Ask HN: What is your profitable side project story? - laksmanv
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jasonkester
I've written a bit about how I started as Guy In A Cubicle and eventually
transitioned to Dotcom Thousandaire, running S3stat and Twiddla:

[http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/guy-on-the-beach-
with-...](http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/guy-on-the-beach-with-a-
laptop.html)

The short version is moving to Contracting, then Consulting Remotely, then
Building Products while doing same, then learning how to Market them. With a
good helping of Living Cheaply thrown in to keep the burn rate down.

It's a nice way to go about it, since you never need to worry about running
out of money, and you can move at whatever speed you like since there's always
a "day job" supplementing the product revenue.

Even better, since the business is built to run in the background while
working elsewhere, once you turn off the "working elsewhere" part, you're
effectively retired.

~~~
pinchharmonic
How did you deal with seeing family? Also, at what age/technical ability did
you take the jump? I feel a bit of "impostor syndrome" when I think about
going off and trying to do contracting work (I'm age 25 with a little
experience making CRUD web apps and some standard backend work for a bank).
Thanks!

~~~
jasonkester
I think I was around 30 when I started doing the travel, contract, repeat
cycle. By then I had established a reputation for being good at building
things and a handful of good contacts at places that needed work done from
time to time.

Job hopping helps with the impostor syndrome thing, which everybody has to a
degree. After half a dozen stints at different companies each telling you that
you're good at what you do, it eventually starts to sink in. It also helps
prove to you that you can in fact pick up work quickly when you need it in
this industry (usually including a nice rate bump). And of course, the more
people you work for, the bigger the list of "ex-bosses friends building a
team" becomes, and with it the pool of options for future gigs.

Good luck!

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vinrob92
I started [http://www.manypixels.co](http://www.manypixels.co) last week as a
side project while being a digital nomad in SE Asia.

It is a service that offers unlimited design services for bootstrapped
startups (though we actually have one VC funded startup as a client).

This side project generates about $3k weekly revenue currently (though I have
only one week worth of data), and about 20% of that is profit currently
(though I should be able to increase that closer 30-35% in the next couple of
months).

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SirLJ
Stock trading robots, it is a lifestyle business with no customers, no
employees and no investors and location independent and can be done from
anywhere in the world...

~~~
iSloth
Was interested in stock trading robots a while ago, just had a look back
through your comments/submissions and this seems to be a common theme - Do you
have anywhere you write a little more on your experiences in this area, or do
you prefer to keep that under wraps?

~~~
SirLJ
Yep, unfortunately, due to the nature of the business, I would not share any
details...

~~~
kevindqc
I know this is not a get rich kind of thing, but how long did it take before
you saw significant amount of money coming your way?

I would LOVE to be financially independent. I'm just wondering, if I get into
quantitative trading, how many years that would take

~~~
SirLJ
Frankly, it took me years, because as everyone, I took the wrong path in the
beginning - technical analysis, books... After that I had to unlearn the bad
habits and start clean...

~~~
aryamaan
what's the right path? If you can't tell this because you consider it as a
secret ingredient of your recipe, what are the things one should avoid?

~~~
SirLJ
OK, 1st back test a lot, at least 1 or 2 market cycles to make sure your
winning strategy is not correlated to the bull market only for example...

What to avoid: avoid everyone who is selling trading strategy (in a books or
online gurus and signal sellers), no sane person will do it, because the more
people(money) are trading a strategy, the less effective it will become
overtime...

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markfer
1\. Provide weekly personalized one-hour sales coaching for tech founders
without a sales background

2\. Built a collaboration and communication platform that provides an easier
way for my sales team to communicate with potential customers

[1][https://www.sellsomemore.com/coaching](https://www.sellsomemore.com/coaching)

[2][https://www.recapped.io](https://www.recapped.io)

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edimaudo
Check out indiehackers.com

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egfx
[https://2fb.me](https://2fb.me) sharing tech

~~~
jklein11
Wow... this is pretty evil.

~~~
egfx
Thanks :)

