth, or something else?

~~~
ryanSrich
The prevailing wisdom on HN is going to say networking and word of mouth.

If you don't have an existing network freelancing/consulting is going to be
very difficult. I've tried the online freelance website method before while I
was in college. It sucks. The clients don't want to pay even a reasonable
amount and they're usually pretty shitty clients to work for.

If you have a network I'd suggest consulting. If you don't then I'd say steer
clear.

~~~
tim333
Though I guess the beauty of it being something on the side when you have a
job is you can advertise your services and not worry if nothing come through.

------
sercan
That's what I'm trying to do with
[http://startupdigger.com](http://startupdigger.com)

I'm on the run to build something not only attracts people's interest but also
runs maybe not completely but mostly on auto-pilot.

IMHO, building a SaaS product takes so much time which is quite hard to give
if you're trying to run it as a side project. I've tried it before.

I also was an active AdSense publisher until a few years ago and made a decent
money out of it and then sold my websites.

Let's see what will happen with Startup Digger.

------
douche
Bring a bag lunch, and make coffee at home. If I go out for lunch every day,
and get a coffee on the way in in the morning, that can add up to $15-$20 a
day.

------
sh_tinh_hair
I've found that holding down two jobs isn't unbearable for short periods of
time. You need the right positions, lots of experience in a couple fields and
a good resume and references. Small company FT flex/remote SA or devops and
SA/TS on call is a good combo, but you need to have a good track record and be
honest about your commitments. Security and development remote or flex are
also good combinations for this approach. Wouldn't recommend it as a a way of
life.

