What would you do with time, location freedom and 50k to spend?
A bit of a silly question considering all the ideas floating around this site, however, considering that:
- I don't want to spend a dime nor a single day building some non sense marketing analytics tool, AI mailing stupidity to sell something nor a CRUD in disguised app to to make people supposedly "more productive", have enough of these
- Totally disinterested in building the next niche TokTok and any other new gen social media to me are just wasting millions of people's brains
- Not looking for profit per se, but something that has a high level of chance to break even and grow moderately, with little risk to fall into bankruptcy/irrelevance
Something that do good for this world.
I know how to code, I know how to market to some degree, got a sense for design with style, I can talk. It doesn't have to be a software thing, although that's my forte.
What things do you love? I mean if money is not the goal, I'd say do what you like. Is there something you can do all day long which might help other people too?
Out of the bit of info of your post, I say helping people to overcome their phone, social media and other addictions helps the world and you probably know enough about it. Or help with your experience in building applications and making them profitable. And ataying true to yourself without becoming a guru. I think the world needs some counterparts to those gurus.
Thanks for the inspiration. I educate those I can face to face about the impact of social impact on mental health. Perhaps spending time blogging about it would keep me occupied.
The thing about social media, life for any sort of virtual realities is that people's lives are too damn boring to stay away from being connected to more exciting stimulations. Not sure how I can make people's life less boring :)
That would be key.
I have serious worries about need. Perhaps I should build as many hives as I can for the rest of my life, a drop in the ocean of problems
I was in the same spot. I was looking for a project idea, but making another heartless job board, marketing tool or productivity app seemed not very appealing.
After bouncing around ideas I decided to just go with my heart and TRULY make something that scratches my own itch.
I have created a website listing free mathematics resources.
I got on the HN main page, I have more traffic than ever, I am growing my newsletter list, people seem to really enjoy and praise what I build.
I also 100% believe I do have a good idea how to monetize, which I will test very soon.
I am excited to keep working on the project. What was the secret? You REALLY need to follow your passion. Build something that YOU yourself would like to use (I use my own website regularly). Dogfooding gives you unique insights about the product and motivates you to keep going. In the end I think people can tell that the product is built by "one of them" and not some soulless businessman who just wants to profit off them.
Throw out all the rules behind the window. Build something unique. Part of the reason why my website is so succesful, is because it really is one-of-a-kind.
Don't build a "typical" IH project.
Build a community for juggling lovers. Build a list of companies that spend x amount of profits on charity. Build a sass for animal shelters.
Build something that YOU will love.
Man that was great insights.
I didn't think about that listing of companies that give to charities. Seems like a doable mining and exposing interesting numbers. Taking note.
Education was on my radar, stood up some LMS that contains curated content to learn about math, physics,, biology and chemistry. I think I went to broad and ended up spending more time watching and reading the content than actually building full curriculum for any topic😅 I think you did great to focus on math.
Let me see where I can go with one topic, biology, maybe we can team up if I get somewhere with it.
Whats your product? Do you mind sharing a link?
Do you create the content yourself or curate existing materials? LMS with test and practical exercises?
Thanks!
https://realnotcomplex.com - it's much simpler than you think :P
Nice. I see you do curation and link directly to the source.
I was following that path, but building learning paths myself hence embedding content right into the site for consistent experience. I will look into being less ambitious.
Thanks again, and good job with simple not complex 👍
Well, I have 1000 ideas what could be added / improved etc. I have a vision of full blown math education center.
But you need to start small. Like... SMALL.
I had my mvp in 2 weeks and published it immediately. It did not have newsletter, it did not have grading system.
You still add new resources via google form lol.
START SMALL.
I would set up a funnel for non-profit organizations. If they hook up to the funnel, for free of course, they could as easily as possible make money. The starting point could be be how to monetize what the non-profit already knows and let the organization teach it to people who need the knowledge and by doing that the non-profit could make more money on their own. It should be generic and helpful to any non-profit. It should be as automated as much as possible... A kind of membership-aid-program-to-improve-life-for-as-many-people-as-possible. I would take a small fee to run the system and make a living 🙏
Interesting... a sort of marketplace where nonprofit would make their research available to those willing to pay for it? (e.g non published reports ?) or more like consultancy offering (e.g thearcticinstitute educating university researchers or exploration companies on the situations in the Arctic via online workshops/discussion?)
Actually, I am not totally sure. I just had a vague idea that non-profits often need funding and I was thinking that it should be possible to develop a system helping non-profits to make money. I live in Denmark. May be non-profits have other challenges in the US?
non-profit organisations are always in the need in more funding. It's actually where they are spending a lot of cash with campaigns and outreach to get fundings.
It's a difficult problem to solve. I can think a market place as a great way for non profit to offer 'something' to get donations in exchange. I can only think of 'research' to be of value. Non-profit organisations produce a lot of precious information, maybe exposing that data and finding a way to monetize the use of that data (and routing the revenue back to the organisations).
Yes, I was thinking something a long the same line, but it is not possible for me to pursue the idea, but thanks for your input 🙏
This relates to my current situation quite a bit.
I can't disclose my amount of money obviously, but I saved enough from my consulting gigs that I've been able to take time off since January and focus on building a business I was dreaming about for a while.
I was going back to consulting but Covid19 got in the middle, but anyway.
I have been focusing on building something that:
I am not sure whether you want it to be your profession or not, but I would definitely focus on doing something you'll enjoy doing every day, and that is something only you know.
Plus, to keep it up, you need motivation. What is your motivation? Mine is to be free from having to consult and work for others in specific parts of the world.
Following your journey on this. I'm in a similar boat. I've got quite a bit finally saved up. Enough to pay rent where I live for 4 years...
Still working job - but building some software on the side. Stuff I want to dogfood myself and the goal at this point no longer needs to be 'millions of dollars'. Once you get to a point where you can live for 2 years.
Technically you can just build something REALLY good that you want to see in the world. and eventually, build revenues over time. Sustain yourself, then profit, then expand.
Kind of like a no-rush vibe. Especially with some savings.
I've actually been wondering similar things too, I'm a full-stack engineer. Can build for web + mobile + tie it all together with APIs and DB's. Kind of like infinite creative freedom... deciding what to do with it is the question.
I'm here if you want to DM and chat about any ideas.
p.s. - I've actually contemplated taking some time to just travel. Maybe like 4-6 months expanded over 2021. Maybe every other month or something. Still undecided as well.
Travelling has brought me a lot of insight. In a way it is what made me realise that working for a corporation seeking quarterly revenue increase isn't doing any good to anyone, even for the shareholders at the end of the day. So I don't want to be part of that.
Travelling, discovering other culture and how people live around the world being key, that helped me understand what I didn't want. Not so much what I want.
I see that branching off to self employment + working on something that provides good value to the world has far more obstacles than focusing on profiting. It takes off the list so many industries and practices. Anyhow if you have a chance to travel now I would say take the opportunity. That's what I did about 5 years ago now. And try to settling in places for a few months before moving to the next, you will get to see what most tourist don't get a chance to see or figure out.
Good luck