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Ask HN: Side Projects Gone Big

229 points by SomeoneAtHN ↗ HN
I've heard many of you love to create side projects for fun, but I also heard that few of them actually took off and grow into a profitable business. So feel free to list if you have any. Statistics will be welcomed as well!

159 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 210 ms ] thread
jasonfried
Basecamp was a side project for us.
nolok
I didn't know basecamp and started looking at your site; I really love the presentation except for one thing: the bit about the basecamp competitor founder saying blabla basecamp is the best is the "who uses it" page. When I read the part between parenthesis the whole thing really sounded to me like a phony message, and made me have a more negative look on the page.

Just wanted to let you know.

nolok
Could the person who downvoted me tell me why ? I merely expressed my opinion, to me this quote looks like a flaw on an otherwise great presentation of his project. Or am I not supposed to criticize projects here (I'm new to hacker news) ?
julsonl
He was probably outraged to discover that you don't know the legend that is Jason Fried (37 Signals).
cookiecaper
You should get used to this attitude, too -- even though 37 Signals's founders and advice are highly overrated, there are a lot of people who idolize it and take criticism of the group pretty personally. There is a really weird dynamic going on with that, it's hard for me to understand.
btucker
I can see where you're coming from. For people that don't know the history of intranets.com it seems a little odd. FWIW, intranets.com pre-dates basecamp and was acquired by WebEx many years ago.
SomeoneAtHN
How long did it take for Basecamp to take off and become profitable?
jasonfried
Basecamp was profitable fast. We were doing about $5000/month after the first 6 weeks. We only had a few people at the company so our overhead was really low.
SomeoneAtHN
That was very impressive. Did you guys just spread the word through friends and do a lot of marketing at first?
ritonlajoie
I really like your product (being a customer). So, when are you going to host it in France :) ? Because the only problem with basecamp is the load time around here :) But congratulations for this product and wish you the best.
paolomaffei
Isn't everything you ever made a byproduct of ruby on rails anyway?
middus
Nope, RoR is a byproduct of building basecamp.
sahillavingia
Instapaper is the (or at least, my) defacto example - http://instapaper.com/

Two of my iPhone apps, Color Stream and Dayta have turned into profitable businesses, even though they were just pet projects (and still are).

_b8r0
I love Instapaper and bought the Pro version for the iPhone the minute it came out as I wanted to give back. Just introduced my wife to it too (as I thought it might be too much hard work for her to learn yet another toy of mine), she loves it!
jcromartie
I use Instapaper on the iPad every day.
bignoggins
Awesome, I had no idea Dayta and Instapaper were the same developer.
mojombo
I started both Gravatar and GitHub as side projects. I sold Gravatar to Automattic after several years (though it was never profitable and became quite painful to run during the last year that I owned it). GitHub has been profitable since the day we started charging money (6 months after we started working on it) and we are now up to thirteen employees without having taken any funding.

In both cases it was the viral element of the idea that made it possible for me to turn what was once a side project into something more. If you can't spend all day every day working on it, you need something that will grow even when you're not watering it.

eps
Just to establish the baseline and not to over-excite everyone - how many side projects you had that did not work out? :)
bdclimber14
I really like this question! How many failures does it take before a success?
ashitvora
None. It is not necessary to fail to succeed.

If you think, the idea is good, give it a shot. See what's the response. If it works, continue else quit.

Key thing is to know when to quit.

bdclimber14
That is the key thing. I think perseverance is important, but perseverance through iteration. How long would you give a new web startup to reach 1,000 users? 10,000 users? before you considered it a failure or necessary to quit.
usiegj00
I've got 11 out of 12 that are failures. If you want to see them ask. And a few that have been winners. I'd build products whether they made me money or not--we're at a lucky time in history when the thing I (we?) like to do as fun and as a hobby is sometimes also really commercially viable.
SomeoneAtHN
Yeah, that's what makes the internet a great place to start business. You don't have the risk to lose tons of money if your business falis.
mojombo
This is a hard question to answer. I work on a lot of side projects in the form of open source libraries and whatnot. It's possible that any of those could blossom into a business, but I've never really pursued many of them.

As for other business projects:

* I tried to resell knives and other camping gear on eBay once. I called it Wolfcastle Munitions. That was a disaster. I'm not built to do retail.

* I had an idea called Project Mothership that was going to be Rails hosting (before anyone was doing dedicated Rails hosting and much like what Planet Argon became) but I abandoned it after I realized that I'd lose my mind if my job became network operations management.

* I wanted to do a climbing sight called Microbomber that would list and categorize climbing routes across the world with photos and reviews and whatnot.

* I also thought about making custom gloves and coats for hardcore outdoor activities (wilderness hiking and skiing, etc). I have a near impossible time finding gloves that fit me well and are legitimately waterproof, and I've still never owned a winter coat that I've loved. I was also going to use the name Microbomber for this effort.

There are plenty more that I've long forgotten.

But, all of these ideas (except the first) I only spent very small effort on. I like to put small efforts towards a lot of ideas and then see what catches. That way I don't spend a lot of time and effort that is later wasted. Knowing when to abandon something and when to dive in is the hardest part, but it's essential. Call it what you want: intuition, savvy, or instinct. I just call it seeing the world objectively and not overvaluing every little idea you happen to have.

mattmiller
Do you feel like you truly tested any of these ideas? If so how?

I have built something that I think is good, but has not taken off. I don't think it is a bad idea, I think it is an untested idea. I would hate to drop it without anyone ever seeing it.

mojombo
With a lot of effort I think they all could have been successful. But when you have to work your day job to make a living, you need something you can bootstrap on the side without investing huge amounts of unrewarded effort up front. That's why I like to start a lot of things and then see what happens. Sometimes I give up on an idea simply because it becomes uninteresting (e.g. retail). With both Gravatar and GitHub, it was almost immediately obvious that they were ideas worth pursuing. They got people excited, and I could easily gauge the interest by tracking signups. If you're not seeing signups, it means something is wrong and you'll have to decide how much effort you're willing to invest in order to fix that something. Without knowing the details it's hard for me to give any more insight.
rdl
Have you tried Oakley gloves? Some are fairly waterproof (and yet breathe), and they seem durable and well fitting, at least to me.
SomeoneAtHN
Great to hear that! Just an extended question:

For both Gravatar and GitHub, did you put in any marketing efforts and money while they were still in the "side project" stage?

mojombo
Not really. I didn't have much money to use for marketing so I just focussed on getting it in front of people that would be interested and spread the word. That meant sending emails to people I didn't know and introducing myself. Sometimes that's all it takes!
ashitvora
A bit off track but just curious to know if sending out emails, introducing yourself and your product, played major role in marketing.

I mean, do people take it seriously? I usually mark it as spam. may be it's just me.

Did you use any other methods for marketing your product?

paulsingh
http://notarycrm.com and http://mailfinch.com are doing pretty well for me. Still side projects but they're both profitable and steadily growing.

My rule of thumb: if you see a business using spreadsheets to manage something, there might be an opportunity there

jasonlbaptiste
Awesome rule of thumb Paul.
paulsingh
Now that I think about it, I think you planted the seed about that idea through one of your blog posts last year. Thanks! :)
jasonlbaptiste
Ha, really? This post I'm assuming: http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/microsoft-excel-is-the-wo...

TONS of Micro opportunities here.

paulsingh
Yep, this is definitely the post I was referring to.

FWIW, I fundamentally believe that smart people tackling brick-and-mortar-businesses-using-spreadsheets will make obscene amounts of money over the long term. (Not only are my products examples of this but, few people know this about me, I actually bought a gas station earlier this year to force myself to feel the pain.)

For anyone thinking about doing anything like this, feel free to reach out - I want to help you. :)

brianbreslin
Paul, have you found any significant points in the gas station business you think could be improved by leveraging soft-tech?
paulsingh
Abso-f*cking-lutely. :)

CRM: who's buying from me, what are they buying and what should I market to them so that I can make more money.

Inventory Management: what's in stock, what do I need to re-order, are my employees stealing from me?

I can keep going... :)

brianbreslin
interesting. i'd love to hear more about this.
Luyt
I maintain an in-house developed 'enterprise database app'. When someone suggests new additions to this app, I tell him/her to use Excel to test their idea for a few weeks first, and then ask again. This gives a pretty good idea what they really want, because if people have to track stuff themselves they'll do only the barest minimum, and that's eventually what should go into the enterprise application.
chime
That is exactly what I do and it has worked out pretty well. If they don't use the Excel sheet, then I know they wouldn't much care to use my ERP module either. Saves time and resources.
parbo
So, pretty much all businesses? That's quite a market..
paulsingh
Not sure if you're bring sarcastic, but I'll bite.

Yes, but you need to peel off a specific problem within a given vertical. I bootstrapped both of these ideas and, because of the limitations that come with bootstrapping, I targeted them specifically.

MailFinch is on demand direct mail for real estate agents. Over time, companies that send a lot of invoices started using it too.

NotaryCRM is for notaries - plain and simple. Over time, it became apparent that signing companies were also looking for a solution that solved their specific pains.

parbo
I was a little bit of both. Thanks for the extra info!
sabat
Paul -- would love to hear a summary of what you did to market these sites. SEO? Direct marketing? Word of mouth? Online ads? What was your approach, and what did you learn?

Edit: I suppose one could read this post: http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/distribution-distribution...

paulsingh
Happy to share... I think I'll write an entire blog post on this.

MailFinch: Cold calls and asking for referrals. NotaryCRM: lots of SEO (notice the "find a notary" directory and the theme of almost all of the blog posts)

For both, there was a lot of call-to-action testing (in terms of verbal calls to action during my phone/in-person conversations) and rapid iteration (breaking features down into the smallest chunks and deploying often).

More recently (like, a week ago) I built a really basic site to force myself to learn a little more about consumer-focused community building.

As with all of my ideas, making money comes a close second behind the most important thing to me: learning something new.

kno
I’m very impressed by mailfinch, the idea that someone will upload a file and address let you print and mail it still blow my mind. Now you’re making money on it, Great job guys!
SomeoneAtHN
For MailFinch, does it take a lot of time to operate since you have to print the paper out and mail it?
paulsingh
Yeah, it can get tedious and time consuming. Though, at this stage, I've got a pretty cool process hacked together (think temps, cronjobs and sweat) so I've gotten a lot of my own time back to work on other things.
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endlessvoid94
ThatHigh.com - started in February as a joke, now it pays my rent in SF.
sabat
I just gave that a quick look -- where does the money come from? Ad sales? Something else?
endlessvoid94
yeah, adsense and direct advertisers. i sell stickers, too, but that hardly generates any revenue
freejoe76
I'm curious: How much time per week does it take to maintain + edit the site?
endlessvoid94
i haven't touched the site in at least a month. Sure, there are bugs, sometimes registration fails, but for the most part it's completely hands-off.
danfitch
I like the christian treatment center ads that run on the side.
endlessvoid94
haha yeah....I could actually use some pointers on how to better handle adsense in this respect. is it possible to require approval for any ad shown? is it possible in an automated way?

before we got kicked off adbrite (for our content, or something), it was possible to do this, but it was very tedious...

danfitch
I think you can only stop others from serving but looks tedious.
Timothee
And, like the FMyLife/VieDeMerde kind of sites, I imagine you could easily spun it off to other subjects if some come to mind.
MykalM
in beta testing http://www.getjoined.com should sign up and get a beta login
kno
The donate button seems kinda alien to me, why would you be asking for money at the same time your are asking someone to signup to know more about what you are doing? I think people donate money when they see something and are impressed about it.
MykalM
thank you for the feeback,
dasil003
Does Twitter count?
sabat
Yes. It was a side project by members of the Odeo staff, correct?
mitchellh
There are a lot of side projects listed here which made it HUGE, not just big :) To lighten it up a little: I started http://uwrobot.com which is a small niche app for finding course openings for students at UW. I started this 2 years ago, and now over 25% of the entire undergraduate population at UW uses it, and in one academic quarter registration period, it is able to pay my rent for the year.

Its definitely not big, nor huge, but its very profitable. Just some motivation for those of you out there who have little side projects that just want to make a small side income.

3pt14159
Dude, I'm Civ08 so I didn't get to use your app, but choosing courses was a nightmare. I'm sure my brother uses you guys. Congrats!
mv
I'm no expert, but it seems unintuitive to have to click 'course notifier' and then 'getting started' to actually get signed up. There should be a 'Start watching courses now' link on the homepage... Most people that go to that sight probably already know what it does and are just looking to sign-up.
eof
I hate your little slide show. I was genuinely trying to read what it said, and I couldn't come close to keep up, nor could I press 'stop'.
simonft1
Just a note, I got really exited when I saw this. I go to the University of Wisconsin, which is also referred to as UW. It took me a while to find out which "UW" it is referring to. It seems the only place that mentions it is in the FAQ. Perhaps you could put "University of Washington" on your homepage?
[dead] _ivan
I have three side projects (classifieds sites) making $400+ monthly

Expenses are:

1x 256 slice on slicehost for $25/month 1 hour of maintenance/day

wensing
http://stormpulse.com was completely nights & weekends for the first couple years, but is now supporting two full-timers and growing. For stats on hours invested, traffic, and revenues, see: http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/1215873671/bootstrapping-stor...
quickpost
That's an epic bootstrapping post. Even though it's a bit of a reality check, it's also quite inspiring. It shows how far pure determination and persistence can take you!

Well done.

wensing
Thanks! I should add, however, that my next post in that vein is going to explain how much was timing and circumstances we couldn't have imagined.
oziumjinx
Fantastic post! Just read through it all...truly inspiring.
revorad
Oh my god, talk about relentless.

You know what would be interesting: a photo capturing your wife/girlfriend's mood at the time beside each milestone :-)

wensing
Very insightful comment.
roblund
Cool post. I must have missed it when it was on the front page.
Baher
I've tried a lot of side projects but none of them panned out, because I couldn't focus on them long enough to get them to a state where I can leave my day job to fully work on them. Doing successful side projects requires taking small steps and a good amount of focus over long stretches of time, even if the rewards don't initially come.
nkohari
I don't think you can create a side project for fun and have it turn into a profitable business. You can, however, create something on the side with a mind to sell it, and become successful.
nkohari
It's okay, you can downvote me. I understand wanting to believe that it works that way, but it almost never does. You will simply make different decisions based on whether a project is for fun or for profit.

Can we at least agree that projects with no business model and no funding should be called apps rather than startups?

natrius
I'm guessing people didn't like your first comment because it was trivial to disprove due to your word choice. If you say that something "can't" be done, you're usually wrong. Statements of probability usually work better, which was the case for your second, more successful comment.
misterhaywood
WeatherLoop° http://weatherloop.com is a side project of mine. Amazing how scratching your own itch can benefit someone else.
btucker
Hey, that's very nice! Easy monetization opportunity: Signup to be a Groupon (etc) affiliate & include a little string of text with that day's deal for the user's locale along with a shortened link.
geekdesigngirl
That's a brilliant and simple idea! Can I ask how you send out texts? Do you use a third party API like Mobile Messenger?
misterhaywood
Thank you. I'm doing AB testing on a few sms APIs, when I settle on one, I'll leave another comment here.
dangrossman
I made a WordPress plugin to add a feature to one of my own sites, and threw it up on my blog as a free download. After hundreds of downloads and comments asking for support, I rewrote it and packaged it up as a commercial product. In the next 1.5 years I made about $180,000 in profit selling that plugin, then sold the rights to the plugin on Flippa for another $90,000.
SomeoneAtHN
Wow. That is impressive. Few questions:

1. How long did it take to write the plugin? 2. How did you find your paid customers? From what I heard, most WordPress users don't want to pay for themes or plugins. 3. And why did you decide to sell it for that kind of high price? Were there troubles at the beginning because it was a free download before?

Thanks!

RDDavies
Good questions! Awaiting answers myself!
jcnnghm
I started Barhopolis (look at barsannapolis.com) as a hobby because we never knew what was going on until after it happened. We reach over 40,000 people a month now not including mobile, and we are growing fast. Last night we went around town with the Mast-Jägermeister executives filming, including the CEO of the company that imports Jägermeister into the US. In July we had a huge event (1700 people at it's peak), and the governor showed up and performed with the band, pretty cool. We aren't where we need to be yet, but we are profitable and growing.
bmelton
I'm pretty sure that's the site I used to find a bar for New Year's Eve, which was the first time I'd been to the Sly Fox, which I am in love with.

I owe you a drink!

jcnnghm
Must have been, we had an event at Sly Fox on New Years last year. We have an event coming up there on Saturday the 30th for Halloween, probably worth checking out if you're a fan.
janj
Ship Mate for the iPhone (Android coming some time in the future) is a side project, hopefully transitioning into a full time thing. It is now making me a livable wage and I haven't even started the big ideas for it yet.
garrettdimon
Sifter (http://sifterapp.com) started out as a side project. It was literally just something fun for me to fill my time with until a handful of people encouraged me to actually try to build a business out of it. Within about 18 months of launching it was able to support me full-time.

During that 18 months, there were times where it was rather stressful to work full to part-time on another job and manage a web application that's supposed to be up 24x7.

However, I would definitely say that if anybody else is in that tough spot before your side project can support you full-time, it's definitely worth fighting through it.

adamhowell
This is a topic dear to my heart, there's not much I love talking about more than side-projects.

http://mocksup.com is my current side-project, and while it's yet to "go big", it's profitable and growing.

SomeoneAtHN
The site looks great! Just curious, how did you find your initial paid customers? Is it just through word-of-mouth or did you do anything more specific?
adamhowell
Thanks. Once we got the marketing pages/admin features to a place we thought were worth paying for, I posted a link on HN and from that we got covered by Mashable and several others. That got us profitable.

Now we're working on getting to that next level where one of us can stop freelancing and get a check from Mocksup every month.

BorisBomega
I started TwitterCounter.com as a fun weekend coding project after my partner said he wouldn't have time to start on it until he had finished some other stuff. I couldn't let it go so started coding right away. We launched 6 days later. Not it is hugely profitable and has 2 full-time employees.

More importantly: I think almost every major internet success was started as a side-project. Yahoo, Google, Apple, the list goes on and on...