HACKER Q&A
📣 rozenmd

Side projects making less than $2k MRR, what's your project?


While a thread of 2k+ MRR is going, I thought it'd be cool to hear from folks who aren't quite at 2k yet.


  👤 claudiulodro Accepted Answer ✓
My side project is mainly just complaining about working for "the man" while not doing much about it. It's a crowded space, but it definitely makes less than $2k/mo!

👤 kiruio
I got bunch of those projects:

To test social media preview: https://ogtester.com/

To add location to images: https://geotagseo.com/

To use dictation for learning (German): https://www.flashdictation.com/

To decide the meal: https://whatdinner.com/ (WIP)

To get distracted:

https://mathlegame.com/

https://learnle.net/

To use Stable diffusing in Notion:

https://slashdreamer.coom

To experiment with Stable diffusing https://articletoimage.ai/ (WIP)

I did to solve a problem I had.


👤 koch
https://markwhen.com

Timelines in markdown (gantt, calendar, map, other views)

It's open source (https://github.com/mark-when/markwhen) and there are some paid options for storing markwhen documents in the cloud.

Straddling paid SAAS and open source is a bit tricky and I still haven't figured it out completely yet. I have some sponsors as well as some paid saas clients but it's not quite paying the bills yet... I like working on it though, hopefully I can find the right balance or a different revenue model that works better.

My other problem is not only am I not good at marketing, I don't like doing it. But I also know it's the other half of the equation.


👤 danmaz74
https://chess.braimax.com

Puzzle rush integrated with spaced repetitions to improve tactically at chess. I hacked a solution for myself during covid to combine those two, and achieved very good results reaching 2000 on lichess (from around 1800), which was my goal then.

In a recent break between jobs I decided to create an integrated, easy to use solution, and I've got lots of ideas about how to improve it - if it gets traction :)


👤 rozenmd
Personally, I've been working on OnlineOrNot (https://onlineornot.com/) for over two years - it's a set of uptime monitoring tools, with a hosted status page.

There's an open source CLI (https://github.com/onlineornot/onlineornot), and a public API under active development.


👤 ezero
I'm working on https://base.report, a web app to help retail investors and (primarily swing) traders to research the stock market effectively.

As someone who got interested in the stock market a few years ago, I didn't find anything that suited my needs in terms of features and design. So I developed a solution tailored to my requirements and eventually opened it up for others as well.

The key features include a stock screener with technical indicators like 50-day range, and a report view for each stock including charts and key financials.

I still use the app almost daily to aid my own stock market research. We currently have a few dozen active users.


👤 xnx
The cynic in me always suspects these questions are fishing attempts to see what ideas can be cloned to steal some of the revenue.

👤 japhib
Couple of mobile strategy games:

https://pollywog.games/

Card Crusade - a roguelike deckbuilder (similar to Slay the Spire)

Barnard's Star - multiplayer tactical strategy game (like XCOM or Into the Breach)

Both games are on iOS and Android. Makes just over $100 per month. It's a ton of work. Doing it wayyy more for the enjoyment/satisfaction of the project than the money.



👤 reidjs
An independent video game themed around van life

https://www.vanlifegame.com/


👤 perilunar
https://www.timepasses.net/ a timeline of your life, human history, and the universe

https://sunclock.net/ a 24hr clock that shows sunrise, sunset, twilight times, and the position of the sun and moon

https://bigclock.app/ it's just a clock, but BIG

They're not monetised apart from a buy me a coffee button.


👤 gendestus
During the LLM insanity of the last few weeks, I used GPT-4 to design a website that synthesizes unbiased news articles out of biased sources and it's producing some great output. Since it's more of a research project, I have zero intent to monetize it so it's definitely less than $2k/month: https://spinreactor.ai

👤 sporkl
My main side project is Pivotuner[0], a MIDI effect plugin for adaptive pure intonation

It enables some pretty cool things like fairly straightforward microtonal modulation! Right now I'm working on a paper to submit to a computer music conference about it. Happy to send the draft if anyone's interested (email on website in bio).

I released it last December. I've had a couple sales, not many, but still enough to cover the cost of Apple developer membership, so at least I'm sort of in the positive!

Should also mention that I've gotten feedback on it from some pretty major artists, including Grammy nominees and winners like Jacob Collier! which is very very exciting

Happy to answer any questions!

[0]: https://www.dmitrivolkov.com/projects/pivotuner/


👤 mNovak
https://www.bytebucket.co/

Made as a hobby during the pandemic -- it scrapes eBay listings for laptops, and provides a parametric search (RAM, SSD etc) inspired by the likes of Digikey and Mouser, and sorts on total value. I like to buy used electronics, but this kind of search is still shockingly bad on typical marketplaces (Amazon etc)

An example search to get you started: https://www.bytebucket.co/?mincpu=800&minram=12&minssd=500#t

pretty quickly finds for example an 11th gen Intel, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD laptop for ~$200. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. The really good deals get swiped up within a day or two though.


👤 dang
Related ongoing thread:

Ask HN: Side project of more than $2k monthly revenue? what's your project? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35567822 - April 2023 (424 comments)


👤 notpushkin
https://lunni.dev/

Lunni is a dashboard for Docker Swarm. It helps you if you already use docker-compose to develop an app locally, and just want to deploy it with as little effort as possible. It also has a bunch of apps available for one-click install in the built-in Marketplace, like Vaultwarden, Chatwoot, or PocketBase.

I'm trying to get myself to start writing to potential customers, but haven't succeeded just yet. (If you're interested in a demo, let's chat! https://cal.com/notpushkin/lunni) As such, MRR right now is still exactly $0.


👤 hankchinaski
https://golang.cafe $1,000/month from various ads (sponsorships, display ads, YouTube Adsense)

It’s in cruising mode never really invested any significant time on it apart from spare hours on weekend.

Entirely written in Go and open source


👤 AlexITC
My most successful side-project so far is a small service for launching preview environment (https://codepreview.io).

I have a couple of customers involved, receiving great feedback so far, unfortunately, it doesn't generate enough revenue yet and it is progressing very slowly (chicken-egg problem).

I believe we can scale the number of customers but it is hard to find the right balance between doing sales and feature improvements. For obvious reasons, I prioritize consulting hours that pay our bills.


👤 mcapodici
Building a SaaS and web app starter kit https://github.com/mcapodici/firestarter using NextJS, Firebase and Tailwind

Working on a ChatGPT tutorial now for it: https://docs.firestarterapp.com/tutorials/chatbot-1/

This is all free/open source and will remain so, but in the future I might also offer paid courses/enhanced features.


👤 arkenflame
An audio adventure game on mobile: https://roadtripadventures.msol.io

A humorous book of quotes with profanity added: https://whatacools.com/serenity/

An app to use your e-reader as a typewriter: https://solarwriter.msol.io/ (actually, this one is free)


👤 kebsup
My motion tracked gifs tool https://gifmemes.io makes about 250 USD/month steadily for the last year.

👤 flopriore
Foldie to transfer files between Android and MacOS: https://github.com/FLopriore/foldie

It's a small project in Flutter I showed on HN few days ago. It's basically an alternative to Android File Transfer, but with a better UI and without the limitation of 1.5 GB files because it uses adb under the hood. MRR: €0 and it will always be this amount of money :)


👤 Wronnay
I also have multiple:

https://alphalerts.com

Alphalerts helps investors find new investment opportunities by offering stock, options and crypto alerts.

https://chapati.systems/autoupdate/

Autoupdate automates the update process of various software like Python, Gitea, Zitadel, Drone, Kanboard, Caddy, Podman and System.


👤 tmaly
I made a udemy course for teaching kids ages 5 to 8 how to code a project in Scratch Jr.

I made $12 on it in 2022 with no promotion.

Not sure how people are finding it as it is on the 4th page in the search for phrase: Coding for kids

https://www.udemy.com/course/scratchjr-coding-for-kids/


👤 achempion
I run two projects, both with zero income.

The first one is Fluent[0], to learn vocabulary by placing words on a canvas. Third iteration over the last several years.

Second is blogging platform nofuss[1], where you do all the publishing through the email.

[0]: https://fluent.im/ [1]: https://nofuss.io/


👤 iamflimflam1
I run a YouTube channel - it ranges between $100-$300 a month ad revenue and $100-$400 sponsorship (depending on how productive I am).

The main issue with it is time - there’s no way I would go full time YouTubing with the current numbers so the day job has to take priority.

https://www.youtube.com/atomic14


👤 vivekseth
https://masala-joy.vercel.app/

I scraped ~100k recipes from across the internet, and made this site to focus on south asian recipes (~2k). I will soon add features to better sort and filter these recipes by various diets, ingredients, and regions in South Asia.

I just launched a few days ago, and no revenue yet.


👤 gcheong
I just released an iOS app a few days ago so it hasn’t been a month yet but so far it’s made a grand total of $0.00 :). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stretch-timer-dx/id6447534919

👤 thepaulmcbride
WeCode NI (https://wecodeni.com) a job board for developer in Northern Ireland. It has paid me several thousand pounds over the last few years. This past few months have been quiet.

I’d be interested in a partner to help grow it and replicate for other cities.


👤 polalavik
https://SignalProcessingJobs.com - a niche job board for signal processing engineers, but trying to drive traffic with content, tutorials, and videos. Looking to grow both the content and the job board aspect of it.

👤 bitsinthesky
Practice studying language vocab by converting random words in your browser to their foreign equivalent https://github.com/jsvan/-glish/blob/main/README.md

👤 danjoredd
Making an open source CMD epub reader in Rust. I don't want to share the code as I feel a bit self conscious about where it is ATM, but when its done I really hope it will be a solid reader for people using the terminal. Its non-profit because I just want to make a neat tool

👤 rompic
I run a website to create sociograms online: https://cliq.at

Its predecessor was basically hacked together for a company retreat while stranded at schiphol airport for a whole day.

It has quite some usage, but basically only covers its hosting costs.


👤 jeffstephens
https://gotem.live

A party game my friend and I built over peak COVID, still play with family & friends frequently. People stumble across it on the Apple TV App Store and occasionally purchase some content which is great!


👤 dearroy
https://earlybird.im

Helping startup people in early stage to validate ideas before investing too much time and money in product development, just crossed $500MRR after launching it 3.5 months.


👤 freeone3000
https://waifu.amorai.ca

A desktop version of the “companion” apps floating around the space. Features emoting, expressions, eye contact, low latency voice synthesis, and a two way conversational model.


👤 maxwelldone
https://theshowgrid.com

A static site to see IMDb ratings of all episodes of a TV show in a nice table. (ratings updated everyday)

A weekend project I built to scratch my own itch. Going on cruise mode for a while now.


👤 kachurovskiy
Electronic lead screw for metal lathe - https://kachurovskiy.com/ - started about a week ago and sold 4 kits so far. Unit cost today is 61€ so margin is rather slim too.

👤 lockdown22
MesoSim: https://portal.deltaray.io

Options Backtesting Service focusing on income and hedging trading strategies. Still under heavy development but have a handful of users who find it useful.


👤 Dachande663
https://bulkbuffer.com

CSV upload to Buffer. Run it for many years, sent tens of millions of updates, only ever had a donation button that brings in enough to pay for the digital ocean box.


👤 joelrunyon
This site https://startablog.com fluctuates - we have spurts of way more than 2k/month and some way less. I think it averages out to <2k/month though.

👤 perlwle
As a huge fan of podcasts, I am building a podcast information database that includes metadata on shows and episodes.

2 millions shows, 70 million episodes collected so far.

Now, I just need to find the perfect audience for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


👤 dxxvi
What's the definition of a side project? If it's not "something that you like to do", then doing a 2nd job will earn you much more than $2k/month (I think at least $10k/month).

👤 pranitbauva1997
Working on sending and processing of webhooks to be reliable and easy, have a look at https://nirah.app

👤 NiagaraThistle
Eurotripr.com - a constant work in progress. The goal is as if NomadList and Indiehackers had a baby and that baby wanted to help others travel affordably around Europe.

👤 webjac
One I just launched, for fun and maybe profit?

https://thefuck.cards

Go make one for a friend (or enemy)


👤 frant1c
CTF-like puzzles for hackers https://hacker.gifts/

👤 jaredwiener
https://www.forth.news

The vast majority of Americans get at least some of their news from social media, even though they don't trust it.

Forth is a news feed for news; not quite social media. Everything comes from vetted journalists who adhere to our editorial policy, so you can trust what you read. No spam, no misinfo, no hate speech.

Have a little over 60 journalists in all sorts of beats/locations, and growing.


👤 WolfOliver
MonsterWriter: The most enjoyable desktop app for writing a thesis or paper

👤 asdfzalsd
tinderglowup.com - an AI product to generate you with abs