Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket money with little time?

Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by stanmancan on Friday June 02, 2017 @03:37PM (#14472727)

   I tried to be a freelance, it is well paid but with my full-time job it's too time consuming and I'm not so ambitious.

That's your problem in a nutshell. If you don't have any time to spare, and you're not ambitious enough to find time, then there's not much you can do. However, unless you're putting in 60+ hours a week at your day job you most likely have a lot more time than you think. Even 1 hour a night can add up quick.

- I've build a number of websites businesses on the side. Most the jobs come through word of mouth and recommendations.

- A few of them have agreed to keep me on a retainer, they pay me $XXX a month and I'll host their sites and give them a couple hours of maintenance each month if needed.

- I started a little API about 5 years ago and dropped an advertisement on the homepage. 3 years went by with next to no revenue from it, as time went on though it started to pick up. It runs on a $10/m VPS and at it's peak it made $1600/m in ad revenue. These days it hovers around $600-700/m and runs on a $20/m VPS. This takes about 0.5 hours a month of my time to keep up.

- Another company wanted a web application but didn't have the budget to pay for it up front. Built out a proof of concept on my own time and presented it. They liked it, so instead of selling it outright I host/maintain it and sell them seats. They pay $X/m per employee. They're trailing it right now in a few stores but they're in talks to launch it nationally.

- About to launch a small SaaS; one of those 'scratch your own itch' things. Whether there's a market for it or not remains to be seen.

All of those things have been accomplished over the last 5 years. I have a wife, 10 year old daughter, a full time job, and coach a soccer team. I know there are many people much busier than I am out there, but if I can find time to work on side projects, so can most people. You have to want it though, and your lack of ambition is most likely the prime culprit.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by csben on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:06PM (#14472913)

How do you find side gigs developing web applications for companies? I read about it a lot on HN, but never understood how these opportunities just fall into people's laps.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by blackflame7000 on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:28PM (#14473050)

You would be surprised how many companies are severely lacking tools that could greatly increase worker efficiency. The first webdev gig that I ever got came while visiting a friend who worked in a pharmaceutical research lab. Upon finishing her report, she proceeded to print it out and append it to these massive binders. I asked her why not digitize it all and make it available on all the lab computers via an intranet to which her response was "I didn't know that was possible".

After seeing that, I created a quick demo in about 3 weeks as a proof of concept and asked my friend to bring it to her boss. She gladly accepted because it made her look good by going beyond her duties to help the company be more efficient. The boss loved it and set up a meeting with me where we ironed out their ideal use cases as well as settled on a price and release date. After drafting a contract, viola, I had my first side gig.

I guess the main takeaway is to keep an eye out for professional friends and acquaintances outside of the tech world who could benefit from automation or digitization in their daily jobs but are simply unaware it's possible.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by AznHisoka on Saturday June 03, 2017 @10:16AM (#14476475)

Yep it all comes down to knowing people and beyond that getting to know their day to day responsibilities and problems. It doesnt fall into people's laps at all.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by iurisilvio on Sunday June 04, 2017 @12:21PM (#14482229)

Reach your friends with startups. They're probably fully loaded and need more hands, even if it is just a few hours/week. Just tell them you're thinking about side jobs.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by toexitthedonut on Saturday June 03, 2017 @04:15PM (#14478268)

How do you leverage word of mouth when the people you know don't even know the right people for your kind of work? I have plenty of time- I don't have a job but my network is disappointing for the time I've spent in the field (web developer, 7 years).

So how do you get word of mouth going when nobody I know, not even 2nd degree connections, know anyone that is hiring? It really sucks to be in this position.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by wordpressdev on Friday June 02, 2017 @07:17PM (#14473943)

Thanks for providing this insight. Seems like you're wearing too many hats at a time. More power to you :)

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by stanmancan on Saturday June 03, 2017 @03:56AM (#14475465)

How so? I make sure to spend plenty of time with my family. My day job (developer) takes up 40 hours a week. I probably spend another 5-10 hours per week on my side/personal projects. It's all about drive and being focused. I'm far from an outlier.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by bkyan on Friday June 02, 2017 @03:43PM (#14472768)

What do you mean by API in this context?

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by stanmancan on Friday June 02, 2017 @03:47PM (#14472807)

I built a free API that translates MAC address into a vendor. The API handles a ton of traffic (pushing 300 million requests a month) but actually generates no revenue as I don't charge for it. On the homepage of the site I added a search box that lets users search for the vendor manually instead of using the API. The homepage gets enough traffic to generate some ad revenue.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by whitepoplar on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:03PM (#14472901)

I'm curious--that's a ton of requests. Any idea what your users are using the data for, and in what context?

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by khedoros1 on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:55PM (#14473230)

As an example of a possible use: I know that my Asus router shows vendor info on its page that displays DHCP leases. It seems like it's mostly based on the MAC vendor ID. I haven't ever examined where it gets that information from.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by fencepost on Friday June 02, 2017 @06:51PM (#14473847)

From real world experience, "I see this device getting an address from DHCP but I have no idea what our where it is and there aren't any useful ports or it's off right now. Is the MAC from a manufacturer I recognize?"

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by Jach on Friday June 02, 2017 @05:22PM (#14473413)

~5k requests per minute doesn't seem that much if it's just light processing and a map lookup. You can do a lot with a $10/m VPS.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by sjg007 on Friday June 02, 2017 @04:53PM (#14473220)

I'd use it to trace computers on my network.

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by hultner on Friday June 09, 2017 @08:48AM (#14520964)

Do you have a link to your webiste? Would be nice to see.

Side note: If you are using an ad-network then which to generate such revenue, if not how are you selling your ads?

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Re:Ask HN: As a skilled developer, how do you make pocket mo... by ice109 on Friday June 02, 2017 @05:38PM (#14473504)

which vps are you using?

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