Ask HN: Have you built programming projects that now is your main income source?

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • daterangepicker

    JavaScript Date Range, Date and Time Picker Component

    Yes, that's how I've supported myself my entire life. I'm 38, and started programming when I was 12. I have created dozens of products/services/businesses over the past two decades, but only a few were successful enough to live off of:

    (1) https://www.improvely.com launched in 2012, peaked at $45K MRR, and still makes about $25K MRR.

    (2) A collection of Shopify apps, which are tools or services people can add to a Shopify-hosted ecommerce store via Shopify's app store. Improvely has an app there, where I also offer apps for several other common ecommerce store needs: contact forms, newsletter opt-in forms, sale banners, social media icons, etc. Shopify handles the billing and passes through 100% of the revenue you earn up to $1 million per year, after which they take a percentage stake. I make a few thousand per month from their app store.

    (3) Google AdSense ads, primarily on the documentation sites for various open source libraries I wrote over the years. http://www.daterangepicker.com has been generating pretty consistent ad revenue for 10 years now for example, and I occasionally run into that library in the wild on all kinds of websites, from local businesses to the US government.

    After I got married and settled down a bit, I have honestly had less passion for programming than I had in my 20s and early 30s. I find myself using others' libraries, products and services more readily where I would have built my own solution to a problem in the past.

    But I've rekindled the maker/entrepreneur spirit by genre switching so to speak, from code to physical goods. I bought a bunch of production equipment, specialized printers, a laser cutter and engraver, 3D printer, heat press, etc. I now make what could be another full time income ($60K per year or so) selling custom signage to small businesses. For example, I spent yesterday designing then manufacturing a couple dozen custom coasters for someone that owns two small hotel type properties in a ski resort area. The coasters have their wifi SSID/password and a QR code on them that connects a guest to their wifi when scanned.

  • SurveyJS

    Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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