
Ash HN: Why it's so hard to get money from side-project? - uvu
I created 2 side projects.<p>- https:&#x2F;&#x2F;myanpx.com and
- https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.myanmardevjobs.com<p>Added Google Ads. Since the traffic is very low I got a few dollars only. But, every day I read about all those indie hackers who got so much traffic and got lots of money and living by themselves. But, how did they do that? Why it&#x27;s so hard to get income from the side projects?
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Bucephalus355
This is a larger problem with the world.

So many people have been promised dreams of modest wealth or more via side
hustling.

But those dreams are an illusion. Passive income, for most of the population,
is an illusion.

I don’t want to knock anyone for trying side projects. You might even get
rich, but the odds are low (so make sure you enjoy it somewhat in case it
doesn’t pan out).

Money for most people in their lives will come from steady, well-paying, full-
time work.

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ocdtrekkie
Is your sole business plan "collect ad revenue from Google"? Unless you have a
particularly good way to bring a lot of traffic to your site, ad revenue is
not going to do much for you.

Consider that most people here are not looking for dev jobs in Myanmar. How do
you plan to get people that are to that site? And is the number of people
looking for dev jobs in Myanmar enough to bring in a bunch of ad revenue?
(Hint: Answer is no.) Also, especially for a dev site: We're running ad
blockers or tracking blockers at the very minimum. I don't see any ads on your
site.

With a job site, for example, you'd likely bring in more trying to cash in on
headhunting bonuses. Maybe let anyone post a dev job, but have a paid dev job
offerings which are placed more prominently and let the company include more
content/photos/whatever.

Note that I had no idea what "myanpx" was before I opened the URL. Even after
opening the URL, I didn't know where the name came from, until I realized your
other site was "myanmar dev jobs", and so it was probably meant to be "myan
pics", whereas I initially read it as "my anpx" out of the URL.

~~~
uvu
I added paid feature when they do the job posting. But, no one is using the
paid feature. I should expand the border the site? I still don't know how to
make money from it.

For Myanpx, yeah I chose the name wrong. I should buy a more meaningful domain
name in English.

When I was doing that 2 side projects. I am very excited and now after running
that 2 websites over 1 year. I am like, 'wow no one is using it. Why it's so
hard to get customers.'

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aregsarkissian
You need a very specific set of users that you can explicitly identify and
know how to reach online that have a specific problem that your side project
helps solve. Can you identify such a user? If not then that is your first job
to find one. If yes then your job is to go talk with that user and find out if
they are willing to pay and if not, how you can you tweak your project so that
they will pay. Rinse and repeat

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uvu
Go talk with the user is not that easy. Should send out survey to them?

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chillacy
I made a similar mistake early on: I underestimated the business side of
things. It turns out business majors did actually learn important stuff in
their classes—market analysis, how to validate products, how to price and
sell, which are much more important to making products which make money than
engineering.

~~~
uvu
"I made a similar mistake early on" \- Can you please share me, how you
improve those?

~~~
chillacy
You study business, you read books like the Lean Startup Method, you apply to
YC a few times, it's a completely separate skill than programming.

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keeplearn
Your side projects need unique features and design. It's not that easy to get
customers. But, when you got customer or community. You can surely live by
yourself.

