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- Hacker News
- Solo iOS app that I have been working on since January: https://bhol.app - crossed 500 MRR in June. Seeing the traction and feedback from users is the best form of motivation to keep going. Now working on scaling it via UGC/social media, landing deals with local language schools, and upping the design with more Rive assets.by bobthe3
- I'm making about $260 monthly playing play money poker, adjusted for price level it's like $400 in the US. I sell the virtual chips I make to other people. My side project is automating this and scaling 2x.by RivieraKid
- https://uruky.com has over 250 monthly active accounts (that's over €1k / month revenue). No subscription, no AI products/features. Just ad-free private search that you can tweak to your liking. There's a FAQ for most questions you'll have.
- https://overseer.studio - Infinite canvas for apps, browser tabs, PDFs, and more. Primarily focused on Game Masters for TTRPGs but I've heard from many that it would be an excellent general purpose digital binder.
Started last year with a problem I faced personally playing TTRPGs with newcomers. Built Overseer over a year to where it is today.
by nullfish - I had an idea in 2008 to make a website that emailed your friends when you die. I built https://www.deadmansswitch.net/ in a weekend, and it's been making money since. Around $1k/mo now.by stavros
- just curious, how did you find your first user?by sophotech
- morbid question, but do you know if any emails have ever been sent?by arkensaw
- How do people find it, word of mouth?by tietjens
- I heard about your website about a decade ago. That's awesome you are still maintaining it and it's generating cashflow.by Integrape
- I've wondered about this before, not just telling people, but what about my code projects etc... Something like "make all my github repo's public when I die" (assuming anyone would care about them).by Steve16384
- How much does it cost you to run it? I just remembered this company death.io that does this kind of thing but they do a whole package for what happens after you die.by sshussain270
- I'm building Book DNA to help people get book recommendations from humans (mostly authors and experts so far in our early days).
We started with the website, and now we are building a full app: a private, personal way to track your reading and get personalized recommendations based on your tastes.
-> https://building.bookdna.com/
We are aiming for a soft launch in a few months :)
If you want to be an early user and give us feedback, sign up here, and I'll get you going with the early version. We are adding imports from Goodreads now, and user folders to organize books how your brain works.
-> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeOdeqpZCS95FMRy_tE...
by bwb - how does this differ from alternatives like Hardcover, Fable, etc.?by l__l
- Pretty basic ones, I got into AI images cause of that viral AI avatars thing that levelsio made 2-3 years back and have just been iterating on that idea(even though I think if I went into the AI text side of things, I'd have been much bigger at this point):
https://admakeai.com - Recently got this to 800 MRR , kinda trying to make it the main thing since the LTV on it is the highest. So if I could just figure out ads, this has the highest potential
https://aieasypic.com - First project that I made that made money from subs vs making money from ads, whole reason I continued to indiehack. Its kinda dying but core users still bring in 3-4k/mo , altho actual MRR is 1k/mo
https://bestphoto.ai - Made this after I got frustrated from the bad decisions I made on above, basically a tech rewrite + clone + simplification of aieasypic. Currently makes the most but at a lower margin than aieasypic. Not gonna say exact numbers, but lets say 5k+/mo
by mesmertech - Also honestly if you have a thing that works, I'd say don't even share it. Its too easy to build a clone and start copying, which ofc was also possible a few years back but then it took actual effort and someone had to maintain it.
The only reason I'm sharing these is cause AI image generators are already like thousands in the market, so I mean if someone wants to go through the hell, I don't think its really that easy a market to succeed in anyways.
And here's my list of things that didn't work out: https://mesmer.tools/
by mesmertech - I run Akariq [0] which sells travel eSIMs in 190+ countries and regions in the world. It does not require an app or account. Customers like it for ease of use. Many HN users have bought eSIMs including countries like China, Japan, Australia and USA. I have overall received positive feedback.
Recently, I have a few Digital Nomads in Europe switching over from Nomad to me due to very good pricing [1]. A lot of customers have also come over from Airalo due to customer service. For example, recently major eSIM providers had a huge incident and left customers stranded for Internet. Akariq had backup resources and replacement eSIMs during those upstream telecom providers issues. I even wrote an Incident Report here [2].
Customer satisfaction remains my highest priority these days.
[1] https://akariq.com/en/esim/region/europe-31-areas/
[2] https://akariq.com/en/blog/akariq-backup-esim-service-interr...
by helloakariq - I'd love to list you on https://eSimGuide.com, send me a eMail tom@esimguide.comby iSloth
- Wow, is this really a side-gig?! I would have assumed this would need a team of engineers to runby anyg
- The world is changed - given the low cost of reverse engineering and implementation, it would be product suicide to openly call out a money making product.
I don't expect too many actual >500$ moneymaking projects to be listed. Would love to be proven wrong.
by unified101 - Thanks a bingo.
- I also feel the same all the masterclass about making money using x,y,z is either showing things in past which no longer work or very steep upfront cost/efforts.by Digish
- $500 MRR is so low that I doubt competition matters at that point. Plus, implementation is rarely the differentiating factor for a successful product.by takinola
- My first instinct was that side projects can’t make good money anymore. Monthly new repos on Github increased 5x. Also any good project can be cloned immediately. Maybe people here can confirm if it’s a good time to start indie projects.by ozgung
- Precisely what has effectively killed off the "building in public" trend that was all the rage just a two years ago.by skc
- I offer some absolutes in reply and would also love to be proven wrong.
The cost of engineering and implementation has always been low. Passive income has always been a subtle lie. The money has always been in providing a well-supported service.
No customer has ever cared about implementation details beyond what is outlined in the contracts they have with you and the nth-order effects of the contracts they are under with their own clients.
Advertising is the opposite of suicide, but since we have so much negativity on HN in the past few years this is no longer the best place to do that. Every potential customer here is vastly outnumbered by people who belong on reddit.
by sublinear - Yeah, the only time I see people talking about money-making side projects is when it's practically impossible to copy them. I can't see the advantage of bragging about a side project if the threat of losing marketshare for it is on the table.
My side project isn't software and doesn't make $500/mo, but I still just don't talk about it.
by wccrawford - Two weeks ago, I released the tactical map-based WW2 submarine sim Silent Shark (which I got feedback on from HN for beta test a few months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48180924 ) and it's gone extremely well for a side project - I've had over 100 Steam reviews, 99% of them are positive, and I have sold a few thousand copies so far.
I began working on this game just 6 months ago and have only worked on it in my spare time in evenings and on weekends, instead of playing computer games. I made the early decision to use Codex for 100% of the coding, that has been a phenomenal experience.
The only Image Gen AI I've used has been to clean up 2 old and weathered historical maps I found, to make them readable.
Still have over 25,000 Steam wishlists and growing. I'm super thankful and having a blast.
by epaga - Do sharks normally make sounds?by teddyh
- woo, I can see it's really a hardcore game, how did you find such a wonderful idea?by moonzfxs
- A friend and I host a monthly dinner club for people interested in exploring ethnic cuisine on Long Island. We work with one restaurant each month to create an 8-12+ course all inclusive price fixe menu. The food is usually served family style (the ambitious ones individually plate everything) and is authentic to the region we are hosting. We typically host the dinners on a Tues and Wed when the restaurants in our region aren’t too busy and could use business.
We started this in 2023 with 13 of our friends as guests. Since then the group has grown to over 1,200 members and well beyond our circle of friends. August was our 52 second restaurant. In 2025 we served 1,099 guests and generated $126k in revenue.
by agotterer