I'm in my fifties and sold my first piece of software when I was 17. I am 100% self taught (from machine code on Z80 and 6502, to C++ and and now node JS) and have worked in some large well known companies on products and services used by millions of people.

I have had many side projects. One of them became a full time job in 1999, and which I sold in 2010 and then prompty scratched an itch to start another, which I am still doing. I am not wealthy, I have a mortgage for a much bigger house than I need.

To be honest I feel like I have failed at life and stayed inside instead of enjoying the sun. I look back and feel that there are much better ways to have spent my life...and yet I still do it.

Also, I have an idea that might change the world and that's what I want to work on next.

I seriously enjoy exploring ideas and writing code. If I could I'd do it all day every day.

Work addiction, delusion, or a fundamental problem with my perspective of the Universe - all seem likely to me.

My advice; You know if it's something for you. You feel it. You don't need to ask anyone else's advice or whether your idea is good, or how to manage it. You get on with it, make the sacrifices nessecary and wince through the pain knowing in your heart that it will be worth it, or not as the case may be.

I didn't have a problem with the work. I do wish I knew how to recognise defeat and quit though.

Sorry for the long lecture-rant.

I started my career (way back when the C-64 was still popular...) working for several start-ups and maybe that's colored my thinking on monetizing side projects. I do side projects to pursue my own interests and I've never once thought about trying to monetize it because I know the work involved and frankly most of the work isn't work I enjoy doing. I figure I'm leaving a few bucks on the table but I'm having a lot more fun!

I feel the exact same. An idea that I can't let go, that should immediately validate, but the expression of building it, the possibilities, its so hard not to follow

I don't have any data to back this up but I think there's no way your assumption is true. If people made posts like:

"Show HN: I showed up at work and did nothing else this week"

or

"Shown HN: I read some blog posts and a chapter of a book today"

or

"Show HN: I followed the tutorial for this language/framework"

or

"Show HN: I had an idea to build something but I gave up after the 1st weekend working on it"

then you would get a much different picture of the distribution of users with actual side projects.

One way I see it is: The software field is too lucrative of a day job for the majority of people to be motivated to work toward having a paying side project. The side project is going to be a hobby that maybe pays some small amount of money. Or the side project becomes a business. Or no side project at all.

I’ve had approximately 52,000 side projects which have generated roughly $500 in total over 20 years. I could start posting for each of those projects to give a more accurate distribution ;)

The hyperbole in your statement is not obvious.

The median dev income in the US is about $110k. I'd hardly call that "too lucrative".

I make under $100k. Before getting married and having a kid I setup an LLC for my honey business and worked about 16-20hrs a week at Lowes. The honey business makes a couple hundred a year (plus honey for us), and $750/month from Lowes doesn't help too much. But many side projects don't make that much either.

> The median dev income in the US is about $110k. I'd hardly call that "too lucrative".

Outside of a select few excessively expensive areas, $110k a year makes for a great lifestyle. We're talking nearly 2.5-3x the median salary of an American worker here. I don't know if the deviation follows, but how is a 2-3x higher median not lucrative?

Yeah, it is about 3x. I don't see it as a great lifestyle in most places. For example, I'm in the Philly area. It's pretty average, probably even slightly above, for cost of living. $110k just barely supports a family with a chance at retirement. Cheap cars, average to small house, 50 minute commute for cheaper area, etc.

Now that can be different if living in a rural area, but the costs in just about any city suburbs will provide a decent lifestyle, but not great.

After all, I was incentivized to work a low paying job for extra income.

A median here is over the entire country. If you are being paid a median (national) salary, but live/work in a more expensive (national) area, you are likely not being paid median relative to your area. You are likely being paid below median. But you are still likely being paid more than other industries in the same area.

> $110k just barely supports a family with a chance at retirement.

This may or may not be true, but I was talking about individual earners here, and median household income averages >1 earner per household. In this example, a 110k household income is less than double the national median household income, so it will definitely feel less lucrative when raising a family.

That depends. You can't just look at the area, but also your job type. There are tons of factors. I know that many pharma people in my area make more than me. I know high school teachers that make about the same as me. There are tons of people that make more than I do. This argument about median is really a tangent, but the point was that $110k per year is not excessive.

The conversation was that software development is "too lucrative" to incentivize people to work on side projects. In my experience, that's simply not true.

I think the point is that it's enough for people to feel comfortable and not think that they need another income source. I've known many software developers and some who had side projects. I only know of one other person besides myself who made money from any of them.

I feel comfortable saying that most developers don't have side projects and of the small minority that do, an even smaller minority make any money at it.

I work as a freelancer, but I wanted also to work on some side projects. After 4 years I make more money with my side projects than with my freelancer jobs. Normally I work 30% as a freelancer and spend 70% of my time working on my projects. As a freelancer, you have still people (=clients) who tell you what to do, but with your side project, you are your own boss. you can work really fast and try new stuff out, it's much more fun.

I'm running to B2B SaaS with subscriptions. The more customers I have, the more time I spend on support tickets or billing stuff. I'm really bad at self-discipline, but after 6 years working from home I finally find a routine that works for me. I start working very early (around 4-5 a.m.) and try to keep my afternoon for my own projects or time outside. I also try not to use social media before 1 pm.

I've stopped judging myself when I sometimes have days where I do absolutely nothing. It's fine. I like to relax my mind and wander off a bit. There are other days coming where I'm working till late and are much more productive.

I've always had side projects, but they've made very little money. Like, less than $1500 total, I think. I have no fucking self-discipline whatsoever. None. If I'm working on something, it's because I'm so into it that I cannot wait to wake up and get back to it. If I'm not in that zone, then I can't persuade myself to even open the IDE to save my life. But when I'm in that zone, there's nothing I'd rather be doing, so it is not draining, and it's better than relaxing.

> I have started assuming that most of the people here have some kind of side project that makes them money.

Nah, hundreds of thousands of people participate here and you only see a scant few posts like this. Lately it's been more, things like this tend to come in waves, but it'll die down again. The culture here is one oriented towards startups, so the things that will be submitted and upvoted are going to have that success-oriented "I built this" slant.

Yeah, I would guess less than 20% of us have side projects, and less than 10% of those that do have side projects are making any money from them. I say this despite being in the lucky group that has a successful side project.

With my side project, initially I was working on it because it was fun and fulfilling. When I started to get bored with it, my wife really encouraged me to keep working on it which motivated me to see it through. I'm still trying to figure out how to balance a healthy lifestyle. Juggling a job, a family, a side project, and 8 hours of sleep at night isn't working very well.

"I have started assuming that most of the people here have some kind of side project that makes them money"

I would assume the former - that they have a side project, but not the latter part of that statement - that it makes them money.

I have about 3-4 serious side projects along with a lot of smaller stuff on github. Only 2 of them make money, with one of them taking the lion's share.

This side project operates in a niche space - it's basically a SaaS for an area that works in pretty antiquated ways. I manage it by recieving emails from the users and copy pasting them to github repo in the form of issues, and I respond to the email.

For the self discipline part, honestly, I feel this strange sense of craftsmanship/ownership mindset when it comes to these projects, and there's a natural "pull". When I slack off, there's usually some underlying issue at play. Most people just reprimand themselves, but I dig deeper and find the thing that's bothering me. For example, maybe I'm not getting enough exercise/sleep or something is deeply disturbing at work/school. I don't feel guilty about not working (maybe that's just me).

I don't really see the project as "work" because it's what I want to do, so there is no balance to be established.

I have a couple FOSS repos/apps. I make nothing from them.

I actually have the opposite assumption. I think fewer than 50% of HN regulars have a project that makes them money.

I'd honestly be surprised if the number was greater than 5%.

If I start a side project, I find myself wanting to work on it instead of my daily job. But if I make the project my daily job, I want to work on something else. So no side projects for me, please. And I know plenty of other people who function like that.

Also, if you work hard on your job/project/startup for 7-8-9-10 hours a day, that's probably already past the point of diminishing returns.

Is it possible you have ADHD?

ADHD isn't well defined. I'd say lots of folks who aren't "traditionally ADHD" exhibit this behaviour.

Obviously an anecdote...

I quit my job last year to pursue my ideas full time but prior to that I had a pretty strict invention clauses (I'm in a state where those are enforceable) and purposely avoided side projects because on my contract my employer would have owned them.

I don't have any experience with FAANG contracts or even any outside of my state so I don't know how common it is for a contract to essentially prohibit side projects but for what it's worth, I never had one this entire time I've been on Hacker News (I know I'm "throwaway" but if you look at my karma you can see I've been around).

My original side project is now my full-time job.

Most of my current side projects are flavors of what I am already good at and have success doing.

These haven’t made money (yet), but I think of them as successful because the learning translates to my day job which earns money. They also scratch the creative itch so I don’t needlessly update my normal website because I’m bored.

This helps me in my normal job as I can solve similar problems in news ways and some of those new ideas work themselves into my other projects.

I have a side project[1] that has made me $0 over the past 8 years. It's not well known and few, if any, other developers make use of it. I still work on it most days because I enjoy working on it.

I assume I'm part of the majority. Thinking otherwise would damage my self-belief and self-confidence.

[1] - https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas

Most of us probably have normal jobs. Side projects which make money are rare.

I taught myself how to program via side projects and it's still where I do 99% of my learning.

I have two at the moment working on a third. The first one I’ve made around 2k last year the other one is in stealth mode as it depends on a functionally from the third one.

I gotta say it’s pretty hard to work on side projects and have a life if you hold a regular job and family but it’s doable.

My utopia is to build side projects that are fully automated and self sufficient so I don’t need to spend times on things I don’t enjoy like support etc.

No. If my day job doesn't cut it for me financially, I get a different one.

I do have side projects, but they are tools to help me with my hobbies. One of them once did get enough traffic that I monetized it... but then sold it because the maintenance is not how I wanted to spend my time.

I have a side project that makes a decent amount a year. In order to make it work, I absolutely just coast and work the minimum possible at the day job - maybe 5 hours a day, the other 3 I spent on my side project.

I don’t feel guilty because I am a bit underpaid at my day job anyway.

I work on my business about two hours a day, before I start my day with my employer.

I've been doing it for about four years straight now, so it's just a habit at this point.

If I'm feeling tired or whatever I just sleep in, no need to get stressed over something you do on the side.

I'd love to start another side project, but my current job and other hobbies keep me busy enough as it is.

I've always had things I work on, and I've always been an iconoclast. I call myself an "internet plumber and data sous chef" ("internet plumber" is on my business cards).

I struggle with the notion of this activity being "working on side projects" because I was a consultant for 20 years.

I come from an age where PDPs roamed the Berkely campus and LSD came from the drinking fountains. There was no commercial internet. Software development and uptake was not driven by advertising air wars. There was no GitHub; there was no GPL. Since even then my poorly formed notion was to work horizontally across industries, it was important that I be able to retain and reuse a collection of tools and libraries and I wrote that into contracts as "software tools of the trade"; and one of the key differentiators was that I did work on them for multiple clients, or for my own account.

That was then, this is now.

I went to work for a cybersecurity company and ended up playing a lot with DNS. The first few years were complete chaos, but hella fun! But that changed, and my suggestions weren't listened to. In my opinion, Sand Hill Road has ruined the threat indicator space (omitting the journey for brevity).

I suppose what I'm doing now is 1) illustrating cool or quirky things about the technology and 2) making winners and losers in the DNS / DDI space.

I don't know that someone without the discipline to run their own business (and the wisdom not to if you don't have to, IOW move fast or go far) is going to be able to make money on side projects consistently. I'm not really trying to. So let's talk about the non-monetary rewards.

I meet the other fanatics in this space. When I make winners, they're allies. When I make losers, they provide me with free publicity. I have an awesome rollidex (look it up). <--- these are the true reasons I do it

Does this ever make me money? Indirectly yes I suppose it does. I know what I can do, and other people at the top of their game know what I can do; and I know who's at the top of their game (and oftentimes who's not). People reach out to me about quirky opportunities: I spent last winter hunting medical devices on a network (because DDI).

Would you do anything for money? Would you do anything your heart called you to do? Think about what truly motivates you and why. How does your project align with your motivation?

Make a pitch deck for your project, or for the problem area it addresses (a plea for help). In my case, I always produce working code; so that's what I do. Then publicize it, see what feedback (any kind) you get; be gracious (ok, at least try).

How'd it go? Check back with your motivation compass: is the path from here to the North clear? If not, can you plot a course? Yes? Pivot. Repeat. Just like a business, really. No? Move on to something else.

Meta: You're using words like "managing", "discipline", "slacking", "guilt"... and also "relaxing" and "working". But you don't use them in the same paragraph as "money".

1) Above, I made a comment about "move fast or go far": in my experience things oftentimes start out as "move fast" and transition to "go far". Are you a go-it-alone person, or do you find safety in numbers?

2) Baseball. Do baseball players make better baseballs because they know how to hit home runs? Is winning the game the result of discipline and training, or is it just something that tends to happen more often when you're part of (or are) a cold-blooded, well-oiled and single-minded machine?

> I have started assuming that most of the people here have some kind of side project that makes them money.

I haven't paid attention to it, but probably the people who mention "my side projects" aren't regulars, and it's probably a Baader-Meinhof thing for you.

If you want to be methodical (or me, since I'm just guessing with no data), you could go through the top 10k commenters here: https://whaly.io/posts/top-10k-commenters-of-hacker-news-in-... (it was mentioned on HN a few days ago) and see if they wrote "my side project" or something along those lines...

I notice these kinds on comment whenever some people share something with "Shown HN: I made this and it makes revenue" kind of posts. There will be few people there, sharing their experience. That is where the bias started from and I got more curious about it whether it is actually true or not!