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Ask HN: What income sources can a developer create outside of work/freelancing?

15 points by roneesh ↗ HN
I know that as a developer I can work for a company (which I am) and freelance (which I'm hesitant to take on), but what non-traditional sources of income could I create? I know teaching is one and making an app is another, but are there other more obscure ones most developers don't consider? Could you share examples you as a developer have done?

13 comments

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thewhizkid
I don't know if you would consider it "income", but in the spirit of hacking I am an active travel hacker and have accumulated millions of miles and points over the past 3 years or so through a combination of credit card bonuses, strategic spending, and "manufactured spending."

I consider miles a valuable currency at this point in my life because I would otherwise spend a lot of real money on personal travel. I can't remember the last time I paid for a flight and can easily accumulate dozens of free hotel nights a year.

Worth looking into if you value travel.

rubiquity
> manufactured spending

Buying expensive things at Nordstrom, returning and refunding onto your debit card and then paying off your credit card?

thewhizkid
It's more like buying cash equivalents with a credit card like Visa gift cards and then liquidating them to pay off said credit card. Your cost is the purchase fee and any costs to liquidate the card. In some cases you can actually profit from this I.e buying Amex gift cards through a cash back portal.
roneesh
Thanks for the info, this is something I've always wanted to learn a bit more about, would appreciate any resources you could point me to.
thewhizkid
Flyertalk.com has a very active manufactured spending forum. I'd start there.
ljk
something like /r/churning?
kelukelugames
I write about interviews and have made $2 to $100 every month. I plan on writing about other subjects and maybe doing youtube solution to interview questions. http://kelukelu.me/interview/

I sold art through redbubble. I've made around a whole dollar. But at least my art skills are getting much, much better. http://www.redbubble.com/people/kelukelu?ref=account-nav-dro...

The goal of both is to improve my writing and drawing, but it's nice when people decide to support me. :)

If I were more serious then I'd buy rental property.

roneesh
Very interesting! How exactly does writing about interviews get you the income? Is it ads, affiliate links, etc?
kelukelugames
Hi, it is all from affiliated linked to Amazon for interview related material.
Hortinstein
just had to say I really like those totem art styles!
seekingcharlie
Put 20% of your salary into an ETF. Check back in 5 years time.

Alternatively, write an ebook.

pscheyer1
Free apps with ads on iOS or android. Consulting- similar to freelancing without needing to build or maintain anything but relationships, can consist of advising people on what solutions exist and then refusing to implement them.

Rental property and the classical passive income routes like dividend bearing stocks or stuff like lendingclub.com.

You could get a real estate license and sell real estate. You're a normal person, you have normal person options outside of work/freelancing.

Specifically for development, you could also learn enough patent law to go for relevant patents but that'll probably cost more than it earns.

You could offer your services to another company to help them hire developers. Review their code and design interviews and such. But those are pretty much all varieties of 'freelance,' so it depends on what about 'freelance' work you're hesitant to take on.

vijayr
1. Make Udemy courses (and sell elsewhere also). There are lots of topics which still don't have good courses on Udemy, even though they claim to have tens of thousands of courses. Example: http://www.businessinsider.com/rob-percival-online-coding-co...

2. Other forms of content - like eBooks. If you can write about a technical topic or a business topic, there is money in it. example: http://nathanbarry.com/samuel-hulick-37000-self-published-bo...

3. Mobile apps - don't know much about it. This seems to be a hit or miss thing

4. Affiliate sites using various affiliate programs like Amazon, eBay etc.

5. Teach in person - this is awesome if you can pull it off. I've seen people do a weekend course and make 5k or more depending on the topic.

These are some interesting resources that I've recently started following:

http://www.sidehustlenation.com/side-hustle-show/

http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/category/podcast/

But the best is probably to build a SaaS application. Hard part is finding a need :( Here is a beautiful example https://blog.pinboard.in/2014/07/pinboard_turns_five/ ($200K per year with bookmarking site).