Ask HN: What's your most profitable side project?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2017 where @jiavascriptr 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.
CATEGORY Ask HN Roundtables →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 23 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 18 comments
I have only one and that is my website where I teach JavaScript + ReactJs. I cannot say that it is really profitable, but at least I get a bit out of selling an eBook as pay what you want. But it's nothing compared to the time I invest in it.
- https://www.robinwieruch.de/
An android app to create astrology charts. It's in the Play Store since Aug 2016 but could only make some 90€ of it..
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flatangle.charts
https://logmyhours.com - Time tracking and invoicing. My only side project ATM. Doubled the revenue from Jan already. Hoping to go full time next year!
http://tweet-threader.herokuapp.com/ Not yet profitable though.
https://www.qkast.com Not profitable yet so use the on-site tip jar and help me out :-)