Ask HN: Need a side project that will generate 100K within 4 years
Family is growing and house seems to shrink on us. i would like to buy a new house or expend my house with in 4 years, since i already have a day job i thought i might start a side project that i can sell in a couple of years or that will generate about 2K each month. Any oNe has an idea?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2011 where @doronrotem convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.
Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.
Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.
Community Debate Themes:
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
CATEGORY Ask HN Roundtables →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE 6 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 6 comments
You can play with the numbers and goals all you want, but until you actually start something and generate revenue, it will all be meaningless. If your project goes like many of the others here, it will generate close to nothing for a while, and then slowly rise (or shoot up if you're lucky). Moreover, if you want to be successful you'll need to pick something you're knowledgeable about and have the skillset to create. Everybody here can pitch ideas, but do you really think we'd be better at coming up with an idea for a project than you would, especially given this limited amount of information?
There was an article recently that talked about the problem of people asking what programming projects they should work on, and how that was really the wrong question to ask in the first place. I wish I could find it again, as there are some parallels to these kids of questions.
The 'solution' is easy, be happy with what you have and stop buying crap you don't need. The fact you think you need a 'extra' $100,000 on top of a job and a house(mortgaged or not) is a good indication the issue here is you just want stuff.
The answer to your question though is work hard and ignore your kids. Get a promotion by skilling up then move to a high paid job.
Or start a online company, sell something but make the site also make people want to come back, as before work your but off, know your product inside out, stopping wasting time on the little things.
Freelance work. $50 x 10 hours per week = $2000 per month.