Posted by cvbox 6 days ago
Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell
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
If I may ask, what were some of the strategies that drove most of your subscriber growth?
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."
How do you see yourself against someone like delve.co?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm actively working on a successor that allows you to create your own custom workout programs using formulas: https://vis.fitness
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..
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.
But looks really cool ill be trialing it this week!
I cannot stand having to fiddle with my phone while at the gym.
You can control it via Siri, though that only really works in a home gym
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.
It is a carpooling app.
Using android 15 on a Nothing Phone 1. Any chance to get it working?
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.
That being said, it feels really nice that people like it so much they’re willing to pay extra.
I have a Pixel 6 Pro. That's not thaat old.
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...
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?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!
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.
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.
[1] https://sschueller.github.io/posts/vbz-fahrgastinformation/
[2] https://sschueller.github.io/posts/turning-a-project-into-a-...
What type of customers do you have?
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 :)
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/
Thanks for this comment!
Free for athletes, but I license the underlying "coach" logic to actual, human coaches.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1725424103/summit-train...
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