
Ask HN: How to come up with monetizable side project ideas? - sunilkumarc
I love building small tools which solve problems I myself face in my day to day life. Having been worked in different companies over the last 4 years, I feel I&#x27;ve acquired enough knowledge to develop big applications(big enough to make money) on my own.<p>I was wondering, how one can come up with side project ideas which can generate few hundred dollars per month on the side. Any inputs, resources and wisdom are appreciated!
======
a13n
It's really easy to make a few hundred dollars a month if you're good at
product and can do basic marketing.

1\. Find a popular SaaS product. Like Intercom, Algolia, Segment. Make sure it
doesn't have a free plan. This guarantees there's a market for the tool. Check
out GetLatka for ideas. [https://getlatka.com](https://getlatka.com)

2\. Build your own take on the product. Find the minimum set of features that
make it valuable. 10% of the work for 80% of the value.

3\. Sell it at a 50-90% discount. There will be price sensitive customers that
want the popular product, but don't want to or can't afford it.

4\. Target bottom of funnel marketing channels: Targeted quora questions.
Paid/organic search queries. Set up retargeting ads on Facebook. Product hunt
launch it. That should get you a steady stream of customers.

I don't think this is a great way to build a million dollar business, but is a
very easy way to make a few hundred. Shoot me an email if I can be helpful.

~~~
mandeepj
> Make sure it doesn't have a free plan

Nothing wrong with being free. It can get you popularity like dropbox,
robinhood etc

~~~
pmorici
I think his point is that if the existing service has a free plan then it is
going to be hard to undercut them on price. Dropbox and Robinhood want to
dominate the market. OP's advice is for making a couple hundred bucks a month
on the side.

------
superasn
Having created a few money making side projects here is some advice:

1\. In my experience B2B ideas are best for quick monetization compared to
B2C.

2\. Think of roadblocks you face creating your own site. Pretty sure somebody
else will face them too (many great products were created out of this,
readme.io, statuspage, etc)

3\. Don't go all in. I never spend more than 2 weeks before submitting my
project on PH, HN, mailing my list. Don't ever make the mistake of working on
something for 2 years alone not telling anyone about it.

4\. Don't reinvent the wheel. Ie don't waste time on things like your login
page (HNs login page is a great example on how much it matters), hiring
designers (a template from HTML5rocks or wrapbootstrap is just as good). A lot
of these things (support, auth, chat, etc) are offered as Saas services and
can be integrated directly to save you weeks in launch.

5\. Marketing is where you want to spend most of your time since yoh ask about
making money. Also don't be afraid of pricing. Read patio11 black art of saas
pricing for an excellent guide. Learn content marketing, SEO, etc.

Good luck!

~~~
swingline-747
Clarification: _Don 't reinvent the wheel_ means _Don 't exactly copy another
product._ It's damn important to reinvent defensible products that either, and
hopefully do all of:

a) solve a slightly different problem

b) target different users

c) solve the problem in a 10x better, compelling way

Uniqueness will be added to the collective, so don't bother creating
categories because that requires extra effort building validation from below
zero and any new products coming along can execute much easier with the
lessons and improvements of the "settlers."

~~~
bkovacev
I don’t believe that your clarification of the point you quoted is correct.

It sounds more as if the commenter wanted to point out that it is better to
outsource/Saas chat, login, design and the likes to some external service
instead of wasting time on it initially.

With that said - I believe you have a point in what you stated. A lot of
products came out as a better copy of another product.

------
swalberg
Focus less on your own problems and pay attention to the problems that other
people have. Especially problems where they've come up with really hacky
workarounds -- think Excel spreadsheets, weird approval/email chains, manual
import/exporting from one system to another, etc. All good signs that there's
something to be improved, and that it's enough of a problem to put effort
into.

Couple of other thoughts -- your problems are likely not to be technical.
They're going to be obtaining domain knowledge, marketing, and supporting your
product.

I'll second the recommendation on "Start Small, Stay Small". Also Eric Reis'
"Lean Startup" and 37 Signals "Getting Real". The latter two were really
helpful in getting my most successful project out the door and making money.

~~~
ozten
Do you have any book recommendations specifically for the online marketing
piece? Or does the space change too fast for books? I’ve picked up some read
user forums, write content for marketing, email lists, and pricing tips, but
haven’t found a “definitive guide”.

~~~
swalberg
No, sorry. Mostly it came down to "find out where your customers are". I had a
payroll service for home help, so I reached out to the people who place the
people and pitched the service as a way to help their customers. I had a site
to check for security problems in popular blog frameworks so I made it so you
could direct link to a site's results and then helped people out on forums,
providing a link to the analysis. Stuff like that.

Advertising on FB/AdWords/etc can help, but there's no substitute for finding
your customers yourself.

------
evan_
A friend of mine shared his strategy with me: find some big uninteresting data
set from the government or whatever, figure out some way to make it
interesting for regular people, and build a nice interface to it.

For instance, turning old real estate and immigration records into an ancestry
site.

Monetizing it is still an issue...

~~~
megaman8
There's a lot of stuff in this space that hasn't been done yet, but that's for
a very good reason. First of all, it doesn't pass the toothbrush test: it's
the type of thing that's super valuable the first time you visit but you don't
really need to come back to it over and over.

Second big problem: SEO. Search engines like long form written content, they
don't know how to value tools that slice and dice data: they simply don't see
any value in it and you'll never get SEO from it.

------
croo
I recommend the book "Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to
Launching a Startup by Rob Walling about this topic. It pokes every aspects of
starting side projects including how to find something worthwhile to create.
It really changed my perspective of how to find out if a side project could
work or not.

~~~
nathan_f77
Thanks for that recommendation, it sounds great! I just ordered it on Amazon,
and also signed up for the MicroConf [1] mailing list.

[1] [https://www.microconf.com](https://www.microconf.com)

~~~
rmason
I second the book and recommend the podcast that Rob does with another guy
named Mike Tabor. It's called Startups for the rest of us, lots of wisdom in
that library! You can even send them questions and they'll do an entire show
in reply.

[https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/](https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/)

------
adamqureshi
TIME. Time is the MOST precious commodity. Help users SAVE TIME. Save time
finding something of value to the USER. You can't "presume" how much to
charge. You have to "TEST" pricing then keep jacking it up until your
customers don't pay. How can you pay for something what does not offer value.
Stay small. Stay NICHE. Grab a slice from a BIG market. Forget millions. slap-
yo-self with fury with delusions of becoming a millionaire, and make a goal of
making enough to avoid being trapped in a 9-5 lifer situation. It take a LOT
of luck + skill + market segment expertise. Like you have to KNOW the market
you are going to be competing in. Assisted living , senior care , retirement
calculator is VERY hot now. You'll be at it after your day gig 6pm-2am testing
/ building / iterating. Good LUCKY. launch a free beta version learn what
customers value and how much they will pay ( ask them) THEN when you have
enough people crack addict addicted to your service / app start charging. Be
merciless. But offer excellent customer service. Always be honest.

------
cstanton
As a marketer, I see countless great projects that were abandoned. What seems
like a promising project goes dry when, presumably, the dev can’t market it.

Marketing and sales are so important; without it, your project risks a short
life.

I would look at what you already have and figure out why you aren’t making
money on it, versus building something brand new.

~~~
pmorici
Would be interesting if there was a thing to match people with marketing
skills with people who have side projects that need better marketing on a cut
of the revenue generated basis.

I have this problem myself. I've got a product that sells itself within its
target market but the market is kind of niche so I have no idea how to get it
in front of that audience. I tried Ad words but it seemed like a waste of
money and didn't move the needle.

~~~
StevieIsMagic
Hey what is this niche market you’re referring to?

~~~
pmorici
Low cost high wattage 12 Volt power supplies. I make adapters that let you
recycle old server PSU's that otherwise have zero value because of their
proprietary connectors. It primarily has applications in Crypto Currency
mining. The real money is in targeting industrial scale miners who need them
in volume. I had one really good year in the 5 I've been selling them, mostly
by dumb luck.

~~~
helen842000
I'd be happy to brainstorm some marketing ideas to help with monetization. It
sounds like a great product that just needs some clearer messaging.

------
zylepe
I was in the same boat after 4 years of working and built a simple side
project that solves a clear problem and now has several hundred thousand MAU
([https://onthegomap.com](https://onthegomap.com)) and costs a few hundred
dollars a month to run.

My question is on logistics: Adsense brings in a bit less than expenses. Many
users have expressed interest in supporting the project financially. Any
recommendations on services to let people do that? One person recommended
Patreon but that seems more geared towards artists.

~~~
citrablue
Why not make it a traditional SAAS application that charges $10/month?

~~~
GFischer
Not all apps can be monetized that way. Maybe some kind of freemium model, or
some kind of partnership with the correct target for the audience would make
more sense.

------
victor_ronin
I wouldn't be suggesting ideas and approaches. I would instead concentrate on
"few hundred dollars per month". I think you are setting the bar too low if
you are in US. Let say this side project will generate $200/month and you are
spending 15 hours a month on it. It means that your hourly rate will be $13
(which is way-way below software engineer hourly wage). If the goal is do
something useful, then work on opensource (for free). If the goal is to get
some additional income, then you need to find an idea which can grow more than
couple hundred bucks a month.

------
yen223
1\. Search through the highest-selling 100 apps in your favourite app store

2\. Looks for apps which are poorly-rated (< 4 stars). These are apps which
serves an actual need, but whose execution is lacking.

3\. Build polished versions of those apps.

~~~
notdang
Found one: Uber

~~~
drewmol
Good example. Remember to start small, build it on open source and sell it to
small cities

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Yes, you wouldn't compete with Uber directly but you could look at some small
piece of that business which they can't serve very well because of their size.

------
mandeepj
Applications repeat themselves - apps like chat, productivity suites (word,
excel), photos - got moved from desktop to web and later to smartphones. If
you had developed a first chat app on iphone back in 2009 then imagine the
leverage. A new platform is in the making - AR\VR, so keep an eye.

------
arithma
One thing I will try doing soon is to look for job postings of companies, and
then look what those companies are looking for, and what domain they're in.
The theory is: maybe I can get product ideas 1) as spin-offs from their
general mission, or 2) maybe I'd be able to replace their job posting with a
product.

~~~
swalsh
When I first started consulting, I had an idea of specializing in automating
business processes. It was something I had done before, and I really enjoyed
it. However I ran into the problem of those that understood the potential had
already employed a few full time devs, and those that didn't, also did not
understand the potential. I reasoned that people who needed automation were
hiring tons of people. So I searched job ads that looked close to what I
thought an ideal customer might be as a way to generate leads.

It turned out to be a fairly low quality way to find leads. Random cold
calling would have probably netted me the same conversion rate.

~~~
nautist
I have similar story: corporate experience in process design and
implementation and moved to consulting with idea of using knowledge and
connections. What I realized I have no way to sell to big business. And s.m.b.
don't use erp, let alone bpmn. s.m.b are quite happy keeping notes in
spreadsheets and smartphones. Most of the market for bpmn comes from
regulation and certification e.g. ISO certification requires processes to be
reproducible and documented (with appr. software) and the list goes on say if
company goes public and all of that. No s.m.b has this requirement, so there's
no marketing to them.

------
vinayms
At the risk of being grayed out to invisibility, I am going to say this.

What you are asking is similar to "I think I have learnt playing the keyboard
well enough as an assistant in an orchestra, now how to create great music for
ads or whatever to make some pocket money?".

This is a matter of creativity. The situation you describe is usually the
other way around - people have ideas first and then learn whatever is
necessary in order to realize their creativity, they don't start with a tool
set and then look for ways to apply it. That is done by consultants. So may be
you must become one?

Creativity can't be taught. No amount of tips is going to substitute for
innate creativity, of any degree, because all tips are effective only when you
have an idea to work with, which is the product of creativity. If you don't
have it, in this case identifying a problem and imagining a suitable solution,
just do what all/most successful companies do - copy, but add a tiny variation
to claim that its different and your own.

All that said, my tip would be to keep eyes and mind open, and just build
whatever you feel is right and release it. Do consider feedback but don't get
discouraged by criticism. There are ample examples of how the most derided
product ideas have ended up making quite a profit, not just in software,
although luck had a major hand in their success.

~~~
seventhtiger
Ideas do not only come from creativity. Creativity is a shortcut but ideas can
be mechanically generated. You can analyze a niche market and identify gaps,
statistically, and address the ones which will return value.

He doesn't need tips. He needs a process to find a market data set and analyze
it for profit opportunities. The amount of untouched data in the world tells
me that it's really a matter of time, hardwork, and intelligence, rather than
creativity.

------
jppope
1) Go and interact with people/companies in "unsexy" industries. The stuff
cool silicon valley companies don't want to touch (shipping, waste removal,
small manufacturing, etc). They have shit ton's of small problems that they
would gratefully hand over spare change for the problem to go away.

2) Find Entrepreneurs that have had a couple of hits, and don't have the time
or resources for small things. They'll more than likely just give you the
idea.

3) Pick up freelance gigs and get an agreement that give you rights to the
underlying code. (I.E. the unique combination of elements belongs to the
client.) If you do enough of this you will start to find efficiencies. You
will start finding ideas all over the place when you see how other people
work.

4) Read a lot. But about niche things.

5) Read blog articles by Venture Capitalists/ Angels. don't work for them...
but built the stuff that they want built.

Also... Please build a themeforest for Bulma. I haven't had time to do it and
I hate working in Bootstrap.

~~~
danieltillett
Number 2 is very true. Make sure you choose people who have actually
successfully built something not just a serial wantraprenuer. They can tell
the difference between an idea that sounds good in theory and one that will
work in the real world.

------
wusatiuk
I have already built several sideproject over the past 15 years. For me the
hardest part as a marketer is to find a developer, mostly freelancers, who are
willing to "dive into" the idea and work with the same passion as i do on the
project, even if they are usually getting paid by hour.

The biggest issue for me was finding a suitable developer who is willing to
grow the one ore another project together with me. So if any of you guys is
interested in a marketing partner and willing to invest his time into a
project and split the revenue, i would be happy to get in tough with you.

Now let´s come you back to your question - how to come up with an idea? I will
discribe you my way:

note down every "problem" somebody is telling you. No matter if it means "find
the cheapest flight price", "would be cool if tool X could do Z" or if
somebody tells you a terrible workflow within his company. In addition to
that, we are all surfing the web all day long, so simply also note down things
you like somewhere, and make screenshots / screencasts, if something is really
great.

when you do this some days / week, you will generate hundreds of cool ideas
within a very short period of time. but the idea itself is worth nothing at
all. the idea itself is just an idea.

~~~
AlexITC
Sent you an email.

~~~
wusatiuk
thanks. :)

------
DoreenMichele
Start a sandbox of some sort, some kind of (digital) file to collect things
in.

Collect stories and examples of successful side projects that resonate with
you. (You can start by searching HN. This gets talked about a fair amount
here.)

Also, collect your ideas and start fleshing them out.

Also, collect information on how small side projects get monetized.

------
arthev
Maybe this is of interest: [https://jamesaltucher.com/2014/05/the-ultimate-
guide-for-bec...](https://jamesaltucher.com/2014/05/the-ultimate-guide-for-
becoming-an-idea-machine/)

------
dabockster
Just start building free stuff until something sticks. Then figure out how you
can make money from it or something similar.

~~~
amirouche
I am in this situation and now I stumbled upon a (good?) idea with some code
but it's very difficult to market as it aims at replacing one of the most
successful software of all the time, namely git.

~~~
dabockster
Have you posted on Twitter or an Ask HN thread here?

I would stay away from Reddit, personally.

~~~
amirouche
Yes, both. Honestly, it's difficult to have a deep public convo even on HN. I
had some contact with people interested in the idea of a git for (big)
structured data. The problem is that a) Data Science practice is not mature
enough for the kind of problem my project is solving aka. collaborating around
structured data to improve reproducibility and QA. b) mature data science
project already have ad-hoc solutions and they are not ready to migrate to a
freshly new solution.

------
einarvollset
Honestly, if you have a full time job (which it sounds like), i’d consider
buying a product. At that kind of revenue prices are extremely reasonable -
the only challenging is binary: is this worth $0 or something else.

------
haihaibye
Companies use spreadsheets to fix gaps in their IT processes.

Find these big, ugly, shared spreadsheets and turn them into webapps.

------
NKosmatos
My two cents... Find a service-tool-solution for something that could be used
by many people (try not to think of only your country/language but global),
build it fast and simple but practical and fast, offer it for a really low
price (coffee, beer, pizza range) so that you can be certain that you’ll have
users/customers. Oh yeah, and build it so that it doesn’t need too much of
your time.

As for good ideas, that’s the tricky part. Look around and open your ears...
sorry for not letting you know of my exit plan idea ;-)

------
helen842000
While I agree with some of the tactics here (make a twist on similar ideas,
contact businesses, buy a business, brush up an existing product you built)

I'm going to suggest an alternative method that has worked for me.

Start with the money.

If you want monetization to be guaranteed you need to prioritize that first.

Take this method and rinse/repeat for you and your skills.

1) How much do you really want to make from this a month, what would make you
happy?

Let's say you decide $1k a month would make it worth it after time, expenses
and payment processing fees.

2) You then decide how many customers you really want to have to find and how
much support email you want to answer.

Usually developers pick prices like $6 and wonder why no-one buys. This low
price screams a lack of confidence in the product. That you aren't taking it
seriously. That you may not be around in 8 weeks.

Starting without monetization in mind or equally, pricing low is the death of
a product because for someone who dislikes marketing you just set yourself a
huge marketing mountain to climb.

At $6 each, finding and selling to 150+ customers - when you don't even have
one yet is a huge trek to your $1k happy place.

Let's say you feel more confident about finding and serving 10 customers
really well. That seems achievable, right?

So with just 10 customers we're looking at a $100 a month product, right?

Whoa, you're thinking you could never build something that's worth that much.

Maybe you're worried it's enterprise level costs now and that's not the type
of product you want to build.

Don't worry, a $100 product can be really simple.

Often developers think that a big cost means solving a big problem and that a
big problem needs a big solution. Not true at all.

A big problem can be solved with a small elegant solution.

3) Now we know how much we want to make and how many customers we need and how
much we are going to sell it for.

We now need to find the problem we are going to solve.

So how big of a problem needs a $100 per month solution?

Not very big at all really.

Let's say a business owners time is super-conservatively worth $50-$100 an
hour.

So to add value, we are looking at saving someone between 2-4 hours a month on
a task they normally have to do manually. That's not too bad!

Or maybe you want to help them reduce their business costs by $200-$400. Also,
very possible. Now we have the value proposition.

We know what kind of problem we are looking for, so value will be clear for
the customer.

4) Now we decide _who_ this is going to be for.

Don't pick people the same as you. They have the same skills and can solve the
same kinds of problems that you can.

Pick a group of people :-

\- That are easily identifiable by what they call themselves on social media
(blogger, podcaster, videographer, designer, public speaker etc)

\- Make sure they are a group you like interacting with, that you have some
experience of working with already in some way (please pick a group you like
and care about)

\- Make sure they are the decision maker in their own business (don't pick
employees of big corps)

\- What tech skills have you worked with that overlaps with this customer
group?

Let's say you've worked on a few video platforms in the past so you know that
space well, so you choose to help YouTubers.

5) What is the issue that we are solving?

Ok, so now we're helping YouTubers to either save 2-4+ hours a month or reduce
costs by $200+ - for your $100 MRR product.

This is where we breakdown what it takes to run their business.

What stops them being more profitable?

What tasks do they do everyday?

What can be automated?

What do they hate doing in their business?

If you know this space even a little, you will have answers here.

Maybe video storage is a huge expense.

Perhaps running their community takes up too much time so they can't scale.

Is just publishing a video end to end super time consuming? Look at why.

If you don't know what matters to them, ask. Make a hypothesis and see if it's
true.

In just a couple of DM's you might find that they spend a whole day a week on
something repetitive. Or are spending money on something that you can
optimize. Write a few possibilities down.

6) Make an offer

In just a day or two you can go from no idea, to identifying a significant
pain point for a group of people that's easy to reach.

Now you consider a couple of small technical solutions for the problems you've
found.

You go back to a couple of your ideal customers and make them a proposition.

Something like - "You said you spent X hours on this particular problem. If I
built something to solve that, this week, would that be worth $100 to you?"

If it's a huge pain point they will bite your hand off. If you get weak
responses - no worry, you've not built any code yet. You can use the
conversation to get to a deal.

They might say it's worth less so you find out what features would be needed
to make it worth the $100.

Maybe they suggest a different problem that is more urgent for them.

After a few conversations you should have at least a couple of paying
customers and a clear solution.

8) Building

Now you know exactly what you need to build and have customers waiting. There
is no excuse but to launch. This will help you focus on the truly essential
code.

As you build, reach out to a few more potential customers. (we made sure they
were easy to find earlier) Ask them if they have the same problem. Show them
what you have.

Go through a few cycles of building and feedback. Make sure people are paying
you what you set out in the beginning - or close to it.

Ask your starting customers for referrals. You'll reach your 10 customers with
zero marketing spend.

You then have all of the elements needed to scale further if you wish!

Remember that code comes last in this method for a reason. Only build when you
have paying customers.

------
andreliem
So making a few hundred bucks per month with a product/project is not that
difficult, but growing that or making it so the time you invested into it is
not too high is difficult.

My personal experience, I built a newsletter to a small size (800), took about
year to do this so I definitely didn't scale out very fast by any measure.

Either way I did reach a point where I was able to get a few hundred bucks per
month in sponsorship. The time I put into it though didn't get the returns I
needed to keep going at it so I've put it on hold and am not making any
revenue now.

It's one of those challenges where I believe I need to put a lot more time &
money into it, take a risk and see if I can grow that revenue to a few
thousand per month so that my time has better return. At a few hundred bucks
it's not a passive income generating project.

I thought this would be a good story to share because in thinking about what
could make you a few hundred bucks, it would be good to define how you get
there. Building a SAAS product takes a ton of time upfront, and a few hundred
bucks per month won't be enough to justify that time... but of course it's
proof of a business model that can get to the thousands per month, and maybe
more!

------
eurticket
I don't understand the whole monetize XYZ, shouldn't we all be
designing(making) things that help or solve problems to make others lives
easier and therefore built into the project is $omething valuable for your
time and ingenuity?

If it helps people then let them try it and pay what they want for it, which
tells you how much you're helping based on how much they are paying.

~~~
Jack000
I spent a few months developing this app:
[https://deepnest.io](https://deepnest.io) where I have a "pay what you want"
model. Currently it has a conversion rate of 2.08%, with average payment of
$28.73 totalling 1,556.00 in the past month. In terms of income it's really
not great, as I imagine actual commercial software in this space is making
much more than that.

I guess it really depends on how much you value money vs having people use
your software or other ancillary benefits.

~~~
therealdrag0
That looks really nice! Great landing page. The screen shots look like simply
straight-forward UI. Good work!

------
ca98am79
I tried to come up with ideas like this for years and failed. Then I just did
things that were interesting to me and it led to a business. So, my advice is
to not even try to come up with an idea. Simply explore what is interesting,
but be open to turning it into a business

------
tobltobs
> how one can come up with side project ideas which can generate few hundred
> dollars per month on the side.

You can't. 99.9% of those ideas where you could start something from a blank
state are already done, most of them already a few times.

> I love building small tools which solve problems I myself face in my day to
> day life.

Sounds like you have already build something. Brush those up, make them
available for the public and for the start don't think about how you will make
money from those. You will get users and feedback. Those might help you in
building something which will earn money.

~~~
jen729w
What? Nonsense.

Ask someone you know who doesn’t work in technology what they need. A teacher,
a plumber, your doctor, your mechanic. I guarantee that someone will come up
with something.

Us geeks think all of the problems have been solved because most of _our_
problems have been solved. Meanwhile the rest of the world doesn’t know that
we can actually help them because they don’t know to ask and we don’t think
to.

~~~
freehunter
Even in tech, find some speciality market that isn't well-served by
programmers already. My day job is information security, and our tool sets are
atrocious. We use them because it's all we've got, and the security field
isn't well known for being a software engineering powerhouse.

I could list off a ton of programs I'd love to have, but are way (way way way)
too niche to pop up on the radar of anyone who doesn't work in security.

~~~
arrmn
What kind of software would be needed

------
snake117
For those who have built and deployed applications before, how do you go about
planning/developing your idea before you begin building it? For example, do
you sketch out rough drafts with something like Balsamiq Mockups or just pen
and paper? Do you bother filling out the YC application to flesh out your idea
(even if you don't plan on applying)?

There are different approaches to achieve this, but finding a technique that
is both comprehensive enough and time efficient is the challenge.

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rpedela
For me, it depends on what I'm building. If there is a GUI, then I usually
write basic HTML and CSS using Bootstrap as my foundation. I prefer that over
Balsamiq because I can work out flow as well as layout. If it is an API then I
design the list of functions and parameters first in a text editor. Or the
list of commands and arguments for a command-line tool.

If you notice I start with the high-level design first rather than the code. I
find I build a better tool/product doing that first and I often save time.
Personally I find myself doing a lot of code churn if I start with the code.

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tmaly
I am taking a different approach and trying to eventually write an ebook after
reading the book Authority. I tried coding a food app, but I found that
finding product market fit takes too long in some cases.

This time around, I am trying to focus more on the marketing by using off the
shelf systems and less on coding the site from hand.

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mmeinesz
a stalled project of mine, maybe you want to take over?:
[https://www.meinesz.de/automatische-
nebenkostenabrechnung/](https://www.meinesz.de/automatische-
nebenkostenabrechnung/)

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jamesheathen
If you understand offset lithography, and ways to impose page sizes onto press
sheets given a set of constraints, with the utlimate goal of minimizing
expenditure - that'a a very difficutl problem to answer with real work
appplications.

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argimenes
What software have you yourself paid for? Try making that. If you don't pay
for software, what would entice you to pay? If you don't know you need to do
market research into what other people do pay for...

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akudha
One other idea is to find old desktop products in weird/small markets that are
still selling, and make web apps to compete with those.

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leowoo91
B2B might make sense but beware it needs more maintenance at some point.

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leesec
I've seen a lot of people have good success with a side project they do called
'waiting tables' and they make a few extra hundred a month very consistently
with little risk.

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nsx147
Very little retained value there. Short term

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xellisx
I have a couple ideas I could sell you.

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TrinaryWorksToo
Well you already let one loose. Sell your ideas!

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xellisx
That was a freebie. Just a taste.

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johntash
How much for the rest?

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xellisx
One meeeelion dollars. But act today and get a 50% discount.

~~~
johntash
Can I get a few more 50% discounts stacked on top of that offer? I'd like 150%
off, please.

~~~
xellisx
How about I give you one of my ideas, and you give me 1% of the profit? Sell
the my designs on thingiverse:
[https://www.thingiverse.com/ellisgl/designs](https://www.thingiverse.com/ellisgl/designs)

