All I know about building side projects that can make money
I got many questions in DMs and comments. Some people asked if I have a course to teach about building and shipping products, etc. I thought to share all I know about building and shipping software side projects that have the potential to make money.
With following tips, I didn't have much success yet but I make ~700 a month with a 95% profit margins and 99% passive. I have observed people over many years follow this and find success.
With that said, all advice is bad advice. Each success story is unique. You have to carve your own path. Blindly following any advice won't get you anywhere. If you are in for a quick win, it's impossible. You might as well not read beyond this point.
This is for beginners who haven't had luck with profitable side projects yet. This is not for full-time founders though a lot of advice applies. This is specifically written understanding that you have limited to no time, money, and audience. If you have time, money, or audience for your side projects, not all of this advice will apply.
I will use some technical words in the document, if you don't understand them, please Google.
Finding ideas
Build something that solves your own problem. Period. This will keep you from building products that no one wants to use. If not your own, build to solve a friend's problem. If you have a problem, there's a high chance many people have the same problem.
Make sure the problem statement can be defined crisply and needs exactly one product feature to solve it. When you solve your own problem, if the product doesn't work, (i.e. you couldn't market it) at least you will have one less problem. You will learn building, you will learn shipping. Your muscles will train. Next time, you will be able to ship faster.
Pick ideas that you can ship in 2 days max. This will filter all the ideas that you can't ship in a week. Yes, when you think it will take 2 days, it will likely take a week or so. When something takes longer, we procrastinate on it and give up. If it fails, we feel worse, and convincing ourselves for the next idea becomes harder.
You have to be prolific. Begin with the mindset that you will have to ship 100 ideas. If you manage that, you will be a success.
A product with a high chance of making a few grands has a small chance of making a billion. A product with a high chance of making a billion has a small chance of making a few grands.
Do not worry about competition. If you have a problem that isn't exactly solved the way you want it, build it. You do not need to do extensive competition analysis. That stuff is for people with free time/money.
If something solves someone's problem, there's a 100% chance somebody is willing to pay for it. Do not self reject. Market is the only test.
Building
I am assuming you understand some basics of building as a developer. Use the framework/language/tools you are most prolific with.
Build on web. Mobile apps will slow you down. It takes Apple 2 days to review your submitted version and most probably they will reject it.
"Start, then Learn" - Sahil
Working for a company is a very different programming job than working to ship stuff that makes money.
Do not write tests.
Do not write commit messages.
Do not worry about code quality.
Do not worry about any best practices at all.
You don't need a logo.
Build one feature and ship.
If you are building something that is already solved and has good competition, you will need to have some edge over your competition. If you have an edge in distribution but not the product, you can get traction and make money. But figure out distribution first and build later. If you have an edge in the product but not distribution, build the product, work on distribution and it will take time. (a lot of it).
Have a bias for shipping. I shipped https://imagecompressr.com/ and launched on Product Hunt when the link was down. DNS wasn't set and it still reached #4 product of the day.
Market is more random than you think.
Do not worry about graphic design. Do not worry about security a lot. (don't let someone cost you a lot of cloud compute though).
A need for a good-looking app, good security, and piracy protection are good problems to have. You don't have them unless you have users.
Distribution
I still don't know a lot about this. I know a few things about SEO though. This section is mostly about SEO. SEO is usually the only reliable way if you don't have an audience.
Make sure your website performs all green at https://pagespeed.web.dev/. You don't need fancy landing pages that are trying to paint the best picture to convert users. That stuff works if you have solved the discovery problem. i.e. you have many people who will visit your website. If you can't get people on your website, a fancy landing page doesn't work. What you need for SEO is good copy that satisfies a user's search query and solves the problem. SEO usually takes 3 months for a fresh domain to see results. You have to wait it out and ship other stuff.
When you build a website, integrate Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Ahrefs. All free tools and will give you a tonne of information you need about SEO. Doing all three is a must and free. You can swap Google Analytics with some other tool (but I speculate that Google favors websites with GA because of additional info they have). On ahrefs, find low difficulty, low volume, high intent keywords and target them in your copy. It's hard to find low-difficulty high-volume words.
After shipping, the first thing you need to do is launch on Product Hunt. You don't have to prepare much for that. You can do it in 5 minutes. Post it there just because Product Hunt will give you a dofollow backlink. If you perform well, many sites, that parse PH daily will also link to your website.
Google crawlers don't care about videos, theme, dark theme, colors, gradients, or images on the landing page. The most important thing is the text that is written and in which HTML tags. If possible let people use your app without signup. Keep onboarding zero or as little as possible. Let people solve their problem real fast.
Once you have shipped a few products, you will realize you need to start with distribution first.
I repeat I do not consider myself a success or very knowledgable by any margin. Above points helped me and I shared that it might help someone. Most of this is just common knowledge. There is no magic. There is no shortcut. This is not the only way. This is what helped me.
Reach out if you have any questions.