
Ask HN: Building a side project that makes money. Where to start? - x____x
I work for a company in customer service department. In my spare time I have learnt a bit about HTML, CSS, Python. I can code in python with some help but my skills are not much good.<p>I want to build a side project. Especially, one that makes money. Even if it brings in $100, I feel that it will provide more satisfaction than my current job.<p>I don&#x27;t have any frontend dev skills. Where should I start?<p>Should I outsource the website development part? I am 31.<p>Can you provide some ideas on where to start? What are some simple things I can build by myself? Any ideas?
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TheGrumpyBrit
1\. As others have covered, you need a market. Find something that interests
you, or you won't stick with it. For me, I manage an events guide for local
bands and pubs to compile their free-to-the-public gig listings. It's taken
various forms over the last 15 years or so, from Mambo to Joomla to Wordpress
to a Facebook page, and I'm finally getting around to rewriting it as a
standalone product using Django, and it's only as part of this iteration that
I'm monetising it is starting to look like a potential option.

2\. You may also need an audience. You need people to use your product, and
that might mean you need some kind of free tier to lure them in. In my case,
an events guide which doesn't list all the events people want to see is
useless to my audience, and if the audience don't use it it's useless to my
potential clients. That means I have to provide the basic service for free -
any monetised features are worthless without it.

3\. For any skills you're lacking, learn them. If you outsource your front end
work, you've got to pay somebody every time you want to change it and you
can't reuse it anywhere. Once you know what you want to do, learn how to do it
by actually doing it.

You're absolutely right that any money earned from your own pet project will
be far more satisfying than your day job, but that's because it's that much
harder to earn. If you start down the road with the specific intention of
earning, that road will be paved with frustration. Get an idea, develop it
into a prototype, get some feedback, and then you can start looking at
outsourcing some of the more polished parts that are still outside your
capabilities.

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Jack000
I made colormind.io - it makes about 200 a month. Here are some concrete steps
you can follow:

1\. market research: think about a field or niche you're interested in. Type
some keywords into Google keyword planner to gauge search traffic, pick one
with at least 10k hits per month. For me this was "color palette generator"

2\. build: type the keyword into google and check out the competition. What
kind of content are they serving? Could you do better? You want to make
something genuinely good, novel or interesting so people will link to you. For
me this was the "AI" angle. Key point: use the exact keywords to refer to your
site, to prime the discussion when others talk about it.

3: promote: post on relevant subreddits/producthunt/hn. If you're lucky a
major general-interest blog or news source picks it up, otherwise you'll have
to put in some legwork and do some link building.

4: monetize: it usually takes 6 months or so for organic traffic to trickle
in, though it could be sooner. Once you have traffic, you can start to
monetize. This is the easy part - google ads/carbon are good options.
Affiliate links are less consistent - it depends on your niche and what the
affiliate is.

if you're not good with design just use a nice looking free template.

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janesconference
You'll find that's incredibly hard to make people use your side project even
for free, let alone for money. Start small and consider it a win to have > 1
recurrent users who find your side project useful. Then you can think about
monetizing it. But really, capturing user attention on today's Internet is a
formidable challenge. Having a few recurrent users is an incredible
achievement even if you don't make any money.

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tixocloud
I would recommend speaking to people about their problems. You will discover
something eventually. Once you've identified a problem, then it's time to
design the solution. You might not necessarily need front end dev skills -
there are all kinds of apps that let non-coders piece things together so that
it's a functioning solution.

Check out [https://bubble.is/](https://bubble.is/). Validate your solution and
then when you need additional horsepower, it might be worth hiring developers.
I've a friend who builds software with offshore resources. They do work for
big names such as Spotify but also startups as well so happy to connect him
with you.

For inspiration on various ideas, check out
[http://indiehackers.com](http://indiehackers.com) \- a site primarily all
about entrepreneurs bootstrapping side projects to profitability.

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patd
My suggestion is to make something you would find useful but that don't
already abundantly exist (don't make a todo app or a calendar). This way you
won't feel frustrated if nobody uses it but you. Keep it simple, keep only the
core and polish it.

For ideas, I try to look into where I spend time during a typical
day/week/month and see if I can find a way to simplify it or automate part of
it. Then see if that's an issue other people have too by discussing with your
friends, colleagues or making online searches on the topic.

Don't get hung up on your idea if it's not useful to you. Try another one and
write down your ideas when they come to you so you can revisit them later. The
best ideas are usually the ones that keep coming back.

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siquick
Solve your own problem, its likely that there are a lot of other people who
struggle with it.

Once you've solved it, focus on distribution - reaching the aforementioned
people. Go where they are and communicate with them: HN, Reddit, Twitter,
specialist forums, email.

Be ready to pivot quickly as you'll probably find that the product you made,
while useful, isn't as useful as it could be.

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jklein11
Find one person. Do something for them that they will pay money for. Find more
people like person one. Make sure you aren't losing money.

Let the budget/timeline influence these two questions:

I don't have any frontend dev skills. Where should I start?

Should I outsource the website development part?

Not sure how this is relevant: I am 31.

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chris__butters
Forget about the money part for a while; look at problems to solve and things
you can build as learning exercises to try and get your skills up to scratch.
Look at a todo app - boring I know but you'll learn a lot.

I've built a few things I find useful and expanding on them to try and
monetise them.

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through
I would suggest creating a git repository on GitLab or GitHub to get started.
Then learn about nodeJs, npm and create a build project, storing it on your
remote git repo (GitLab private repo). Once you have started developing these
skills try submitting to an open source project, getting feedback. When you
feel you know enough about the process, look for small gig work and build up
your resume from there. Lots of perils, but worth it. Good prep for the
business skills you need.

