Ask HN: Besides programming, what's a realistic "work from home" job?

7 points by stop 15 years ago | 12 comments

I'm starting to think I should quit programming as a career and just do it as a hobby.

I don't like going out to work every day and am wondering what other type of work I could do from home. (It doesn't need to pay as well as programming because I spend very little and have no family to support.)

Any suggestions?

jaltucher 15 years ago |

- writing. plenty of places still paying for content.

- use software like tradestation or wealth-lab to build a workable trading system. trade from home.

- background checks. with rise in VC investment is also new needs for doing cheap background checks.

- penny auction arbitrage. there's a new startup in penny auctions every day. they start off unprofitable because not enough traffic. meaning, you can win cheap ipads for almost nothing and then sell on ebay.

- project management. people still need websites done. You can outsource to india using scriptlance or elance and do the project management from home.

- e-commerce. 1 idea: do a blog about living forever. when it starts to get traffic start selling a nutraceutical package on it.

- photography. do weddings cheap. you have to leave home but dont have to work as many days.

I'll think of more if people like these ideas.

ig1 15 years ago | |

Don't do cheap wedding photography.

Wedding photos are incredibly important to a lot of people. If you don't know what you're doing, then you could end up ruining someone's memory of the most important day of their life.

Look at wedding forums for photographer horror stories if you don't believe me.

jaltucher 15 years ago | |

- do a portal on class action lawsuits. almost everyone is applicable to win some class action (e.g. eat french fries from Mcdonalds 10 yrs ago? you won a class action. have an ipod in 2004, you won a class action, etc). High keyword spending there. No portals are good.

- buy up popular domain names with the words misspelled (e.g. www.eatingdsorders.com, etc) - then do appropriate content (scrape sites) and google ads. Put together a portfolio of these names for cheap and sell to Demand Media

- Write e-books. "100 Ways to Lose Weight". "40 stocks that can Double this year". Use simple google ads to sell them. Write 10 books / mo to make decent living and one might be a breakout. Traditional publishing dead. Get your friends to write e-books. You'll market, they write, split 50-50.

- Therapists charge over $150-200 /hr. Charge $10 / hr and offer to do therapy over skype.

More coming.

cmontgomeryb 15 years ago | |

Could you expand on your first suggestion, writing, please?

I would like to write more often, and though making money would be a bonus, having a topic to focus on would help greatly. Where can I look to get started?

Thanks!

stop 15 years ago | |

Wow. This is awesome. Some great ideas here. I'd love to hear more if you've got them.

messel 15 years ago |

Build relationships with companies that don't mind working with remote consultants or employees. Writing was mentioned by jaltucher and is a great place to start. If money isn't a huge issue, you could write squidoo lenses or web pages full time adding your own ads. I wrote a few dozen lenses for squidoo in 2008 early 2009 and they generated a steady $40-60 a month. Take that concept and push it to a few hundred or thousand lenses or focused sites.

amathew 15 years ago |

Why do you want to quit programming? Are you tired of sitting in front of a computer all day? or do you just dislike your current job?

I suggest answering these questions before considering any "work from home" opportunities. If it's just a matter of your current job, why not look for another employer.

dstein 15 years ago |

Day trading, and poker playing. Both require you to be of a type of person that makes one a good entrepreneur - willing to put in long hours and withstand a lot of pain.

petervandijck 15 years ago |

Translation.

stop 15 years ago | |

A friend of mine tried it and gave me the impression that, because you are competing with a worldwide remote workforce for work that does not require an on-site presence, translation work is extremely hard to come by, unless you have exceptional language skills.

jdietrich 15 years ago | | |

Exceptional language skills or specific domain knowledge. For many languages, it is incredibly difficult to find skilled translators with sufficient knowledge to make sense of technical, legal and medical documents.

petervandijck 15 years ago | | |

You have to be good, yes. I think once you're good and you are also good at finding clients, you should be able to do well. Haven't done it myself though.