Skip to content

Comment on What's the most profitable programming hobby?

Comments

This may sound crazy but developing a simple professional website for small businesses. Auto Mechanics, small manufacturers, mom and pop shops, etc. If you could do it for lets say $500-$1000 and charge like $20 for small changes, I feel like you could do well for yourself. A lot of these types of operations don't have the skills nor the resources to create an online presence (at least a decent one). An older guy I know who had a small Tool and Die shop was complaining to me that everyone he contacted wanted over $5k and said he just couldn't afford it.

I did this back in college. I had a Perl script that takes in a text file (before markdown) and generate a static one page site for local small businesses. I started with $250, depending on complexity. Ongoing maintenance was $25 a year for domain registration/server maintenance/etc, plus extra whatever they want to add. I was making a good profit, but getting customers was my issue. I cold called a lot of shops and even handed out my business cards to other shops.

I do this now with avg. yearly maintenance of $80 per website. It brings in around $800/yr of side income. New clients usually come from referral.

The doing side is easy- there's endless options from off shelf templates to some generators. The problem is on the other side: if a business in 2021 still have no website, it's either they don't need it( e.g. a good builder) or they are decades behind with everything, including understanding what's the benefit of having a website.

There are a lot of auto repair guys (Owner operator types) that don't have a website. They either don't have time, know how, or want to spend 5-10k on a 5-8k page website. Yoou would'nt believe how many don't have a website and still do well. My barber has no website and if you walk in you're waiting 1.5 hours to get a haircut minimum. My Mechanic also doesn't have a website and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind one but the cost is prohibitive $6k plus for a few pages.

The thing is that just getting a website doesn't really help that much. I have a childhood friend,who managed to carve himself a pretty decent niche in rentals.He has no website, all the stuff is being logged on a piece of paper and the marketing can be summed up as a few Facebook post behind his house. So I could do him a website. But unless there's marketing, resource planning,some approach to existing clients,the business won't move a bit from where it currently is. And that's the problem most of those, who currently don't have a website face

Not really, it could be just like the person you replied to said that people are asking for too much. Not everyone can make a website for themselves, even if for us it may seem really easy.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.