My advice is to do a SaaS product of some form. You can do it in a low key sort of way that doesn't take much of your time (or make you quit your job or neglect your family), and it will generally make you more money each month (unless you're doing something strange that churns all your existing customers away each month).
Avoid anything ad-funded, such as blogs and whatnot. The ability to write software is way more lucrative than the ability to write words. Leverage that if you can.
You made an interesting point about ad-funded projects. Thank you for that.
Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any way to create SaaS with my existing projects and I would have to come up with something brand new. (The closest to that model Bonobo Git Server won't have a chance against Github)
The list-of-unavailable-SaaS product isn't going to generate any profit though...i can't think of a single reason why anyone would pay for such a list, or pay to vote on such a list.
I could see someone maybe paying for something like that. I could see it being useful if each item in the list was a complete package, including well-thought-out detailed description, potential functionality, path to revenue, market breakdown, available domains, SEO opportunities, etc.
You would have to figure out how to entice someone to purchase the item without giving them all the details, but my point is this could have at least some revenue potential.
I always feel stupid after clicking on a link like this and finding somebody's self-advertisement. It's like one of those "Click here for the best instruction on how to loose weight", but for developers.
But that's bad, right? It's like you're making the "Landing on the moon" documentary in the 1920. People don't want to hear about 40 years of mistakes, they want to hear about the end conclusions and you won't have any to give. That's why success-story books sell, but you don't see a lot of "will-try-to-do" books.
I should hope not. I'm trying to think of a situation where a developer wants to document a process (ANY process. In this case: building a profitable product) and it would be considered "bad".
> That's why success-story books sell, but you don't see a lot of "will-try-to-do" books.
This is a blog, not a book. Will-try-to-do blog posts are incredibly healthy exercises for the author/do'er and usually provide helpful content for the readers (if the author follows through and documents his or her thought process).
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, and (to me) your comments and tone sound dismissive. This fellow has nothing to sell -- it's an exciting endeavor that the author wants to document.
Tell you what - I'll get back to the topic & blog in 1 year time. I'll chat you up on HN and we'll redo the discussion. I'm willing to admit my mistake, but if they jakub ends this project in a-la-tim-ferris "book about selling books", I'll call my hunch correct - that he just played the community for self benefit.
If the project is left-for-dead, I'll consider my second statement about drawing attention too soon correct.
On the other hand, if the project is showing progress and does a fair writing - I'll gladly apologize to jakubgarfield and to you.
Yep, I'm trying will-try-to-do approach. It gives me some order and discipline and I could keep a record for myself. And I'd like to think that someone else would be interested in my plans and steps and potentially benefit from them.
For me it is not really clear this passive income stuff in terms of tax laws and relation with employer.
Now I am based in Netherlands and my employer put in the contract quite big fines for anything I would do on my own or for some other party. So I would have to get written consent from my employer, this one is clear. But for anyone else check your contract ;)
Second thing is for instance you get money from Android app, or from users. How would you go with taxes, you have income so you have to pay taxes. Beeing sensible for some beer money they won't get after you. But having 1000 euros a month could lead to some nasty stuff like questions where did you got that money and why you didn't tell to your beloved country...
I think all those passive income gurus are not mentioning a word about this side of things. Does anyone has any experience on legal side of passive income?
An individual reporting business income is pretty straightforward, and not at all uncommon. Certainly not enough to try to dodge taxes for or alienate 99% of your user base with some silly nerd currency.
Go to the website for your country's equivalent of the IRS and read up on it. For anybody in the US, it's just a matter of answering "yes" to a question in TurboTax.
And people talk about America's employment laws? It blows my mind that something you do at 11 PM on a Saturday night can be claimed by your employer (yes, I know there are some companies in the US that do this).
Regarding your question about taxes, you would just... pay the taxes. If you're not comfortable doing your own (I don't know the tax climate in the Netherlands) you would just pay an accountant. I have a CPA here in the states so I just give him all my information in January/February and he lets me know what I need to pay or what I can expect back.
I'm from the Czech Republic so I'll tell you how would that work here.
Each year you have to submit a tax return - a paper where you admit how much money you earned in the last year. If you are an employee and you have just one source of income, it's usually done by that employer.
If you would have another income (there is also some treshold) you have to do it yourself and add this income to your salary and pay taxes. It's not that complicated.
Currently, I have 3 types of projects - application (Bonobo Git Server), web project (the blog) and mobile app and I'm considering different models.
I plan to discuss them in the future in more details, but what I think I'm going to do is to sell licences for Bonobo Git Server, advertise on the web and I'm not sure about the mobile ones (freemium or ads).
Don't let the critics get you down! Don't WAIT for success to document it! Start documenting and showing off! gives you more of an incentive to keep at it
Worth noting: The 2nd highest karma HN user got his start doing exactly what the author is doing. Documenting, from day one, the creation of his software business.
Had he not, the rest of us would have had a much harder time building our own businesses. So please try not to discourage others from doing the same thing.
It would also be interesting to see the list of resources being applied. This way it's possible to see more stages of the process. For example, Rob Walling now is talking about graduating to 'larger product ideas' at http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-158-t...
Avoid anything ad-funded, such as blogs and whatnot. The ability to write software is way more lucrative than the ability to write words. Leverage that if you can.