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A comment on Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you come up with the idea?.

Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by holgersindbaek on Sunday December 11, 2022 @12:03PM (#33944956)
I've created an online solitaire platform (https://online-solitaire.com/) that's earning me $10k/m now. It started as a side-project 5 years ago, but I've recently gone full time on it.

It actually started as a Mac app 10 years ago and I choose to create a solitaire game because I had made a string of side-project that I didn't earn any money on, so I wanted to see if I could find a project that would actually generate some side-income.

I did it by scraping the Mac App Store so I could find apps that had a lot of downloads and bad reviews. I figured that if an app had a lot of downloads, but got bad reviews then I could create something better and there would be an audience for it. The app ended up making enough money that I've kept it as a side-hustle for all these years. I've written about how I picked the app here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-i-grew-a-simple-solita....

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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by batmaniam on Sunday December 11, 2022 @01:04PM (#33945609)
Can you clarify how it makes 10k/mo? I don't see anywhere on the site where a person could donate/buy something, and I don't see ads. Your download also seems free. How does it actually generate any cash for you?
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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by jcrash on Monday December 12, 2022 @12:13AM (#33951136)
You have to play a bit for the ads to pop up.
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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by xwowsersx on Sunday December 11, 2022 @03:28PM (#33947127)
Ads, it seems
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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by xiande04 on Sunday December 11, 2022 @12:41PM (#33945352)
TIL you can make 10k a month on a solitaire app.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by peterpost2 on Sunday December 11, 2022 @05:50PM (#33948462)
Pleasant to see a fast website, that sadly does not happen a lot nowadays!
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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by WheelsAtLarge on Monday December 12, 2022 @02:11AM (#33951824)
I'm impressed by the programming. It's very smooth and responsive. Good Job! Thanks for sharing the info.
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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by holgersindbaek on Monday December 12, 2022 @08:05AM (#33954234)
Thanks . Shout-out to Greensock for making an awesome animation library. I've recently used their FLIP plugin (https://greensock.com/docs/v3/Plugins/Flip/) to make a version of 2048: https://2048-online.io/.
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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by ry8806 on Monday December 12, 2022 @08:48AM (#33954555)
pretty sure it's broken, I've been playing for over an hour and haven't won a single deck! :P
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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by withinboredom on Sunday December 11, 2022 @06:00PM (#33948569)
You can also do something similar with WordPress plugins.
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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by coreymaass on Monday December 12, 2022 @08:14AM (#33954302)
I built a WordPress plugin and sold it after a few years. I'm currently promoting another. Th answer the original question "how did you come up with the idea?" - I find blue ocean apps that I like and rebuild them, customized for WordPress. My first plugin with a kanban board inspired by Trello. My current plugin is Social Link Pages ( https://sociallinkpages.com ), inspired by Lintree, Carrd, etc.
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Re:Ask HN: Those with money-making side projects,how did you... by david422 on Sunday December 11, 2022 @12:37PM (#33945315)
Nice, that's a smart approach.
[ Parent | on HN ]