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A comment on Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without wor... by dannyphantom on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @11:50AM (#41047332)
Your comment reminded me of a cool little project I found a few years ago re: niche problems and smaller solutions - the target demo being soldiers who (very generally) have some disposable income to spend on a small app that can improve their professional QoL was kind of genius imo.

There was (still is, though the website is now dead) a really cool website/app that a fmr Air Force soldier made called AFI SWiM[0] that extracted 'Shall, Will and Must' references from Air Force publications which blew up in popularity among the target demo. The dev recently(ish) wrote a blog post[1] how it surprised him to see the app[2] had gotten around ~20k downloads, though I am unsure if the app was always priced at $1.99 (which would be just under $40k).

I like the idea of developing a problem solver for a niche market, though finding and monetizing it definitely is pretty tough.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20220601160702/https://swim.afie...

[1] https://willswire.com/blog/chat-afi/

[2] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/afi-explorer/id1564964107

the github repo: https://github.com/willswire/afi-swim

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Re:Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without wor... by cvwright on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @12:28PM (#41047893)
Your story supports the position that it's safer to take the FAANG job.

This guy found an underserved market opportunity, built something, got some success marketing it, and made a whopping total of $40k.

Meanwhile the FAANG guys are making that every two months, without all the risk.

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Re:Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without wor... by wonger_ on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @03:00PM (#41049557)
Imagine if this app was B2B instead of B2C, or if it pivots to B2B in the future, or if it's acquired. Imagine also future passive income with little maintenance. And his project seemed like a side project written over a few months.

Still risky, but the expected value is comparable to a stint at a salaried job IMO, once you find a decent market opportunity. Not to mention the qualitative value of self-employment, and that FAANG employment seems a tad risky these days with layoffs.

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Re:Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without wor... by edgriebel on Wednesday July 24, 2024 @07:29AM (#41055825)
> imagine if

We can play this game all day, but the fact is somebody put a ton of work into a project and made about what they could have made in a month at a FAANG.

Pretty crappy trade off.

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Re:Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without wor... by madamelic on Thursday July 25, 2024 @11:09AM (#41069584)
> Pretty crappy trade off.

Not really. FAANG people have to show up to get that salary. It's not apples to apples to compare this to salary because the app was built once then continued to make money without additional work.

Salary requires constant effort and work. I will take working 60 - 80 hours for a week to make $40k over working 320 hours to make the same.

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Re:Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without wor... by Noneofya on Wednesday July 24, 2024 @12:17PM (#41058603)
Imagine investing the FAANG money into dividend ETFs and living off those in a few years.

> that FAANG employment seems a tad risky these days with layoffs

You aren’t seriously comparing the risk of self-employment to the risk of being layed off by one of the most stable companies of the world during a downturn after a 15 year bullrun, are you?

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