* Apps with ads in them. Easy enough to churn out, but decreasing revenues and most of the high earning adverts are the scummiest. Low value and of low moral usefulness.
* Solar Panels. In the UK, the government pays you per kWh generated. Needs an upfront investment, but stable income and you reduce your own energy bills. See http://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/solar
* Renting out property. Needs a much larger initial investment, and requires ongoing maintenance. On a good month I only hear from the managing agent once per month with details of how much rent is being paid.
* Stoozing. Find a credit card with 0% interest on balance transfers. Stick the money into a savings account. Or, if you like risk, on a horse. Need a good credit rating and decent savings rate to make more than a few hundred a year though.
* Affiliate marketing. If you can find a good theme (e.g. Halloween) and a decent place to put the links (somewhere that wants them - not spamming them everywhere) it's possible to get a moderate passive income. Well... not quite passive, requires upfront time commitment of selecting links and locations.
* Hosting / simple websites. Again, little bit of up-front commitment. Works best if you can find a local niche of people who want a friendly face to host their websites. Usually as simple as buying a domain, setting up WordPress, and turning on automatic updates.
In general, the best passive schemes require a large initial outlay and/or a dubious moral outlook. A better way to enhance your income is to eat out less, stop buying stuff you don't need, and shop around for deals. Boring but true!
I have had some success in affiliate marketing using an approach that I think many on Hacker News could duplicate. I launched my Amazon affiliate site about a year-and-a-half ago and its earnings have increased by about $100 per month with December being the first time I earned over $2,000 in a month.
The approach is to find a type of product where Amazon has thousands of listing but the specifications are not very accurate and the filtering criteria are limited, and where there are highly active forums with people talking about and asking about these products. Then you build a proper searchable catalog for the products. Include lots of search criteria, sorting criteria, side-by-side comparison, recommended accessories, anything that would be useful for people looking to buy them.
Once my catalog contained over 1,000 models I started replying to posts on forums with a link to my site that provided what they were looking for. People loved the site and it wasn't long before they were posting links to it to answer each others questions. That's all it took to start ranking on Google which is now responsible for 3/4 of my traffic.
Initially this is not passive income. The first few months are a lot of work for very little money. Eventually the balances shifts to the point where additional work is only needed if you want to keep growing. Amazon's product advertising API allows you to get current prices, availability and popularity (sales ranking) to keep everything fresh.
In the nicest possible way, your post reads like "Passive income suggestions (2006)" - e.g. I can't really believe that stoozing still works when interest rates are so low, and getting new affiliate sites ranking is very difficult these days.
> Solar Panels. In the UK, the government pays you per kWh generated. Needs an upfront investment (...)
It also required upfront confidence in the sustainability of the government subsidy. In The Netherlands a lot of now-solar panel owners decided to invest because of subsidies, but last year the government decided to stop the subsidy for 2016. Especially with the low energy prices, that makes it a net loss for a lot of people.
> Apps with ads in them. Easy enough to churn out, but decreasing revenues and most of the high earning adverts are the scummiest. Low value and of low moral usefulness.
I assume that by apps you mean native mobile apps. Anyone know how ad-supported mobile apps stack up against web apps? On the one hand, there's no such thing as ad blockers for native apps. On the other hand, web apps run on more platforms out of the box including desktops, and desktops in general seem to be easier to monetize via ads.
> Hosting / simple websites. Again, little bit of up-front commitment. Works best if you can find a local niche of people who want a friendly face to host their websites. Usually as simple as buying a domain, setting up WordPress, and turning on automatic updates.
Does anyone here have experience with this? It's an awfully saturated market, and there's not a lot of ways to differentiate yourself without turning it into a full-time job. That said, if it is as easy as edent makes it sound, I'd love to dive in as an excuse to get some system administration experience (and try out some ideas I have in that area).
* Also UK focused - Matched Betting. Exploiting Bookmakers signup/recurring offers for a guaranteed profit. This is good for an early surge of ~£2k followed by a pretty easily achievable £200-£500 per month for <5 hours commitment per week.
Renting out property is a lot more than a large initial financial investment.
Most people I know who do well in that space do so after several years. Once they learn how to be a landlord, learn the quirks of the market they invest in, etc, it can be pretty low stress, although not necessarily hands off.
But if you're just starting out, you should expect to make some mistakes and run into some headaches as you figure things out.
"Stoozing" (hadn't heard it called that before) hasn't been profitable in a long time, unless you're willing to take huge risks (in which case, there are better ways to make leveraged bets). I haven't seen a balance transfer offer with a transaction fee of less than 2% in quite a while. Even at 1%, you'd just break even.
Even if you are willing to take on a moderate amount of risk, most people - even those with good credit and decent incomes - are going to net a few hundred bucks per year off this thing, max.
> Stoozing. Find a credit card with 0% interest on balance transfers. Stick the money into a savings account. Or, if you like risk, on a horse. Need a good credit rating and decent savings rate to make more than a few hundred a year though.
I remember doing this in 2007. I wasn't aware there was a specific name for it.
>Stoozing. Find a credit card with 0% interest on balance >transfers.
Doesn't really work anymore : Most balance transfer credit cards charge a minimum fee of 1% to 3% on the transfer amount AFAIK. Savings account pay less than 1%.
Here's my experiences for last year in passive income:
Total Gross Revenues: $20,000 or so.
Mostly from a single high-traffic niche site which I promote almost exclusively through social media. My site offers a free version of what a few other websites in the same niche offer as a SaaS service.
From that same site, most of the revenue (~80%) is from ads (ad revenue increased when switching to responsive units). Next, Amazon associate makes up about 15% of the revenue. And about 5% from donations.
The downside is that ad rates are DROPPING pretty quickly, ad-block usage rates are increasing rapidly, some browsers block ads by default now, etc. So I'm trying to get off of ad dependency.
I'm thinking in the future a Patreon funded project or project with additional SaaS component will probably fare better if you traffic is at least medium size (~50k/mo+), and comprised of repeat visitors.
I also have eBooks, which despite the rapid increase in popularity of Amazon authors, seem to be doing well. My most popular eBook is bringing in ~40$ / mo on the 35% plan (I can't use the 70% plan because someone stole it and uploaded it elsewhere). The rest of my eBooks are bringing in ~$20 total. If you have expertise, and strong communication skills - eBooks may be a good route to go down. Leanpub offers higher % rate, and I've seen some technical authors make a killing there - might be a better option.
As far as stocks go, I'm all invested in Vanguard which seems to like tech stocks - so not so great this year. The high-dividend yield funds are probably the way to go in 2016 since growth growth isn't so hot right now.
I would stay away from IoS & Android because app discovery is messed up, and you need a marketing budget in most scenarios to make it big.
I'm interested in your path to the free SaaS tool. Do you think it would be viable to outsource the creation of tools to compete with popular, paid ones, offer the outsourced tool for free, and rake in ad-revenue/e-book sales? With proper marketing and seo a person could probably break even within a few months.
Could you talk about how you're promoting on social media?
Are you building relationships with influencers and getting promoted to their audiences, or have you found tactics / channels to drive traffic directly that works well for you?
I write eBooks for developers interested in using semi-new technologies. Previously, I wrote about developing websites to work with the Chromecast. Most recently, I published an eBook about AWS Lambda[1]. The income is not terribly good, but enough to make it worthwhile. I've been approached by publishing companies who want to raise the price to $50+ per copy, but I prefer keeping them at $2-$4 so they're more accessible for everyone.
As soon as I read your post I wondered if it was the 'AWS Lambda' book that keeps showing up in my recommendations. I clicked the link and sure enough there it was! Of course, now I HAVE to buy it. :D
- niche sites with Google ads is a fading path, but still can work if you hit a good market or produce evergreen content
- selling niche e-books through Amazon or direct seems to be a decent option, but is a lot of work unless you can produce quickly and have a feel for the topic
- apps are dangerous because discover is nearly impossible. If you want to make apps, make quick little ones because the likelihood is that you will make $0 on any one app
My personal opinion is to make niche B2B tools. There are a million little inconveniences that small businesses deal with. If you find the right niche you can charge way more than a B2C product, deal with way fewer customers and charge extra for "custom" features and things like that. The trick is to find a business problem worth solving. The best way to do this is to find someone working a job and drilling them about their work flow. It's amazing the stuff that can be automated that people still don't recognize.
There is one guy who was blogging about a simple scheduling app that let 1 man operations (like barbers or chiropractors) simply text the app appointment details and it would automate putting them in the calendar. It's a great little business because scheduling is a big pain point for these tiny businesses but no one addresses it in a humane way. A good way to make $ and while also producing useful things for the world.
Amazon recently launched a new app store that pays developers by the minute in lieu of all other monetization techniques, it's great if you can come up with engaging apps.
"it's great if you can come up with engaging apps"
...and the Amazon app marketplace has a miraculous recovery and somehow because a legitimate revenue source. It probably speaks volumes how badly their device sales are on how likely that is.
This is not completely passive income, but after 1 ~ 2 months of some committed work, it can become passive income. This is assuming you know what you are doing and you have experience with e-commerce. (I was losing money for the first 3 months)
-Private labeling on Amazon using FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon)
I currently earn some passive income (~$1000/month) by selling products on Amazon. Amazon FBA is great because you just send all the products to Amazon warehouse and they will do the packaging and shipping for you. If you shipped out all the items yourself, it wouldn't be so passive. But since all my items are currently at Amazon warehouse and everything's being shipped by Amazon, I spend little time at the moment.
A summarized process will be
1. Sign-up for Amazon seller account
2. Find an item to sell on Alibaba
3. Purchase the item, receive, check, and send to Amazon.
4. Perform SEO for your product page
5. Repeat 2 - 4
6. After some success, switch to Amazon Seller Merchant Pro.
The most difficult part wasn't finding the right item, but rather promoting the page. Ranking my product will involve tons of keyword research, pinning everything relevant on Pinterest, and revising copy-writing.
Once I start selling about 10 products/day for a single item, I'd move on to a new product. The best time to start probably is NOT at 3rd or 4th quarter. You want to have steady sales by 3rd quarter. Because if you do, you will experience some shockingly crazy sales starting November lasting until early January. If I now sell 10 units/day for product X, I was selling 100 units/day starting late November. I regret not stocking more items, but it was my first year doing this and it's a lesson learned.
eBooks worked for me in 2014 & 15. I am the author of an ebook Trello Dojo (https://leanpub.com/trellodojo). I update it periodically and earn a couple hundred dollars a month. Lots of people from all over the world tell me it has helped them, which feels like I'm doing honest, good work with it. I'm not going to retire early from just that, but really want to do a few more, and possibly expand that concept into niche sites/training/etc.
niche sites and blogging have not panned out for me (yet). I feel that's more a lack of time/effort on my part. A test effort showed me my niche could work, but I just haven't committed to really getting it rolling.
I'm also a software developer and have a few service type sites up my sleeve. My thinking (as yet unproven in my own life) is that relatively simple subscription services that "do one thing well" and can be marketed to businesses and government agencies can earn well with minimal ongoing investment. The trick there would be to automate as much as possible- especially support- without sacrificing quality, and periodically dedicate resources to keeping the technology current (easier said than done, I know)
It's hard to balance a current "non-passive" job, family, and side passive gigs, but it _can be done_.
Peer-to-peer lending can potentially be a great source of passive income. For example, if you invested $100,000 in lower grade (C-G) notes on Lending Club with an aggregate 12.0% net annualized return, you'd receive approximately $6,000 in cash payments each month.
Sounds like it's just really, really hard to get people to hand you money. If you already have a paying job, you're way ahead of the game. Maybe the best strategy is to just look for higher paying jobs.
Paint pictures of people's dogs. Yep, a little bit of painting is involved, but painting is fun, right?
There is an inexhaustible supply of middle class people wanting pictures of their dogs painted and they are prepared to pay proper art prices for competent or in-style renditions of their dog in some picturesque scene. Since we are not dogs* and are people, poor painting is not so obvious and efforts get well received.
On the back of paintings-of-dogs it is possible to also paint your own stuff. May not be entirely 'passive income' but holding a brush isn't hard and you don't have to work in an office from 9 to 5 for the man.
I see you've got lots of auto-posting going on social media... have these efforts proven to be worth your while? Did you build up your followings organically?
I made a command generator for Minecraft. It earns somewhere between $300 - $500 $NZD per month (adsense). It's a passive income because even when I go months without working on it, I still get paid. But what I would like to know is how to make it earn about 10x more. So I can quit my main job and then just make more cool stuff for the web.
I believe it's at the peak of what it can earn. Also about 25% of users have adblocker.
Niche website. I built Casting Call Club (https://www.castingcall.club/homepage) for the voice acting community. Roughly 13,000 voice actors currently use the site, but it only breaks even with all the costs associated with it, so I couldn't call it income.
There is one person (Rob Percival - google him) who is making millions on udemy teaching people how to program. Not sure if it works for everyone, but lots of people seem to be trying. There are literally thousands and thousands of courses on udemy.
[+] [-] edent|10 years ago|reply
* Solar Panels. In the UK, the government pays you per kWh generated. Needs an upfront investment, but stable income and you reduce your own energy bills. See http://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/solar
* Renting out property. Needs a much larger initial investment, and requires ongoing maintenance. On a good month I only hear from the managing agent once per month with details of how much rent is being paid.
* Stoozing. Find a credit card with 0% interest on balance transfers. Stick the money into a savings account. Or, if you like risk, on a horse. Need a good credit rating and decent savings rate to make more than a few hundred a year though.
* Affiliate marketing. If you can find a good theme (e.g. Halloween) and a decent place to put the links (somewhere that wants them - not spamming them everywhere) it's possible to get a moderate passive income. Well... not quite passive, requires upfront time commitment of selecting links and locations.
* Hosting / simple websites. Again, little bit of up-front commitment. Works best if you can find a local niche of people who want a friendly face to host their websites. Usually as simple as buying a domain, setting up WordPress, and turning on automatic updates.
In general, the best passive schemes require a large initial outlay and/or a dubious moral outlook. A better way to enhance your income is to eat out less, stop buying stuff you don't need, and shop around for deals. Boring but true!
[+] [-] shellerik|10 years ago|reply
The approach is to find a type of product where Amazon has thousands of listing but the specifications are not very accurate and the filtering criteria are limited, and where there are highly active forums with people talking about and asking about these products. Then you build a proper searchable catalog for the products. Include lots of search criteria, sorting criteria, side-by-side comparison, recommended accessories, anything that would be useful for people looking to buy them.
Once my catalog contained over 1,000 models I started replying to posts on forums with a link to my site that provided what they were looking for. People loved the site and it wasn't long before they were posting links to it to answer each others questions. That's all it took to start ranking on Google which is now responsible for 3/4 of my traffic.
Initially this is not passive income. The first few months are a lot of work for very little money. Eventually the balances shifts to the point where additional work is only needed if you want to keep growing. Amazon's product advertising API allows you to get current prices, availability and popularity (sales ranking) to keep everything fresh.
[+] [-] phpnode|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Confiks|10 years ago|reply
It also required upfront confidence in the sustainability of the government subsidy. In The Netherlands a lot of now-solar panel owners decided to invest because of subsidies, but last year the government decided to stop the subsidy for 2016. Especially with the low energy prices, that makes it a net loss for a lot of people.
[+] [-] wtracy|10 years ago|reply
I assume that by apps you mean native mobile apps. Anyone know how ad-supported mobile apps stack up against web apps? On the one hand, there's no such thing as ad blockers for native apps. On the other hand, web apps run on more platforms out of the box including desktops, and desktops in general seem to be easier to monetize via ads.
> Hosting / simple websites. Again, little bit of up-front commitment. Works best if you can find a local niche of people who want a friendly face to host their websites. Usually as simple as buying a domain, setting up WordPress, and turning on automatic updates.
Does anyone here have experience with this? It's an awfully saturated market, and there's not a lot of ways to differentiate yourself without turning it into a full-time job. That said, if it is as easy as edent makes it sound, I'd love to dive in as an excuse to get some system administration experience (and try out some ideas I have in that area).
[+] [-] orrinward|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bkjelden|10 years ago|reply
Most people I know who do well in that space do so after several years. Once they learn how to be a landlord, learn the quirks of the market they invest in, etc, it can be pretty low stress, although not necessarily hands off.
But if you're just starting out, you should expect to make some mistakes and run into some headaches as you figure things out.
[+] [-] suresk|10 years ago|reply
Even if you are willing to take on a moderate amount of risk, most people - even those with good credit and decent incomes - are going to net a few hundred bucks per year off this thing, max.
It is a really poor way to make extra income.
[+] [-] ryan-c|10 years ago|reply
I remember doing this in 2007. I wasn't aware there was a specific name for it.
[+] [-] pitchups|10 years ago|reply
Doesn't really work anymore : Most balance transfer credit cards charge a minimum fee of 1% to 3% on the transfer amount AFAIK. Savings account pay less than 1%.
[+] [-] greggarious|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] odonnellryan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raesene9|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CryoLogic|10 years ago|reply
Total Gross Revenues: $20,000 or so.
Mostly from a single high-traffic niche site which I promote almost exclusively through social media. My site offers a free version of what a few other websites in the same niche offer as a SaaS service.
From that same site, most of the revenue (~80%) is from ads (ad revenue increased when switching to responsive units). Next, Amazon associate makes up about 15% of the revenue. And about 5% from donations.
The downside is that ad rates are DROPPING pretty quickly, ad-block usage rates are increasing rapidly, some browsers block ads by default now, etc. So I'm trying to get off of ad dependency.
I'm thinking in the future a Patreon funded project or project with additional SaaS component will probably fare better if you traffic is at least medium size (~50k/mo+), and comprised of repeat visitors.
I also have eBooks, which despite the rapid increase in popularity of Amazon authors, seem to be doing well. My most popular eBook is bringing in ~40$ / mo on the 35% plan (I can't use the 70% plan because someone stole it and uploaded it elsewhere). The rest of my eBooks are bringing in ~$20 total. If you have expertise, and strong communication skills - eBooks may be a good route to go down. Leanpub offers higher % rate, and I've seen some technical authors make a killing there - might be a better option.
As far as stocks go, I'm all invested in Vanguard which seems to like tech stocks - so not so great this year. The high-dividend yield funds are probably the way to go in 2016 since growth growth isn't so hot right now.
I would stay away from IoS & Android because app discovery is messed up, and you need a marketing budget in most scenarios to make it big.
[+] [-] winter_blue|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nefitty|10 years ago|reply
Is that anything like what you did?
[+] [-] JayNeely|10 years ago|reply
Are you building relationships with influencers and getting promoted to their audiences, or have you found tactics / channels to drive traffic directly that works well for you?
[+] [-] mapmap|10 years ago|reply
Can you go into more detail? Why are there different plans?
[+] [-] cddotdotslash|10 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016JOMAEE?
[+] [-] codinghabit|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lubujackson|10 years ago|reply
- niche sites with Google ads is a fading path, but still can work if you hit a good market or produce evergreen content
- selling niche e-books through Amazon or direct seems to be a decent option, but is a lot of work unless you can produce quickly and have a feel for the topic
- apps are dangerous because discover is nearly impossible. If you want to make apps, make quick little ones because the likelihood is that you will make $0 on any one app
My personal opinion is to make niche B2B tools. There are a million little inconveniences that small businesses deal with. If you find the right niche you can charge way more than a B2C product, deal with way fewer customers and charge extra for "custom" features and things like that. The trick is to find a business problem worth solving. The best way to do this is to find someone working a job and drilling them about their work flow. It's amazing the stuff that can be automated that people still don't recognize.
There is one guy who was blogging about a simple scheduling app that let 1 man operations (like barbers or chiropractors) simply text the app appointment details and it would automate putting them in the calendar. It's a great little business because scheduling is a big pain point for these tiny businesses but no one addresses it in a humane way. A good way to make $ and while also producing useful things for the world.
[+] [-] vijayr|10 years ago|reply
How does one find what to make? That is actually a harder problem to solve than making the tool itself
[+] [-] benologist|10 years ago|reply
https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/underground
[+] [-] slig|10 years ago|reply
TL;DR: they have a Jigsaw Puzzle Android App and make shitloads of money on Amazon Underground.
[+] [-] tdaltonc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chc4|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wtracy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjangmes|10 years ago|reply
-Private labeling on Amazon using FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon)
I currently earn some passive income (~$1000/month) by selling products on Amazon. Amazon FBA is great because you just send all the products to Amazon warehouse and they will do the packaging and shipping for you. If you shipped out all the items yourself, it wouldn't be so passive. But since all my items are currently at Amazon warehouse and everything's being shipped by Amazon, I spend little time at the moment.
A summarized process will be 1. Sign-up for Amazon seller account 2. Find an item to sell on Alibaba 3. Purchase the item, receive, check, and send to Amazon. 4. Perform SEO for your product page 5. Repeat 2 - 4 6. After some success, switch to Amazon Seller Merchant Pro.
The most difficult part wasn't finding the right item, but rather promoting the page. Ranking my product will involve tons of keyword research, pinning everything relevant on Pinterest, and revising copy-writing.
Once I start selling about 10 products/day for a single item, I'd move on to a new product. The best time to start probably is NOT at 3rd or 4th quarter. You want to have steady sales by 3rd quarter. Because if you do, you will experience some shockingly crazy sales starting November lasting until early January. If I now sell 10 units/day for product X, I was selling 100 units/day starting late November. I regret not stocking more items, but it was my first year doing this and it's a lesson learned.
[+] [-] shireboy|10 years ago|reply
niche sites and blogging have not panned out for me (yet). I feel that's more a lack of time/effort on my part. A test effort showed me my niche could work, but I just haven't committed to really getting it rolling.
I'm also a software developer and have a few service type sites up my sleeve. My thinking (as yet unproven in my own life) is that relatively simple subscription services that "do one thing well" and can be marketed to businesses and government agencies can earn well with minimal ongoing investment. The trick there would be to automate as much as possible- especially support- without sacrificing quality, and periodically dedicate resources to keeping the technology current (easier said than done, I know)
It's hard to balance a current "non-passive" job, family, and side passive gigs, but it _can be done_.
[+] [-] throwaway600613|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SyneRyder|10 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879529
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10726489
[+] [-] nsxwolf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|10 years ago|reply
There is an inexhaustible supply of middle class people wanting pictures of their dogs painted and they are prepared to pay proper art prices for competent or in-style renditions of their dog in some picturesque scene. Since we are not dogs* and are people, poor painting is not so obvious and efforts get well received.
On the back of paintings-of-dogs it is possible to also paint your own stuff. May not be entirely 'passive income' but holding a brush isn't hard and you don't have to work in an office from 9 to 5 for the man.
*on the internets nobody knows you are a dog.
[+] [-] beering|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AJay17|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marilyn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pitchups|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 10dpd|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BimBimma|10 years ago|reply
I believe it's at the peak of what it can earn. Also about 25% of users have adblocker.
[+] [-] geuis|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 33a|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AznHisoka|10 years ago|reply
I can spin out cloud servers in an instant.. but I have to wait days for my proxies to be activated.
[+] [-] iamroot|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iDemonix|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackerboos|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bobby_9x|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cyogee|10 years ago|reply
Now they moved to cloud and didn't do any 50% off this year.
[+] [-] vijayr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chad_strategic|10 years ago|reply