I run a niche analytics business for like $4000 MRR currently, genuinely 'vibe coded' it to try out LLM capacities (late comer on the LLM train here). I felt like the need was there and competition was weak, low tier SWE, overall really easy to take over and so I did and now I'm scaling up and expanding the product line.
It cost about 4 months of $200 claude, about $700 of proxies since launch, a very optimized bare metal hetzner server. 'Content creator' industry.
Bug bounty and security research keeps me a good bit above 500 per month...
I experienced an initial influx of positive results and rewards as I ramped up AI use initially. However, as time goes on, I expect that to trickle out at some point since everyone and their mother now has something that can hunt and find better bugs than me. so I will have to either find a better niche or do something else with my time, but for now - that is my only side project.
I quite enjoy it so I have been brainstorming ways to stay involved and contribute without getting behind the times. Any ideas are welcome. Lol.
I raw http://www.lokobee.com/
Doordash like restaurant food ordering website.
We have some active restaurants. Brings in few orders per restaurant per day.
But surprisingly we drive more traffic to some restaurants than uber eats.
Revenue(GMV) is better than $1000 per month.
Please keep this up. I wished someone would run a DoorDash competitor in my area after hearing that drivers and restaurants are both fed up with the incumbents, it’s so encouraging to hear of someone pulling it off.
I do, a Shopify app that helps merchants track orders across long manufacturing/fulfillment processes. I built it ages ago when I was working as manual labor at a printing company, watching everyone run around all day trying to figure out where each order was. I'd daydream about how I could improve things and make them more efficient, write my ideas down in a notebook, then go home and build it in the evening.
I think the app is something like 12 years old now, but I still work on it to this day. I'm adding a new feature to it right now, and would like to kick the Shopify dependency someday soon.
Uruky [1] has been doing €2k / month or more for the last few months (not a subscription, though).
PodBy [2] is still below €100 / month, though.
Uruky started out late last year, and was publicly released earlier this year. My wife and I couldn’t stand the bad state (of AI) search and the lack of a simpler Kagi alternative in Europe.
PodBy was recently launched under that name, but its “tech” had been powering a few sites and projects for over a year (partially Uruky, too).
I have https://www.drawdb.app/ a database diagram editor. It generated a bit more than half of my 9-5 salary this month. ~3 years open-source and 3 months of building pro and now trying to figure out all the non-development parts of running it. Fingers crossed this month wasn't an outlier
You have the highest probability of earning $500/mo with a second job. Yes, your hours and rate provide an earnings cap, but we're talking about $500, which is low for a whole month even at minimum wage on weekends. Begging for money may not be as low risk as you think. It's also low probability for $500/mo as a side hustle.
I had a consulting customer refuse to believe me that his cheap housing was actually costing him more in downtime, one week to launch, i'm still working on it 4.5 years later.
How long is not as important as does anybody want what you are selling.
My advice is aim at something boring that people rely on everyday. Be the person who sells razor blades, so to speak.
I experienced an initial influx of positive results and rewards as I ramped up AI use initially. However, as time goes on, I expect that to trickle out at some point since everyone and their mother now has something that can hunt and find better bugs than me. so I will have to either find a better niche or do something else with my time, but for now - that is my only side project.
I quite enjoy it so I have been brainstorming ways to stay involved and contribute without getting behind the times. Any ideas are welcome. Lol.
I think the app is something like 12 years old now, but I still work on it to this day. I'm adding a new feature to it right now, and would like to kick the Shopify dependency someday soon.
PodBy [2] is still below €100 / month, though.
Uruky started out late last year, and was publicly released earlier this year. My wife and I couldn’t stand the bad state (of AI) search and the lack of a simpler Kagi alternative in Europe.
PodBy was recently launched under that name, but its “tech” had been powering a few sites and projects for over a year (partially Uruky, too).
[1]: https://uruky.com
[2]: https://podby.com
You've got a capped return for every hour invested.
It's the lowest risk method, maybe you meant that. It's also low risk to beg for money, but there's probably better options.
The project: https://agentfriendlycode.com/