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What's the most profitable programming hobby?
I enjoy Android development, but I've never really made much at as a hobby. I was thinking of starting iOS development or maybe Alexa Skills development. In your opinion, what's the most profitable programming hobby currently? Thanks in advance.
- ketanmaheshwari 5y agoMay be writing code to analyze financial markets' data and using the results to make profitable investments.
- giantg2 5y agoI don't know. I feel like that was more a thing 10 years ago. Now all the big players have the ability to use algos, read public sentiment via Twitter, etc. Maybe if someone has a novel strategy that can work (patent and sell it is where the real money is), but for the most part the tecnofinancial arms race has gone to the big players leaving us little guys out gunned.
- cosmodisk 5y agoI had a small engagement with someone in this area last year. He essentially provides consulting on ML based trading. One man band, $200-300K annually. Not quite sure who the end clients were thought..
- giantg2 5y agoAs a hobby?
- cosmodisk 5y agoNo, that was his full time job, but my reply was more to ' it's been popular 10 years ago,now nobody can do it'.
- giantg2 5y agoI mean, he's just an AI/ML consultant. Is he also the one coming up the financial logic? At this point it's basically Finance PhDs coming up with the ideas and then the AI consultants are building the system. If he was coming up with the ideas, then $300k is extremely underpaid.
- giantg2 5y agoI've never made any real money as a hobby. Maybe $50 building a website for someone as a kid. I tried with an android app but decided just to make it free since it wasn't making money. Excluding the rare possibility of making a top tier app, I feel like it's a more lucrative option to do yardwork. I'm a beekeeper and would guess I can average $500/yr with that.
- acconrad 5y agoConsulting your programming knowledge out is a very high ROI per hour (more so than coding). Some people build plugins for ecosystems like Wordpress and that's pretty profitable. I have a Slack marketplace app that is ramen profitable. Write code to solve a problem and charge for it is probably the best way to monetize your programming hobby.
- metaphyze 5y agoWas that an autocorrect error: "ramen profitable"? I like it, but I'm looking for more than ramen money. I'm guessing you meant "really profitable".
- bluejellybean 5y agoIt's a reference to PG's essay titled "Ramen Profitable"[0] [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html
- fhffbirrrer 5y agoI believe ramen profitable means, it generates enough profit for the person to be able to subsist entirely on ramen.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gremlinsinc 5y agoTo piggy back on another person...I'd say "ramen profitable"....means maybe something like 2-3k per month recurring income, with maybe 5-10 hours of maintenance required to run the application.
- blackarck 5y agohey cool use of ramen profitable !!
- hourislate 5y agoThis may sound crazy but developing a simple professional website for small businesses. Auto Mechanics, small manufacturers, mom and pop shops, etc. If you could do it for lets say $500-$1000 and charge like $20 for small changes, I feel like you could do well for yourself. A lot of these types of operations don't have the skills nor the resources to create an online presence (at least a decent one). An older guy I know who had a small Tool and Die shop was complaining to me that everyone he contacted wanted over $5k and said he just couldn't afford it.
- aynyc 5y agoI did this back in college. I had a Perl script that takes in a text file (before markdown) and generate a static one page site for local small businesses. I started with $250, depending on complexity. Ongoing maintenance was $25 a year for domain registration/server maintenance/etc, plus extra whatever they want to add. I was making a good profit, but getting customers was my issue. I cold called a lot of shops and even handed out my business cards to other shops.
- bhu1st 5y agoI do this now with avg. yearly maintenance of $80 per website. It brings in around $800/yr of side income. New clients usually come from referral.
- cosmodisk 5y agoThe doing side is easy- there's endless options from off shelf templates to some generators. The problem is on the other side: if a business in 2021 still have no website, it's either they don't need it( e.g. a good builder) or they are decades behind with everything, including understanding what's the benefit of having a website.
- Zababa 5y agoNot really, it could be just like the person you replied to said that people are asking for too much. Not everyone can make a website for themselves, even if for us it may seem really easy.
- ArtWomb 5y agoBesides pump and dump altcoins on PancakeSwap? Flipping websites using online marketplaces. Especially if you can develop a private network of buyers. On iOS for example, I've heard of like basic functionality TikTok clones that took 6 weeks to build going for $500k. Best of luck ;)
- kulikalov 5y agoCan you tell more? Maybe give some articles
- runawaybottle 5y agoCan you link these marketplaces?
- meiraleal 5y agoI came to say this. Also programming bots to buy, pump and dump altcoins.
- praveentiwari 5y agofront end development, imo. Both web and mobile. If you could do things like react or vue, there are tons of high priced work for the skilled.
- sevagh 5y agoIf you want to work on machine learning problems, you can try your luck at winning AICrowd/Kaggle competitions. Some have cash prizes: https://www.aicrowd.com/ https://www.aicrowd.com/ https://www.kaggle.com/competitions https://www.kaggle.com/competitions
- doanerock 5y agoIf it is a hoppy then it is not supposed to be profitable.
- robotnikman 5y agoAnd if it does turn out to be profitable its a happy surprise. I just took up drawing as a hobby without any expectations that it would bring me money, and its been much more enjoyable than other hobbies I've had where at the back of my mind I was thinking 'how could I make money off of this'.
- qorrect 5y agoSeriously! So many of these posts lately, I'm starting to think nobody codes for fun anymore... or at least the new generation.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y agoI code for fun all the time; I just like it more when people pay me to have fun.
- metaphyze 5y agoNo, if it's a hobby, it's supposed to be enjoyable. I do enjoy programming. I could enjoy iOS development as much as Android development or server development so why not combine that with making money?
- waynesonfire 5y agowhy would you have an unenjoyable hobby? that's so incompatible that it's not even helpful to think about it that way. a hobby seizes to be such once it's a business. i suppose for each the distinction between the two can be wide or narrow but it exists. a business inherently involve transactions and this implies vastly more amount of responsibility.
- WheelsAtLarge 5y agoCompanies are making big bucks making apps for small business but they are relatively expensive. Write one app that is useful for one business type,you need to focus, and reuse the same over and over again using the original as a template. Charge a one time fee and an on going maintenance fee. So MAYBE, 5000 for the app plus 750 yearly fee. You'll need to define what you will do for the 750 otherwise you will end up working forever on one app modification. You'll need two abilities, being able to write the app and to sell your app services to businesses.
- ohyes 5y ago750 per what unit of time? 1 year that’s not enough to even get me to answer the phone.
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago750 per year for doing mostly nothing. That's what the client pays to access the $5k CRUD app you wrote on a weekend and never update.
- rufus_foreman 5y ago>> You'll need two abilities, being able to write the app and to sell your app services to businesses They just need one ability, the ability to sell the app services to businesses. Everything else will work itself out.
- darthgoon 5y agodepending on your skills (obv)... You can try your hand at security bounties. Sites like https://www.hackerone.com/ https://www.hackerone.com/ is basically companies daring you to break their stuff, for money.
- zealsham 5y agoNot trying to discourage you but bug bounties are one of the easiest ways to get depressed . Especially when you don’t find any bug and then go on Twitter to see “yay, i was awarded XXXX bounty on hackerone “ . Some take that as a motivation but for most it’s depressing
- bernardv 5y agoUnless you’re only looking to make pocket change, making serious money with a hobby presumes you’re employer does not have rights over your IP.
- Buttons840 5y agoWorth keeping in mind. There are various strategies for dealing with this.
- bobbiechen 5y agoRecently on the front page here, "The Modern Trap of Turning Hobbies Into Hustles" : https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/ https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/
- Cycl0ps 5y agoMake small tools and programs that easily chain together through command line or web APIs. Put those on GitHub or self host and put a little donation link somewhere at the bottom. Anything more complex than free software and donations stops becoming a hobby and starts becoming a business. Code what you want, release whenever, and if you have something worthwhile people will let you know
- joshxyz 5y agoAnything that involves recurring sales and subscriptions.
- blackarck 5y agoAh sounds like you are looking at it other way round !! Enjoy whatever your hobby is , desktop, web, batch , cron job, api make it a beast and if its good it might sell. If you start a new hobby ( ahem !!) for profit its not a hobby.
- cweill 5y agoMost profitable? Start a YouTube channel teaching people Android dev, and then sell courses.