Back in 2016 I did a project that I called The Passive Income Experiment. Compelled by creating a JavaScript app that made $50 in 3 weeks, I decided to create a series of small passive income projects. I planned to create one per week over a twelve week period. I ended up finishing six of my planned projects, many of them garbage, but it kicked off a period of activity for me.
I recently saw a top post on Hacker News called Six Months of Tiny Projects and it reminded me of the project and has prompted me to try to repeat it.
Out of the 6 projects I created, most of them scratched an itch that I had myself. A couple of them still exist four years later.
How to Code
This was originally a single blog post on a domain by itself. Later, I converted the How to Code post into a small eBook and self-published it on Amazon. I followed that up with a series of zines that teach JavaScript programming to the absolute beginner. At first, I distributed those zines free via email, in a drip campaign. That mailing list grew to about 150 users. Later, I published those on Amazon as well. Finally, I combined the zines and the How to Code book into an anthology called Splash of Code. Finally, I shared variations of these with my co-workers and used them as a basis to teach a few people programming.
Most of these variations are still available today. They don’t do well on Amazon and my mailing list grows slowly, but I’ve gotten positive feedback from people.
AppWax
This was a simple tool I built to make icons, ads, and book covers using FontAwesome icons. These images were in sizes required by various online stores. I still use the tool regularly. I might be the only user.
Like Roller
This one is dead now, but was the most financially successful of the bunch. It was a browser extension that was an Instagram Like Bot. A lot of people liked the idea and a number of them paid for it. But, this is a spammy tool and, even though people liked it, it was never really successful in growing followers for my own accounts. Instagram also changes their design fairly often, necessitating constant updates. So, I abandoned the project some time back.
Ponder
Ponder is a simple note editor for your browser. It was created as a simulator of the simplicity of an Alphasmart word processor that I once owned. It gives you ten files that you can use to take notes and saves the information into LocalStorage in your browser. I keep no statistics on this tool and have no idea if anyone is using it. I’m probably the only user.
NeatCSS
Neat allows me to rapidly build efficient sites for these types of projects. It’s an opinionated minimalist css framework. I’ve used it as a starting point for most of my recent projects. I plan to keep this framework fresh by doing minor updates every 6-months.
So, I built 6 projects in 12 weeks and 2 of them survived. Since then, I’ve created 2 projects in 2 years. I’m feeling the spark and I need to do this project again.
I’m currently going through the new YCombinator Future Founders Startup School and plan to repeat this project once I’ve completed that course. Or, maybe I’ll pivot and just work on that.
Do you have a question? I want to hear from you!
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