ROUNDTABLES $500/month ★ 21 upvotes 2025

Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

Shared by @fazkan · Post-ZIRP & AI (2023–2026) · 5 community discussions

ORIGINAL RETROSPECTIVE

The Founder's Submission

Direct narrative and submission text authored by @fazkan on Hacker News:

I used to love these threads, super helpful in finding early customers, and inspiring as well. Please do share your journeys.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39110194 (2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34482433 (2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29995152 (2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29667095 (2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24947167 (2020)

SYNTHESIS & DOSSIER

Retrospective Overview & Key Insights

Distilled analysis of the business dynamics, operational challenges, and strategic takeaways:

An open Ask HN community consultation from 2025 where @fazkan convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.

Core Principles for Independent Builders:

Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.

Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.

Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.

Community Debate Themes:

Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.

AMA & FOLLOW-UPS

Founder's Discussion Replies (@fazkan)

Direct clarifications and follow-up comments shared by the author during the live discussion:

OP @fazkan Original Author

2025

clicky

OP @fazkan Original Author

2025

Interesting, it seems that people don't want to share their journeys anymore.

CATEGORY Ask HN Roundtables →

HISTORICAL ERA Post-ZIRP & AI (2023–2026)

COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 21 points

TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 5 comments

TOPICS & TECH STACK:

#revenue #side-project

The Founder's Submission

Retrospective Overview & Key Insights

Founder's Discussion Replies (@fazkan)

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