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Posted by cvbox 6 days ago

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

It's the time of the year again, so I'd be interested hear what new (and old) ideas have come up. Previously asked on:

2024 → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42373343

2023 → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38467691

2022 → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34190421

2021 → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29667095

2020 → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24947167

2019 → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20899863

2018 → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17790306

2017 → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15148804

479 points | 552 commentspage 3
duck 6 days ago|
Still doing https://hackernewsletter.com/ after 15 years thanks to many of you.
techtalksweekly 1 day ago||
Thank you for running this! I've been reading it every week for many years since I subscribed :)

If I may ask, what were some of the strategies that drove most of your subscriber growth?

supercabbage 2 days ago|||
Thanks so much for this project. I have a busy work week and life outside of work, so to be able to get a digest of all the past weeks happenings on a Friday is perfect. It's part of my normal wind down for the weekend routine :).
dansult 4 days ago|||
I'm reading this because of the newsletter! HN is a time sink so the newsletter lifts only items worthy of attention to my email. Been a sub for many years. Thank you!
johntash 5 days ago|||
Are you making money just from sponsors or something else too?
duck 5 days ago||
Yeah, just sponsors. I hope to use it as an outlet for other projects in the near future.
zoomastigophore 6 days ago|||
I subscribed last december after knowing about it in last year's version of this thread. It is great and gives a very good summary of the HN week, I love it!
duck 5 days ago||
That is great to hear, thanks for being a subscriber!
0x00cl 6 days ago|||
How are you making money on this side project?
ashi107 4 days ago|||
Thanks for doing this. This is the only newsletter I want to read every week.
BaudouinVH 6 days ago||
freshly subscribed - had a peek in the archives, noticed a link to curpress.com that appears to be offline.
mlitwiniuk 6 days ago||
Humadroid (https://humadroid.io) - AI-Assisted SOC 2 & ISO 27001 compliance for small teams. $125/month flat (for now, during beta).

Recently crossed the $500/month mark after a painful pivot from HR tech earlier this year. The whole thing started because I did ISO 27001 back in 2019 and was completely lost - overpaid for consultants, got lost with policies and controls, figured it out the hard way.

Passed SOC 2 Type I earlier this year using only Humadroid (yes, dogfooding a compliance tool through an actual audit was... an experience).

Currently finishing automated evidence collection (AWS and GitHub integrations first). Pretty proud of that one - compliance shouldn't mean "panic-screenshot everything before audit."

tow21 6 days ago||
Really cool stuff, I thought about launching something similar earlier this year, there's definitely a market there. I see a lot of AI-ative startups coming up against compliance requirements way earlier than before, with much smaller teams, and most existing solutions just need too much from you as you engage.

How do you see yourself against someone like delve.co?

mlitwiniuk 6 days ago||
Honestly, Delve is great. Them and Compai are leading the front of modern AI-assisted compliance right now. I'm chasing them.

What I'm trying to do differently is depth of context. Humadroid learns about your company first - how you operate, your stack, your processes. From there it generates control descriptions that are actually actionable for your setup, and policies that need minimal review rather than a full rewrite.

Whether that's enough differentiation? Ask me in a year.

946789987649 6 days ago|||
What's the USP over something like Vanta/Drata (aside the cost being much lower currently)?
mlitwiniuk 6 days ago||
The big difference is context-awareness. Vanta/Drata give you templates and checklists. Humadroid starts by understanding your company - what you actually do, how you operate, your tech stack.

From there, the AI generates policies that are yours, not generic docs with [COMPANY NAME] placeholders. Same with control descriptions - they're specific and actionable for your setup, not "implement access control" with no context. It also identifies risks based on what you actually do and helps build business continuity plans around your real critical processes.

You still review everything (it's compliance, not magic), but you're editing 80% done work instead of staring at a blank template wondering where to start.

The price difference is real too, but honestly that's a side effect of being early and solo - not the core value prop.

946789987649 6 days ago||
Gotcha. And then how does that translate into the audit process? Because Vanta/Drata have auditors they work with regularly, there's a bit of an incentive on both sides to use these templates because then it speeds up that part tremendously. I can't imagine the auditors being happy about really diving into hyper bespoke documents for every audit.

Your product seems great for actually doing the spirit of these frameworks (reducing risk, improving controls and processes etc.). However from what I've seen the reality of these audits is it's a box ticking exercise for everyone involved, and so improving the efficiency there tends to be the goal. How do you position yourself in that?

Also hope this doesn't come off too critical, it's just something I've been through recently and love seeing new things! I'd definitely add a vanta/drata comparison to your website though as that is inevitable.

mlitwiniuk 6 days ago||
Honestly, great questions - this is either good exercise for me or actionable feedback. Both valuable.

Right now I recommend auditors but don't have formal partnerships. Vanta/Drata's auditor relationships are... let's say on the edge of conflicted? I don't want to go that route. And at $250/month I can't play the referral game anyway (Vanta pays hundreds per referral - that math doesn't work for me).

What I can do is democratize access. I've watched too many small teams get excited about SOC 2, then ghost once they see the total cost - $15k+ for the platform, $20k+ for consultants, $15k+ for auditors. I want the barrier low enough that smaller businesses can actually get certified and compete with bigger players.

On the checkbox vs. real security thing - you're right, it's tricky. I don't want to be another "generate docs, tick boxes, forget until next audit" platform. But targeting smaller businesses actually helps here - when you're a 10-person company, management is in the compliance process, not just signing off on someone else's work. It tends to stick better.

That said, sometimes I wonder if I help too much. My System Description assistant is almost unfair - what used to take weeks now takes minutes. Is that checkbox-enabling or democratizing? Genuinely not sure.

And yes - "vs Vanta/Drata" pages are going on the list. You're not the first to ask.

thelittleone 6 days ago||
Not clear on site if it integrates third parties for test automation.
mlitwiniuk 6 days ago||
Not yet - but literally finishing this week. Promised a customer I'd ship it before Christmas, so that's been my deadline.

AWS and GitHub integrations first. It auto-fetches and verifies the data (where applicable), creating read-only evidence snapshots. No manual screenshots or "I swear this config was set correctly" moments during audits.

Part of the standard price - no integration tier upsell.

strongpigeon 6 days ago||
https://fivethreeone.app/ a weightlifting app for 5/3/1 has been earning me ~$1000 a month for over two years now.

I'm actively working on a successor that allows you to create your own custom workout programs using formulas: https://vis.fitness

dumfries 6 days ago||
This is a perfect example of taking a simple idea and elevating it/ executing it well. Well done!

As someone that has used 531 for a while, I thought an app like this would not add much value. I mean, we can all track our progress in a spreadsheet. But I must say that it looks great.

This stuff is inspiring to see..

strongpigeon 6 days ago||
Thank you! I created it literally because I thought updating spreadsheets on my phone was too clunky. And yeah having the rest timer with notification was useful to keep the pace.
plastic_bag 6 days ago|||
Thank you for building this! I've been using the app for almost a year after I switched to the Boring But Big routine.
strongpigeon 6 days ago||
You’re very welcome. I’ve used it for more than 500 workouts myself, but now that I have young kids, I don’t have the time to do 5/3/1 anymore.
asimovDev 6 days ago|||
Nice! I used to use it when doing BBB 5/3/1. Sadly I stalled and got depressed.

Recently started GZCLP after getting sad at how bad I started to look with no activity

My one complaint was that there weren’t more sophisticated training regiments. I didn’t work 5/2 weeks so I just went to the gym every other day and I just clicked whatever in the app when working out, while I would prefer to track my days. Otherwise solid app, thanks for the hard work.

strongpigeon 6 days ago||
Supporting more sophisticated training regiments is exactly what I’m trying to achieve with Vis. Would love your feedback on it if you got any (email in profile)
greenknight 6 days ago|||
Love the AI generated image, "Extra-Large (>72pt) Font". Made me chuckle. Definetly a feature of the app.

But looks really cool ill be trialing it this week!

strongpigeon 6 days ago||
Send me an email (see my profile) if you want to try the custom program creation. I’m starting the beta this week.
ycombinete 6 days ago|||
That looks very cool. Are you planning on adding Apple Watch integration?

I cannot stand having to fiddle with my phone while at the gym.

strongpigeon 6 days ago||
Yes (for Vis) but I have a medium size list of stuff I want to get to before I work on the watch app.

You can control it via Siri, though that only really works in a home gym

Libidinalecon 6 days ago|||
I assume you have some kind of partnership with Jim Wendler?

The periodization sounds really cool but the success of the app I would think is based entirely on the good marketing Wendler and Elitefts did with 5/3/1.

sonderotis 6 days ago|||
Wow this is pretty cool. I am working on my first mobile app. what tips can you give. I am planning to build in public on twitter, substack and share my coding process here on HN.

It is a carpooling app.

strongpigeon 6 days ago||
Don’t rely on organic App Store traffic until you’ve hit a certain size.
ahhmki 6 days ago|||
"This app isn't available for your device because it was made for an older version of Android"

Using android 15 on a Nothing Phone 1. Any chance to get it working?

strongpigeon 6 days ago||
Yeah that shouldn’t be happening. I’ll take a look today
andysinclair 6 days ago|||
Looks really good, will try it.

What is your revenue split, tip vs non tips? I've always wondered if putting a tip button on a free app could generate significant income.

strongpigeon 6 days ago||
Tips are insignificant compared to the paid features. On iOS for the last 6 months I made $5090. $31 was tip.

That being said, it feels really nice that people like it so much they’re willing to pay extra.

djmips 6 days ago|||
This app is not available for your device

I have a Pixel 6 Pro. That's not thaat old.

strongpigeon 6 days ago|||
Let me check why that is.
egamirorrim 6 days ago|||
That's proper old
viraptor 6 days ago|||
4 years. We really should support devices that old. Unless you really need features only available in newer models (which 99% of apps don't)
snovv_crash 6 days ago|||
A Nexus 6 is proper old.
asdlkj178 6 days ago|||
Did you do any marketing for fivethreeone?
strongpigeon 6 days ago||
I started with some Apple Search ads which worked pretty well and then did some IG ads which worked well too. I haven’t done any in a while though. Bing and Google ads had really bad results
aaronbrethorst 6 days ago||
What’s the sweet pup’s name?
strongpigeon 6 days ago||
Her name is Greta
apizon 6 days ago||
Launched "Cadence: Guitar Theory" (https://cadenceguitar.com/) a guitar learning app with a focus on music theory in September.

Currently right above that $500/month when including lifetime purchases. Had a sizeable bump in October thanks to blowing up on here which also gave me an app store boost so thanks guys :)

I'm working on new lessons at the moment, after that I'll probably try to improve on the animations and sound effects to give the app more "juice", should be a fun thing to work on. Also still trying to figure out marketing and how to get visibility overall...

emil-lp 6 days ago||
So, if these posts come at the same time each year, and IDs are consecutive, then

    year,id
    2025,46307973
    2024,42373343
    2023,38467691
    2022,34190421
    2021,29667095
    2020,24947167
    2019,20899863
    2018,17790306
    2017,15148804
And the delta is

    year,delta
    2025,3.9M
    2024,3.9M
    2023,4.2M
    2022,4.5M
    2021,4.7M
    2020,4.0M
    2019,3.1M
    2018,2.6M
Has HN peaked?
esjeon 6 days ago||
I'm pretty sure that the peak b/w 2020 and 2023 was a temporary boost induced by COVID-19.
npodbielski 6 days ago|||
Everything comes and goes. HN is no exception. With that in mind does it matter for you? Are you here because HN is at its peak? If commenting here makes you life better a bit keep doing that. If not then just don't and go somewhere else. Or stop using the internet altogether and just became goat farmer. Do what makes you happy and not what crowd thinks will make you happy!
emil-lp 6 days ago||
Crafting CSVs is what makes me happy.
Imustaskforhelp 5 days ago|||
it is a very interesting observation and I did some calculation and it seems that every 8 seconds, one hackernews comment is made

I feel like the reason why it has peaked is that when hackernews was created, it probably had both youngsters and experienced alike since it was the hot new thing once but over time it matured and I think that very few young people are here and I doubt that there are surveys for hackernews median age

I am one of the youngsters and honestly I joined because of youtube (fireship -> primagen -> theo t3 -> hackernews)

And I feel like the reason hackernews doesnt feel attractive to youth is probably because of attention span, like only recently I saw someone create a thread about what clicks on hackernews or not as if its a game and I do feel like hackernews isnt conventional social media and our whole new generation has never really understood something beyond conventional social media

To me, it was unstimulating at first (which in retrospect is a good thing), like just large amounts of texts and texts in comments and I didn't understand the situation

And I don't think hackernews should change. Once I got the hang of it, it became one of the most interesting websites to me personally.

But don't worry I think that the spirit of hackernews/tinkering is still there in youngsters whom I see in their own ways, people (my age) are definitely being fed up and are taking steps like clippy and other interesting stuff that one can argue go similar to tinkering/curiosity of computers

I will have to admit that even my attention span was "cooked" and I don't think it was something extremely because I have talked about it but like, as a youngster the culture is changing so fast sometimes like, after I was on hackernews for a long time, I do not feel talking internet slang but that does alienate me sometimes because people my age have low attention span and when I used to send long messages to my friends they were kinda responding like, "aint nobody reading ts" or even on platforms like discord, I genuinely felt like a left out person because all people my age had slang or something and I didn't

Nowadays I do not feel this way because this is the person I am and I kinda see opportunities for myself which are unique to myself because of hackernews and the tinkering curiosity it has given me but still I just wanted to share a perspective about something that had troubled me once.

Apologies for the yap and have a nice day!

npodbielski 6 days ago|||
Awesome! I found it interesting. Keep doing that :)
the_gipsy 6 days ago|||
We're on the verge of an unprecedented economic crisis.
jyotibishnoi 5 days ago||
Unclear until you also count comment count on the threads, because number of posts is consistent but engaging with the posts may have gone up
vlucas 6 days ago||
BudgetSheet ( https://www.budgetsheet.com ) -> $6k MRR avg. for the year. Will likely have my first $10k month in January.

Live Bank Transactions + Google Sheets. Links accounts with Plaid to track transactions and balances over time with some helpful templates. All the data is yours in your own spreadsheet to do with what you want.

Revenue is somewhat seasonal. Most revenue comes in Q1+Q2 and trails off in Q3+Q4. Used by individuals and small businesses that love spreadsheets and want to manage their own finances.

iSloth 3 days ago||
Interesting that it’s seasonal, I guess tax season?
vlucas 2 days ago||
Yes. Tax season for small businesses and New Year's resolutions for personal finances are the times I get the largest influx of new signups and subscriptions.
cssanchez 6 days ago||
Is this self hosted or giving the cloud the keys to the kingdom?
vlucas 6 days ago||
Not really sure how to answer this, because there are varying degrees of "self hosted" vs. "cloud hosted".

This is a Next.js app hosted on Render.com, which is a managed VPS offering similar to Heroku. BudgetSheet is also of course completely reliant on Google Cloud though with Google Apps Script and the Workspace Marketplace where it is listed.

sschueller 6 days ago||
I made a public transportation departure board (for Switzerland) for your home or business.

https://stationdisplay.com/

butz 6 days ago||
Neat. Consider building a version that is usable outdoors and clearly visible from further away in daylight, and at night, and you might be able to offer it to some public transport companies in various countries, that are still using devices running Windows to display transport schedules. Market them using digital sovereignty and sustainability angles.
alsetmusic 3 days ago|||
Very attractive hardware. I'd like to own one and I live in an unrelated country. Great work.
PUSH_AX 6 days ago|||
This is pretty cool, can I ask why you decided to ship hardware and not a subscription to a dashboard that people could put on any mounted monitor?
sschueller 6 days ago|||
It came out of a project that I did [1] from which I wanted to see what it takes to turn that into an actual product[2]. Hardware is a while other game than software especially in low quantity as you still need to deal with things like CE.

[1] https://sschueller.github.io/posts/vbz-fahrgastinformation/

[2] https://sschueller.github.io/posts/turning-a-project-into-a-...

KeplerBoy 6 days ago|||
Most likely because those dashboards are available for free from your local public transport operator.
LunaSea 6 days ago||
Fun project!

What type of customers do you have?

bwb 6 days ago||
I'm building a book recommendation app that tries to make it fun to explore books through what other people loved to read -> https://shepherd.com/

Some examples of pages we've built over the years using all the interviews we do with authors: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2025 https://shepherd.com/bookshelf/authoritarianism https://shepherd.com/best-books/if-you-want-to-be-a-mathemat...

And in the process of bringing on a co-founder and building a full desktop/mobile app so you can track what you are reading, what you loved, and we can use that data to deeply personalize your recommendations (as I am frustrated with Goodreads as I don't think they even try to do this well).

https://building.shepherd.com/roadmap/ *early beta coming in late January

Fun to work on :)

jp1652 6 days ago|
lovely, bookmarked!
muragekibicho 6 days ago||
I run a Substack where I show programmers how to turn advanced math papers into C and Python code.

I'm a math guy who codes and I do it for fun. I'm shocked people are interested in this stuff.

LeetArxiv Substack: https://leetarxiv.substack.com/

nanfinitum 6 days ago||
Fantastic work. Flying the Kenyan flag high!
apprentice7 6 days ago||
This is fantastic and it really looks like a passion-fueled side project.
muragekibicho 6 days ago||
Trump defunded my math PhD so I got a programmer job just to pay the bills. The Substack lets me do what I love.

Thanks for this comment!

mvkel 6 days ago|
https://www.repth.com, an AI cycling coach that I vibe-coded back when gpt-3.5 was hot and vibe coding wasn't yet a thing. We've come a long way!

Free for athletes, but I license the underlying "coach" logic to actual, human coaches.

spuzvabob 6 days ago||
Neat! We made a similar thing years ago in the pre-AI era, with strong focus on detection of how the planned workouts were executed rather than making plan adjustments just on a single scalar metric (e.g. TSS). Didn't really go anywhere unfortunately.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1725424103/summit-train...

mvkel 6 days ago||
Nice! Curious, what metrics did you land on? IF, VI, duration, etc., or an interval detector? That is the unfortunate thing about the serious cyclist industry; it's tiny! Not worth pursuing as a business unless the TAM is expanded broadly
muzani 6 days ago|||
Congrats. This sounds like a great way to build a "wrapper" product. Gather clean data on a particular niche and keep it in one place. Have something that's good at processing that data. No matter what "startup killers" the big boys release, it's still resilient and valuable.
Brystephor 6 days ago||
How does this compare to Trainer Road?
mvkel 6 days ago||
TR's "AI" claims are a bit of a stretch. It basically just monitors fatigue and will ramp down a prescribed workout to ensure you don't overtrain.

The workouts themselves are templates chosen from a list and do not adapt to the rider as an individual. It plugs in a standard periodization schedule with flexible dates.

Repth uses AI for everything with a few guardrails. You pick a peak date, describe your peak event, weekly availability, and ftp.

Repth then generates a macro plan, and the next week of workouts. As you perform, it will monitor for compliance and adjust the prescription depending on your compliance and feedback. All of it is unique per user, optimized for the demands of the specific event.

Overall, TR's approach is fine. Any plan can work as long as you stick to it. I built Repth simply to replace my (human) coach in 2022 and in that regard it has been a huge success

ferrufino 6 days ago||
How did you promote it? I find myself in the same market but for planning based on route weather and fitness conditions w/ https://brezza.cc - It is very hard.
mvkel 5 days ago||
Haven't promoted it at all, beyond having a marketing site live on the web with competent SEO. I should say, it's not hugely popular or anything. But considering that I only built it for my own needs, I look at it more as art than craft. In that way, it can only be a success.
ferrufino 5 days ago||
love that response, congrats!
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