What kind of side project could I start to make some extra money?
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...
Sadly, most of us do not own or want to live in a cardboard box.
You are doing yourself a disservice if you think you must live in a high COI area to have a well paying job. Also, if you think you need to live in traditional housing to have a high standard of living or to be socially accepted.
Here's a good set of lessons, something that will give you enough info to know why you shouldn't put money into stock market:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK78nVl6dRdUemHszve34...
Last time i did (wrote real time data backup and mirroring tool) - it brought about $200k in "side cash" :)
If the goal is really to make a reliable profit, then you should specifically look for problems programmers don't relate to. Make something for parents, old folks, hikers, knitting clubs, etc. They may not be as avid software consumers as programmers, but when you service is the first solution they've found, it's an easy sell.
The majority of programmers' ideas on what they'd like to build fall into three categories:
(1) games
(2) tools (a utility, a compiler, etc.)
(3) social version of ______
Yeah, great fortunes have been made in all 3 areas. But every programmer is getting those same ideas, so you're going to have insane competition. In the case of (2), people do those for free. In the case of (3), because of network effect, out of 1000 people that try it, one will be winner-take-all. A good first pass might be to eliminate ideas for games, tools, and social whatnot.
> Make something for parents, old folks, hikers, knitting clubs, etc.
But intersect that list with problems where people are already paying significant money but getting mediocre results.
Eg., old folks pay $3000 for hearing aids, but elderly people often say that the results are awful. For many old folks, it's a speech discrimination problem -- sound amplification is not what's needed. What if you built a system that captures what the senior is listening to, and repeats it back in a slow, smooth, clear voice into his ear in near real-time?
For further refinement, you could eliminate extraneous noises and conversations from the input, use a voice and accent that the old person is accustomed to, and allow for automatic repeating if he tilts his head slightly left.
Basically is there a way around this inconvenient truth?
Thank you for the link and for your succinct writing style. I'm ramping up marketing for an app right now, and this was a perfect find. If my app's churn rate doesn't kill it (kidding), you may have a new testimonial soon.
That's partially what I did for my https://citybreakflights.com service
