side hobbies that have paid off or started a business

[holden j caufield]

I needed a sim card cut right away and found a guy on craigslist that was 2 min away and charged next to nothing. Got talking to him and he said he started out many years ago needing a part for his iphone, found a phone advertised as non working for dirt cheap. Found out it needed some very minor work that took him less than 5 min.

Well he ended up scouring CL for under valued phones that were a quick fix or broken screened phones he could fix for cheap. He said it started out small on now he makes more from his phone hobby than work. Quit his job and said he has tons of fun fixing and bartering, can pay his bills, has low hours and is stress free now.

 

[Schfifty Five]

And what's your question?

 

[z1ggy]

Friend of my dad's fixed computers.. eventually became a business. Business no longer in service though as he didn't really make enough money off it.

 

[rudeguy]

Yep.

A couple years ago I started dinking around with fixing cell phones. I mainly just wanted to see if I could do it. Well it turned into a pretty good side business until a bunch of low ball places started doing it.

Then a friend of a friend needed someone technically inclined to help at his business. My friend mentioned me because he knew I worked on phones. Long story short, I now buy phones and tablets in bulk lots, fix them, then sell them. Sales are averaging about $10k/week and its only getting busier. We are to the point where I want to start importing parts directly from China rather than buying them wholesale.

As we speak there are contractors building me a workshop. They ordered me custom workbenches, I have a corporate card that I am never questioned on and I get to work at my own pace. We have plans on expanding even further soon. If things fall into place, we could be doing $100k/week by next year.

All because I was bored and wanted to take an iPhone apart.

 

[highland145]

As we speak there are contractors building me a workshop. They ordered me custom workbenches, I have a corporate card that I am never questioned on and I get to work at my own pace. We have plans on expanding even further soon. If things fall into place, we could be doing $100k/week by next year.

All because I was bored and wanted to take an iPhone apart.

Thought you were renting.


$100k/wk.....:hmm:

 

[rudeguy]

Thought you were renting.


$100k/wk.....:hmm:

They are building me a shop at work.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Yep.

A couple years ago I started dinking around with fixing cell phones. I mainly just wanted to see if I could do it. Well it turned into a pretty good side business until a bunch of low ball places started doing it.

Then a friend of a friend needed someone technically inclined to help at his business. My friend mentioned me because he knew I worked on phones. Long story short, I now buy phones and tablets in bulk lots, fix them, then sell them. Sales are averaging about $10k/week and its only getting busier. We are to the point where I want to start importing parts directly from China rather than buying them wholesale.

As we speak there are contractors building me a workshop. They ordered me custom workbenches, I have a corporate card that I am never questioned on and I get to work at my own pace. We have plans on expanding even further soon. If things fall into place, we could be doing $100k/week by next year.

All because I was bored and wanted to take an iPhone apart.

Aren't you working for someone else though?

 

[Tweak155]

I started off programming calculators in high school to get me the right answers on tests.

Now I'm a programmer at one of the largest companies in the world!!

Please learn something from my great success.

 

[rudeguy]

Aren't you working for someone else though?

Yes

 

[highland145]

Yes

Hell, at $100K/wk, I thought you were finally going to earn your keep around here.

 

[Markbnj]

Programming. Started as a hobby and turned into a career.

 

[halik]

I started selling crack and now im selling crack!

 

[highland145]

I started selling crack and now im selling crack!

You get locked up again? I always hears they just took your crack instead of paying for it.

 

[Fritzo]

I work in IT because I had to figure out how to get games to work on Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 in the 90's.

You kids today an' yer X-Stations an' Wii-Cubes. Back in my day, you had to know how to finaggle a config.sys and an autoexec.bat file if you wanted to play Wing Commander! Not to mention settings up yer IRQ's for your sound card and initiating IPX/SPX to play against your buddy over a phone line!

 

[Rakehellion]

I've never had a 9-to-5. I've always been self-employed since I was 15. I used to buy broken Playstations and cameras to repair and sell because this was way cheaper for me than buying new. I've done some programming too.

 

[Imp]

Crack? La di da... I'll stick to crystal meth.

 

[ViviTheMage]

web hosting, it's grown ... but is not my full time gig. Super saturated market. But it's still fun.

 

[purbeast0]

mobile apps for me. started as me kind of tinkering around and then i've made some apps and cleared a decent amount of extra cash. i now have like 6 or 7 pay apps and 1 free app. the pay apps are very niche though but still i make at least like $10 or 15 a day average at this point, and i haven't updated them in months.

about to put out a new one hopefully by this weekend and hopefully that will make me some side money.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Yes

So how much they paying you if their sales are $10k/wk? How about at $100k/wk?

 

[Tweak155]

mobile apps for me. started as me kind of tinkering around and then i've made some apps and cleared a decent amount of extra cash. i now have like 6 or 7 pay apps and 1 free app. the pay apps are very niche though but still i make at least like $10 or 15 a day average at this point, and i haven't updated them in months.

about to put out a new one hopefully by this weekend and hopefully that will make me some side money.

You create your own graphics? That's the main thing that keeps me from doing it.

 

[Ryland]

I work in IT because I had to figure out how to get games to work on Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 in the 90's.

You kids today an' yer X-Stations an' Wii-Cubes. Back in my day, you had to know how to finaggle a config.sys and an autoexec.bat file if you wanted to play Wing Commander! Not to mention settings up yer IRQ's for your sound card and initiating IPX/SPX to play against your buddy over a phone line!

Been there, was part of that generation. Those were fun times trying to get the video card to not conflict with the sound card to play a game.

 

[lozina]

Been there, was part of that generation. Those were fun times trying to get the video card to not conflict with the sound card to play a game.

I vaguely recall having to rem out the loading of mouse.com for one of my games for whatever reason. Didn't even need the mouse much anyway back then.

 

[-slash-]

You create your own graphics? That's the main thing that keeps me from doing it.

This. I've toyed with doing apps as a side gig for a few extra $$$. I figure some simple games and a few niche apps for my hobbies (RC cars, Fishing, etc).

 

[Imp]

Been there, was part of that generation. Those were fun times trying to get the video card to not conflict with the sound card to play a game.

I am so old... I don't have the patience for that anymore. Aside from a new SSD and some ram, the rest of my system is at least 4 years old. And I have no plans to properly upgrade (i.e. mobo, CPU, GPU). In fact, I've been thinking about moving entirely to a laptop system and getting an Xbox One.

For me, I've got a fairly recent website and YouTube channel set up. Got lucky and stumbled on some keywords, built it around that. Income is beer money at this point. Bad part is that most of my traffic is from search engines, so traffic levels change every time Google decides to change their algo.

 

[purbeast0]

You create your own graphics? That's the main thing that keeps me from doing it.

yep. i created my own graphics for most of my apps (or a buddy helped with some) and for my game i got some freeware stuff, as well as for the sounds. my apps aren't very graphic intensive anyways.