
Help HN: Want to build small web app for learning and side income. - maheshs
Hi Guys, 
        I am long time HN follower. I always been benefited from HN community.<p>I am a full time developer and can code in ASP.NET (both web form and MVC), PHP (also i am beginner in ruby).<p>I want to build web app from which i can earn $200 - $400 per month.<p>Its not a big amount but it gives me following benefit which is more valuable for me.<p>1. Motivation for bigger move.
2. Getting experience in running SaaS based apps.
3. Side income.
4. Good learning about business, marketing and other non programming things.<p>I know i can make these kind of money though some freelancing but that option i am not looking for now.<p>I can invest my time 2-3 hours on weekdays and 5-6 hours on weekends (around 20 hours in week).
Also i can invest up too $300 if i have to do buy some sort of services/hardware etc.<p>Problem is I am not been able to think about any web app idea which solves some problem. 
Please give me some idea about any web app which I should build.<p>I am not from US or Europa.<p>I am having high hopes from HN community.<p>Thanks in advance.
======
chime
I'd say you posted in the right place because lots of people here have the
opposite problem - too many ideas, not enough time. Here's my list of random
ideas that I feel can make some money each month if executed well:
[http://bulletxt.zetabee.com/share?n=1548888784&h=SHdydmJ...](http://bulletxt.zetabee.com/share?n=1548888784&h=SHdydmJXeWJHa25sbEtVSnJvcG9Wdz09)

I haven't updated it in a few months because I've been busy with an
interesting project. Maybe something on the list will inspire you. You're
welcome to take an idea directly too if you wish. Do let me know so I can move
it down to the baked list :)

~~~
pragetruif
How would you monetize these? Mostly from just adding Adsense to the page?
[For example, I'm looking at the geolocation of #hate/#love tags, and the
imbored-counter.]

~~~
chime
That works. In my experience, 1k visitors = $1. If you want $100/month, that's
$3/day = 3k visitors/day. Not impossible to get with something catchy/popular.
Make four of these and you hit your goal. It's not easy but it's not
impossible either.

~~~
csomar
Please, there is something called niche and keywords in Adsense.

I have had a website in the barcode niche and the click was as high as $5-$7
with a 2-3% conversion ratio. That's like $15/100 visitors only and yes I was
making that much.

You can check the PPC in adwords for scanner tools, it's exteremly high.

------
cjy
I would go to Elance and look through the things people are paying for. If you
can find something that lots of people are buying but can be commoditized
you've found a winner. Since you are experienced in PHP, make some PHP
component that people want but the current solutions are crap. Web Developers
will easily pay $100 for something of quality that will save time. I think it
is easier to sell a digital product than SaaS if you want to do this part
time. It's nice to get your money and have no further obligation to your
customer. As far as marketing, you can submit a PAD of your software product.
That will give you a surprising amount of free traffic. Also, you can giveaway
licenses of your product via bloggers. To accept payments I use FastSpring. It
looks professional and there are no setup or monthly costs (so no risk). Good
luck!

------
gte910h
You can spend less than that $300 until you get going if you use
GoogleAppEngine, where you'd only end up paying if you get higher levels of
usage.

Rackspace cloud will cost $10 a month for the basic server if you need to not
use java/python, as it sounds like you might need to. You theoretically can do
Ruby on GAE via a java implementation, and php I think...

If you need web design, you're going to be a little short there likely to get
it done, but you may be able to learn enough to get going there.

~~~
neiled
Just to also mention heroku is free too until you use 5MB of database size,
which is great for getting it out there, and depending on your type of site
5MB might get you quite a way.

~~~
gte910h
Are there other services like this for php or more python ones? I'd though GAE
was really the only one in its type.

------
RealGeek
Play with Google CSE and build niche search engine
<http://www.google.com/cse/>

I built a nifty search engine using Google CSE API over a weekend. It got over
30,000 unique visitors per day and made $2,000 per month.

It was probably one of the most advanced search engine built on Google CSE.

~~~
scottkrager
Made? What happened to it?

~~~
RealGeek
After running for a year on Google CSE. I built my own search platform and was
able to grow it to over 100,000 visitors per day.

~~~
d2viant
How much are you making now?

~~~
RealGeek
At it's peak, I made $15,000 per month.

Then I pulled the plug, because most of the users were using it to search
movies and music. I had no legal troubles, but I did not want to stay in the
gray area.

~~~
geek_silk
Can I have URL of your service?

~~~
RealGeek
The name of search engine was ShareMiner, it was very popular. The website is
now dead, but you can read about it at:

<http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/shareminer-search-web-files/>

[http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/shareminer-com-
search-t...](http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/shareminer-com-search-
through-rapidshare)

[http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2008/01/pl...](http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2008/01/pl_playlist1602?slide=9&slideView=2)

------
neiled
Here's a few links with ideas:

<http://www.entrepreneur.com/businessideas/>

<http://www.sixmonthmba.com/2009/02/999ideas.html>

<http://www.ahbbo.com/ideas.html>

<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

<http://astartupaday.wordpress.com/>

<http://www.coolbusinessideas.com/>

I've taken all these from a list in the 'Start Small, Stay Small' book here:
<http://www.startupbook.net/>

Good luck!

~~~
astartupaday1
I'm the author of the 'A Startup A Day' blog listed above. There several
hundred ideas on the blog, but feel free to email me and I'm happy to help you
pick out a few that fit what you're looking for. Contact info is in my
profile.

------
SabrinaDent
When you're looking at ideas, filter not just for how much a particular idea
interests you but how much it will cost to market. A productivity app that
addresses a specific issue, for example, has a much more defined, low cost
route to market than a website where you need to work with multiple
manufacturers and attract consumers to launch a crowd-sourced clothing line
production website.

The simplest formula is: 1. Solve a specific problem; 2. Tell the people who
have the problem that you've solved it; 3. Convert them; 4. Profit. If the
number of people you need to reach with #2 is vast, it's less likely you will
reach #4 with the kind of budget you're talking about.

------
patio11
Talk to people about what sucks about their job. Pick the problem with the
most whines per lines of codeit will take to fix. Fair warning: $200 a month
projects get drastically bigger if you figure out marketing.

------
tarouter
I'm in the same boat with similar skill set. Do you want to get-together on IM
for some brainstorming? May be we can work together on something. Contact is
in the profile, if you are interested.

------
gauravgupta
You should see if one of these works for you -
<http://www.sixmonthmba.com/2009/02/999ideas.html>

~~~
chops
There are some very clever ideas in there. Number 4 ("A website that you can
submit your design and work with vendors to manufacture your own clothes
line") is something I'm sure my wife would take advantage of.

I wonder how much of a market there is for something like this, or how many
people want to be a micro-boutique?

~~~
jmonegro
That exists already. It's fairly new, but I forgot the name.

~~~
dmitri1981
<http://www.garmz.com/>

------
DirtyAndy
Numbers 1, 2 and 4 are very easy to satisfy. Several people have already
posted lists of ideas that they and others maintain. I seem to recall
Y-Combinator posting lists of the types of projects they wish to look at in
the future too, so it would be worth searching for them. If you can't self
host then .NET hosting is going to cost you around US$10 a month, although
there are deals to be had - I think I pay $35 for 6 months of web and SQL
Server hosting with a company that is passable for what I need it for. Unless
you have a real passion to learn something new, I'd stick with the languages
you now, it will be much quicker to get to where you need to go than if you
learn a whole new language.

But the problem is in monetization. Firstly if you can get an idea from start
to making money in 6 months (for example) then I don't think there is really a
cap on what you can make, I can't see a reason why $400 per month would be all
you would want to make, and if you make something that can make money you
should always be able to find new users (an exception to that might be if you
made something very specific to only a few people and had an easy way to
market it - eg something 100 HN users might like and no one else).

But defining a web app that you can develop and easily make money is not easy.
Most people's "idea lists" have lots of very interesting ideas, few of them I
can ever imagine making a penny. My suggestion would be to look around you,
you have a job, is any of the software you develop something you can clone and
sell to other businesses (there are legal issues there, but you can often work
around them and it depends where you are). Are there everyday tasks that
people are using spreadsheets or Access DB's or paper to do that you could
create a system for and charge $10 a month? Find an idea like that, spend 10,
20 or 50 dollars on Google Adwords pointing to a fake sales page and see if
you have a market. Good luck.

~~~
jlees
I totally agree on the latter point. Before you code anything, as your primary
goal here is making money, get an Adwords voucher and see if you can get
traffic to your site from ads. If people are clicking, then there's probably
something there. If nobody visits your site after a bit of promotion, what's
to say customers will visit when there is actually a product there? You can go
right as far as the credit card signup page, depending on how you morally view
misleading potential customers.

------
hasenj
Start with Paul Graham's essay about startup ideas:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html>

Phrase the idea as a question worth exploring: can I build a startup on the
idea of [insert idea here]?

To quote:

> Treating a startup idea as a question changes what you're looking for. If an
> idea is a blueprint, it has to be right. But if it's a question, it can be
> wrong, so long as it's wrong in a way that leads to more ideas.

So what I suggest you do, is build a webapp based on some idea, but don't
count on it making you much money. You'll still be getting experience and
learning how to run and manage your servers (and that's really the core of
your business).

$200/mo is quite manageable if you just put Google ads and have a decent
amount of visitors. To do that, you don't need to have a business idea, you
just need a site that provides some cool service that a decent amount of
people would want to use it.

Point being, you don't have to hunt for a business idea.

------
AnupSavvy
even I am a full time employee (but m a Fresh Graduate). I have been seriously
giving a thought on starting something of my own or at least deploy some
application on apps engine and throw it for review on HN. I work on Java.
Currently located at Cornell University, working on Semantic Web Application.
Interested in Information retrieval and Machine Learning. Currently working on
Semantic search and developing a small hobby application of entity finder. Can
I be of help to anyone ? or anyone wants to work together towards some
idea/application ? I struggle to take out some time for hobby projects with
all day packed with project and assignments ( I have taken some additional
courses in Comp. Sci here) but still there is this constant urge to do
something more interesting and throw it out to people.

------
ashitvora
Not sure if you are still a student or working full time.

I have few ideas but I guess only student would be interested to work on it.

These ideas wont make you millionaire but you will definitely make enough
money to pay your rent and will help you learn how to do business in general.

~~~
maheshs
I am full time employee but can invest time (around 15-20 hours).

My mission is simple; learn business by doing business even earning is small.

------
AnupSavvy
Have you started working on anything ?

------
mybbor
The $1,000,000 dollar question... Literally

~~~
hkr
Well, the $1,000,000 answer is worth $0 if you can't make something out of it.

~~~
AnupSavvy
sorry! no offence... but this made me laugh... hahaha :)

