HACKER Q&A
📣 newsoul

Have you built programming projects that now is your main income source?


Sometimes I come across a repo on Github with many stars. It is free to use on an individual basis but needs commercial licensing for organisational use. There is also provision for donations to the author.

How much do authors of these kind of projects earn typically?

The above is just one kind of example what I meant by project.

It maybe anything else. The main thing is it now generates sufficient income such that you may leave your regular job if you want.

  👤 dangrossman Accepted Answer ✓
Yes, that's how I've supported myself my entire life. I'm 38, and started programming when I was 12. I have created dozens of products/services/businesses over the past two decades, but only a few were successful enough to live off of:

(1) https://www.improvely.com launched in 2012, peaked at $45K MRR, and still makes about $25K MRR.

(2) A collection of Shopify apps, which are tools or services people can add to a Shopify-hosted ecommerce store via Shopify's app store. Improvely has an app there, where I also offer apps for several other common ecommerce store needs: contact forms, newsletter opt-in forms, sale banners, social media icons, etc. Shopify handles the billing and passes through 100% of the revenue you earn up to $1 million per year, after which they take a percentage. I make a few thousand per month from their app store.

(3) Google AdSense ads, primarily on the documentation sites for various open source libraries I wrote over the years. http://www.daterangepicker.com has been generating pretty consistent ad revenue for 10 years now for example, and I occasionally run into that library in the wild on all kinds of websites, from local businesses to the US government.

After I got married and settled down a bit, I have honestly had less passion for programming than I had in my 20s and early 30s. I find myself using others' libraries, products and services more readily where I would have built my own solution to a problem in the past.

But I've rekindled the maker/entrepreneur spirit by genre switching so to speak, from code to physical goods. I bought a bunch of production equipment, specialized printers, a laser cutter and engraver, 3D printer, heat press, etc. I now make what could be another full time income ($60K per year or so) selling custom signage to small businesses. For example, I spent yesterday designing then manufacturing a couple dozen custom coasters for someone that owns two small hotel type properties in a ski resort area. The coasters have their wifi SSID/password and a QR code on them that connects a guest to their wifi when scanned.

👤 flurly
Not entirely main source, but a considerable source. I have three projects

https://flurly.com makes around 300/mo https://graphjson.com makes around 1500/mo https://beamanalytics.io makes around 20/mo

What's amazing is how little additional effort these projects need to keep growing and earning income!