

Ask HN: Your most successful side project? - adamhowell

I know I -- and I assume many others -- would be interested to hear about HNers' most successful side projects.<p>Wherein side project is defined as something started by you -- with or without others' help -- on the side of a full-time dayjob that turns/turned a decent profit, was sold for a decent amount or has considerable uptake and a bright future.<p>I'll go first. In 2005 I started a designer community event called CSS Reboot that, in its 1 1/2 years under my ownership, made $5,000 in ad sales. Fall 2006 I then sold it for $10,000.
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haasted
Many years ago, I developed an extension named AdBlock for the Phoenix
browser, instead of studying for an exam.

I unfortunately haven't taken part in its development for a long time, but I
still get a small kick out of seeing it mentioned around the net, and I love
seeing how the project has been adopted by people far more disciplined than
me.

Some other side-projects, which achieved less renown, can be seen on my
homepage.

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DaniFong
My company, LightSail Energy, started as a simple question: whether enough
power could be recovered froma garage roof to power a daily commute. It's now
a small startup that's raised money from a top VC, we have a working prototype
and excellent forward momentum. :-)

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kirpekar
All "side" businesses, concurrent with growing up, education, sports, jobs,
etc.

Age 6: Ran a neighborhood service "Rent a Kid for Odd Jobs" ($25)

Age 10: Made wax candles in my backyard and sold them to a Mom & Pop store
($100)

Age 12: Grew tons of plants at home and sold them to a nursery ($400)

Age 18: Created basic websites (HTML, CGI/Perl, PHP) for businesses ($10,000)

Age 22: (while in grad school) Coached Tennis ($1000)

Age 29: (Current) Looking to buy and sell cars, i.e. auto-brokering. ($0 so
far)

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byoung2
I have an outsourcing business that brings in about $3000/mo profit. Clients
include web design/development companies, and small businesses who need
"intern" work done. All work is done in Cebu, Philippines.

I had a comparison shopping site with affiliate links back in college
(1999-2000) that I started with 3 friends. We pocketed about $1000/mo each
until mysimon.com came along.

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vdibart
Doesn't exactly fit your criteria in terms generating revenue, but I wrote a
plugin for TiddlyWiki (<http://www.tiddlywiki.com/>) that allows you to store
your address book inside a TiddlyWiki file. It includes import and export, and
since TiddlyWiki is JavaScript based you can fully script your address book to
your liking. It's called TiddlyWiki Address Book (i.e. twab,
<http://www.tiddly-twab.com/>). It's fairly popular among those who use
TiddlyWiki and more importantly is something I'm proud of for a number of
reasons.

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joshu
Delicious.

~~~
adamhowell
Yes, yes, you win. Show off!

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MaysonL
Back in '87, I wrote a little Mac shareware INIT that grossed around 20K over
a few years. Almost 4K registered users (counting a BigCo license for almost
3K seats @ ~$1/seat).

It made a MacUser cover story (along with about 50 other utilities).

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daltonlp
<http://www.colr.org>

