Ask HN: How are you making money on the side?

22 points by arkensaw ↗ HN
Just wondering what are y'all doing for side gigs these days?

28 comments

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Nothing lately. But some time ago - teaching folks coding, selling online courses
I've thought about donating plasma. Might do it this Friday or something.
"If I draw, you lose, Iron. We donating plasma!"
I run an audiophile music recommendation newsletter. It pays peanuts, but it's just past breakeven less than a year in and it's fun.

For the curious: https://SeekHiFi.com

A couple months ago I made a partnership with a kiosk bar in Copacabana beach/Rio and brought a group of expats there for a party, me and a friend got 10% of the bar consumption.

Some 300 people showed up so it was a good money for a side gig, planning on continuing doing these meetups.

I made a lil web game over the course of 5 years - https://syns.studio/more-ore.

Made around $3X,XXX so the returns aren't too good but it's something i'm passionate in.

hey!Found it here and been playing your game since yesterday, quite entertaining! I hope you succeed in growing the fanbase!

I'm actually quite tempted to create a similar game based in my hometown that is related to mining. But 5 years I guess I don't have the capacity for that haha.

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Investing most of the post-tax compensation from my main job in VTI, and leaving it there.
I run a SaaS to help open-source devs monetize their GPL-licensed SDKs/libs. Going good so far.
I spun off geek-themed speed dating to geek themed singles mixers. They have party games, couch co-op and vs games, karaoke, and get-to-know-you games to encourage strangers to talk to each other. A drink is included with the ticket.
It's far from a fortune, and its future is uncertain, but I've been earning a bit via donations with my writing/podcasting for almost 20 years now: https://www.damninteresting.com

I'm also working on diversifying, starting with a free daily word game that I hope gets a little traction on Patreon: https://omiword.com

I have a few other projects-in-progress, if I'm lucky, one will earn a dollar or two.

I know it's not always noticed, but the little touches (like the menu, when clicked, spinning to become the x to close the menu) make this absolutely delightful. I hadn't heard about omiword and will be giving it a go.
Side gigs aren't worth it. If you're at a decent company, my boss feeling slightly more enthusiastic at my potential could mean tens of thousands of dollars more in bonus/stock at the end of the year. I'd rather work harder on work.
I buy and sell older electronic musical instruments mostly from the long tail.

It is a rationalization of my GAS, gives me an excuse to take things apart, provides the satisfactions of repair, creates an opportunity to learn new skills, and makes a little money.

Hackathons. Not a huge amount, only around $3000 so far, but it's a good excuse to push certain technology to their limits.
Independent consulting (as in, I tell you what to do, not you tell me what to do) for AI integrations (whether and how to add AI to your product/systems, and how to effectively use AI for coding).

There's so much BS in AI that there's value in someone you trust telling you what does and doesn't work. Of course, there's no shortage of people doing exactly that, so the clients come through extended network (word of mouth, purely inbound).

Previously I developed crypto-centric web apps and games for clients, which eventually pivoted to security testing and bug bounties (several apps were in a legal grey area and willing to pay higher than average).

These days not doing anything actively making money but slowly working on a Discord trading card game platform that is free and open source but will have a premium version with hosting, additional features, etc.

I spend two hours each morning working on my "online laundromat" (an uptime monitoring + status page service: https://onlineornot.com/).

It's been 4.5 years now, could see myself doing this for another 10 years easily.

My side gig is "reverse".

I work for a higher salary, just part time, so I have more free time, and my salary is sufficient enough to let me do all the things I want to do.