Successful Moonlighting For Geeks? 448
Lawksamussy writes "Having just bought a really old house that's on the verge of falling down, I'm now trying to find a way to pay to fix it up. I have a great job in software development that pays the bills, but I'm looking to earn some extra cash in my spare time. Whatever I end up doing has to be reasonably lucrative (or at least have the potential to be so), not require any specific time commitment, and be doable equally well from home or from a hotel room. I'm also keen that it should be sufficiently different to my day job to keep my interest up, so the most obvious things like bidding for programming projects on Rentacoder.com, or fixing up neighbors' PCs, aren't really on. Above all, it should appeal to my inner geek, otherwise my low boredom threshold will doom it to failure before I even start! So, I wonder if any of my fellow Slashdotters run little part-time ventures that they find more of an inspiration than a chore... and if they are willing to share what they do and perhaps even how much money they make doing it?"
I run a software company (Score:1, Interesting)
I run a software company. http://isotope11.com./ [isotope11.com.] We build web apps for companies all over. I make more than I ever did working for someone else.
Everyone needs to run a software company.
Fix the house, skip the 2nd job (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife & I remodeled our previous house: tore off plaster, moved walls, rewired, tiled, etc. We hired out the roof tear off, rough plumbing work and some of the drywalling. Saved a ton of money. Eventually, it made more sense for me quit my low-paying job and become the full-time house repair dude while she worked her good job.
It's not that hard, you learn new skills, have an excuse to aquire tools, and have something to be proud of. It did take seven years, though. YMMV
This time around, we are paying others as much as we can, but we'll probably be left with a weathered-in shell.
It's also a good way to find out you your friends really are. Forget moving day, real friends help you demo and haul.
Good luck.
Web Development and Design (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I run a software company (Score:3, Interesting)
I've tried to do that, but always had a difficult time acquiring clients. The few people who've expressed interest, I've done some work, only to get gipped. Where do you get your leads, and how do you go about starting up successfully?
PC Building (Score:5, Interesting)
Build and sell PCs. Not just normal PCs but ones with nifty cut-outs (you DO have a Dremel tool, right) and flashy lights. Call them by some nifty name. When you're not home you can be working on the designs or maybe building some of the smaller bits. As this is "free time" it won't really be that unprofitable if you can build a name and find the market.
Me? I'd like to build some out of exotic woods.
Re:grow pot? (Score:0, Interesting)
I hear that pays well
Nah, pot doesn't pay as well anymore since the Canadians and Mexicans started exporting it more and also growing it in mass on the U.S. Forest Service lands. Sure you can get a few K's if you do it right and not get caught, but your legit programming job pays much more. The "new" drugs to pay attention to are LSD, Ectasy, and cocaine, or you could just become a drug company lobbyist and sell just as dangerous stuff legally. The technology option is spam or steroids websites...
Trade (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm a video game developer by day, and a trader/investor by night. I don't intraday trade, so I guess that makes me an investor.
Typically with 10% of my cash invested in the market, I can make about 3% return (about 30% ROI) monthly *if* I do proper research, pretty consistently.
If you don't mind risk, this is a nice way to make cash as it requires only a minimal time investment and can be done from anywhere in the world.
tutor (Score:5, Interesting)
You've got a college degree in math/science, right? Tutoring hopeless college kids or high school kids from middle class families can net something like $50-75 an hour, more depending on your qualifications and neighborhood. Hours are totally flexible. Hell, if ethics aren't a problem, sell term papers and coding assignments while you're at it.
As a lifelong geek entrepreneur: new markets! (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been an entrepreneur since the age of 12, running a variety of geeky businesses from BBSes in the 80s, to 3D design studios and rendering farms in the 90s. I've had my consulting business since I incorporated it when I was 15 (with an adult business partner who I bought out at 18).
I still moonlight through a variety of ventures, none of them geek oriented. EVERY moonlighting gig I did that was geek-oriented made my life miserable. Too much geekiness can really break you, honestly.
I run a Christian Printing [vipministry.com] business that accounts for about 25% of my income, and I run it on the side, maybe 1-2 hours a day. I blog [unanimocracy.com], which accounts for 10% of my income, also very part time. I've owned retail stores which became too full time to manage. I'm starting a digg-like print magazine focused on Chicago (details to come).
Everything I do moonlighting-wise is anti-geek. Much of it is hands on, without programming or thinking about technology or electronics. It keeps me fulfilled.
Stay away from moonlighting in what you do for a living. Find a hobby you can profit from. There's a billion ways to make money, but the most fun ones are the ones that don't cross into the market you're in for a living.
DIY? (Score:3, Interesting)
it should be sufficiently different to my day job to keep my interest up [...]. Above all, it should appeal to my inner geek
Why not do the majority of the work yourself? There is nothing more geeky or interesting than learning something new, from basic carpentry, to plumbing, to design work.
With my first house, I did the vast majority of the work myself, simply because cash was scarce. As time went on and I was able to save up some cash for expected work, I sometimes just hired the work out because it was something I tried and failed at, or was something that didn't interest me at all. But mostly I still do a lot of the projects myself.
Financially, you should try to compare the earnings that might be available to you to the cost of laborers and craftsmen. I live in the Bay Area, I can earn $80/hr for side projects easily (I could earn way more if I could pick and choose, but if I'm just trying to fill my free time, $80/hr seems to be the sweet spot). Craftsmen charge pretty close to that. So, depending on the specifics of the work on my home needs to happen, I'll either do it myself or try to raise the money with side jobs. It also depends upon what I want to learn.
For example, electrical work doesn't interest me at all, plus it scares me, so I always hire that out. But anything else I'll spend at least some time trying to figure out if I can learn how to do it myself.
As for moonlighting, you'll find the best work through people you know and who trust you. The best advice is to let everyone you know know 1) that you are looking for work 2) what you are great at 3) what your availability is. Eg, "I'm looking for work, I've used X technology to build web sites for Y years, and I'm available Z weekends per month.
Also, don't overextend yourself. Fixing up a house can take years. Don't get impatient, enjoy the process, and don't sacrifice your happiness for the sake of a faster schedule.
Re:Let me think... (Score:5, Interesting)
Geophysical data processing (Score:5, Interesting)
Geophysical data processing may be what you are looking for. It fits what you are looking for, because you can do it from anywhere you have internet access, and the money is good. I have a few friends doing this kind of work from home during nights and weekends, while working full-time at their day jobs.
Typical work situation: there will be a field crew somewhere in the world, acquiring geophysical measurements from an aircraft-based sensor platform, usually for the purpose of mineral exploration. Every night, they'll FTP the day's data to you. You do the bulk of the quality control, data reduction and processing work, and then upload the processed data back to the FTP. You'd also notify the field guys about any potential problems in the data. After that, the in-house specialists will do any final processing (leveling magnetic grids, fine drift corrections, etc.) and when the fieldwork is completed, they'll also prepare the client deliverables (maps, reports, interpretations, etc.).
Hourly rates for this kind of work range anywhere from $25/hr to $80/hr ($200/day to $500/day). If there are no serious glitches in the data that need troubleshooting, a data processor with some computer skills can usually rip through a day's worth of data in 3 or 4 hours. So if you get your data at 7pm, you can be done before midnight and still get a good night's sleep and be ready for your "real" job the next day. (On the other hand, if you have a girlfriend or wife, you may get into some time sharing conflicts, because the production schedules usually don't tolerate much latency.)
Educational requirements are typically a 4-year university/college Geophysics degree, or something somewhat related, such as Physics, Engineering, Math, etc. In any case, if you have a degree, your chances are good.
Training will probably take a few weeks, for you to get some experience and develop a feel for what good and bad data look like. Essentially you are the first line of quality control, so it's up to you to quickly flag any problems that could be due to operator error, sensor malfunction, or other factors.
You may or may not have to do some selling to potential employers to get them to let you work entirely from home. However, the way the mineral exploration market is these days (base metals such as copper and nickel are expensive [basemetals.com]), this shouldn't be difficult as there is too much data to process and not enough people.
A few geophysics companies are always hiring data processors:
Translation services. (Score:2, Interesting)
The way I make a little extra cash is from doing freelance translation. There are quite a few companies that contract out linguist support for several languages such as Arabic (duh...), Mandarin/Cantonese and several others. The more in demand a language is the more that is paid to the translator.
I understand that learning a new language can be daunting and difficult, but I have always considered it a very geeky pursuit and a complete removal from my daily coding. Also I must amend that the Army taught me a language so I do have a leg up, but if anyone does follow this path then at the end of it they will know an entirely new language and with it come greater job opportunities and access to another culture.
Espionage (Score:5, Interesting)
Just sell off some of your daytime data to the highest bidder.
Fortune-telling (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider astrology/divination/psychic readings sort of thing.
Minimal learning required, reasonable money.
Can be done online too.
Asterisk Hacking (Score:2, Interesting)
Take a welding class (Score:4, Interesting)
You won't be able to do this from a hotel room but I took a welding class and everyone that passed their test had a chance to meet with local companies looking for welders. Most of them were willing to consider part-timers, especially if you were TIG certified. If you can weld aluminum or do food grade work, you're golden.
One guy in our class got a job at an Antarctic research station.
I ended up getting an exec job before the class was over, so it never turned into a part-time gig. But I still have people who want me to weld stuff for them. And if you have a plasma cutter besides the welding gear, you'll have lots of friends and plenty of part-time work. Even my buddies will slip me a couple bucks, it's enough to pay for my welding supplies. You can usually find classes at a local community college, I'd stay away from the trade schools.
The only problem with getting certified in stick welding is you'll never be able to look at big pipes or structural welds without inspecting the beads. Checking for splatter, bad puddles and spots where they missed flux. You can get to be a seam snob.
If you're artistic metal art is really popular. There was a guy who come in once in a while to buy our class scrap. He made metal art little things and made quite a lot of money selling them. I used the plasma cutter to make a name plate for a friend and I bet I've had five of her friends call and ask if I would make them one. And, I have to say, a plasma cutter is not only a cool tool to use, it sounds totally bad ass. Like a jet engine that blasts a spray of molten metal. Imagine being able to cut in 1/4 steel as easy as writing with a big Sharpie.
Re:I run a global software company (Score:2, Interesting)
I've often thought about getting a job in a store like that and spending my idle time writing software...
It's a thought I have every time I see a bored retail worker sitting on their butt waiting for the next customer.
Re:I run a global software company (Score:5, Interesting)
That Bangalorese, if he's in northern India, it'd be: "Do the needful, run a software company."
Re:Exposure. (Score:5, Interesting)
This guy poses a legit question, and one that often poses ethical issues. Not only have I done a bit of moonlighting in my past, but I've always encouraged my best programmers to do a bit on the side. Without sampling that grass on the other side of the fence, those talented programmers I train are likely to hop over.
As an old programmer (I'm 44), I've got a few stories. When I worked for David Burns at HP, my previous company, National Semiconductor, needed my help badly. The work David assigned was mind-numbingly boring, and the LM628/LM629 (motor controllers) I'd worked on at National were in serious trouble without me, and frankly they were fun (my old boss, David Squires, was about the best ever). I asked Mr Burns if I could do the project as a favor to old friends at National, and he said it was up for the HP *Board of Directors* to decide! So, if HP/Burns was going to be a PITA, without any pangs of lack of integrity, I stopped asking Burns what I could or could not do.
I helped National push the LM628/LM629 into the market. Then, I quit working for Burns. As a consultant for a while, I wrote the original Simple Switcher design code (National did most of the work - bench validation). If you haven't heard of this line of products, you obviously aren't in power electronics. I enjoyed the consulting, but basically I sucked. I have this terrible desire to call stupid people stupid. It's *really* bad for consultants. So, now I'm CTO of a small company I founded, and I can't complain. Again, when my programmers feel the need for some moonlighting, I'm fully supportive. I've never lost a good one because of it.
Re:Fix the house, skip the 2nd job (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a great advice! The first 10yrs of my working life were spent as a day labourer in various places mainly the building industry. I bought a second hand Apple IIe as a hobby in the mid-eighties, a few years later I found I could make money from my hobby and decided to educate myself properly. I have been a well paid geek now for almost 20yrs.
The wife and I got sick of the sight of each other about 8yrs ago and I ended up in a flat near the beach and close to work, I also ended up putting on about 20kg due to no longer having an active life doing the renovations/lanscaping I had done to the family home (the gym simply bores me to death).
Anyway to cut a long story short I took advantage of the recent slump in the housing market to save $50-80k on the purchase price of a house "in need of some TLC". I am about to move into this 60yr old dump that has a huge backyard and is literally a 5min stroll from the beach, shops, school, and train station.
The block is zoned high density and I plan (with the help of an architect and builder) to put two townhouses in the backyard and renovate the dump into a period style home and add an attic to take advantage of the views over the bay on one side and the wetlands on the other. The building of the townhouses and the structural work for the attic will all be done by hired labour enabeling me to sell off the townhouses quickly.
Some of my friends see the house and I'm sure they think I have lost my mind, but the house is structurally sound and I have just two simple objectives. 1. Get fit/active again and 2. lose the mortgage.
Very, very, worst case senarion is I end up with the same mortgage that I have now. However I will have gained a nice home and lost 20kg. The health aspect alone might be enough to encorage me to do it all over again with a different dump that nobody but an old fool like me would bid on at auction.
Re:Let me think... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or possibly just as good (in parallel) - post on CL looking for a roommate. Take your time finding a good one and Voila! it's almost like free money.
Granted you have to tone your living habits just a touch (ie, no more walking around the house in your underware, no more crazy sex in the kitchen) but honestly - $700 a month net (that's rent and 1/2 the bills) is the same as a $12,000 raise at work (before taxes). You can buy a LOT of stuff for that $8,400 per year, and honestly you don't have to do anything even remotely resembling work to do it.
I'm not saying it's for everybody - but if you have room in your house, well $8,400 a year net is a pretty good chunk of change with which to finance home upgrades (or toys.)
Re:Let me think... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Fix the house, skip the 2nd job (Score:5, Interesting)
....
I don't know what country you are in... but in the US, the areas where carpenters, plumbers and electricians are highest paid--are the same places that require a permit/licensed professional to do most things. The code inspectors know the difference between the job done properly and well, the job done properly and poorly, or the job done incorrectly by somebody who thought they knew what they were doing. In the more union-heavy regions, if they see something that wasn't done properly and you can't provide proof of who did it, they will require all the work be re-done, and that you show proof of the [union] laborer that you hired to do it.
And how will they find out, you ask? Well, somebody might inform them about you--but even if that doesn't occur....-many places, whenever a house changes ownership, the code inspector will go over it before the transfer is approved. And so when you're trying to sell the house is when you're going to get hit with all this trouble, if it happens.
It sucks and it's a crock of bullshit, but in some places, it is the law. And it is cheaper to find out before you do anything yourself than it is to find out after.
~
Eldercare-a legal way to sell to the less capable. (Score:5, Interesting)
Once you learn to see it that way, almost all of it is systems problems. Things that can be hacked.
Add all of this up, and, especially when you added in the families who were in the process of moving from standalone homes to senior residences, I had far more work than I was willing to take on. And since I underpriced the market by charging thirty to fifty dollars an hour, I really got to pick and choose. Flexibility mattered far more to me than the marginal income. Just think of it as consulting work. The kind where the ability to keep a good timesheet is crucial, as is the ability to bill regularly, and then get the client to pay, which, when it goes wrong, is usually just another problem you can, ironically, bill to fix.
The trick to all of this? Being capable enough that whether the problem is about bookkeeping or logistics or finding and managing a contractor, your answer can be "don't worry; I'll take care of it." If you can make that promise and keep it, you're golden. You'll probably, like me, end up needing to find one or more assistants to help out if you're not willing to commit to doing this full time. I tried to keep it all at about fifteen hours a week and while peak load (say, moves of large houses or medical crises) was quite a bit higher, on average I did just fine. Fwiw, I peaked at five assistants on a couple of big jobs. Finding and managing them was, of course, much of what I was being paid for.
There are hundreds of thousands of affluent households who are just now moving from private homes into senior residences of one sort or another and the bottom line is that these residences are institutions. And from the food to the visual esthetics to the available services and schedules, these places are just not up to the job of satisfying these people who have had decades to get used to a higher standard. The person who can fill in that gap can write their own ticket.
What I'm describing is a boom industry and will be for years to come and it uses most of the skills I learned as an IT director and consultant. Financial management, crisis management, learning to live the "pager lifestyle", handling subcontractors, and so on. Things like explaining the limitations of servers to PHBs and routing installs around union b.s. apply, too. Not to mention being able to switch from being "a suit" talking to a lawyer (or a doctor, or both at once) to climbing under a desk to see if a new outlet was done properly. But since you're working for a family, you've got waaay more flexibility than you do at a corporate job. And if you're good the word of mouth will get you as many clients as you're willing to take on.
As for the "work from home" issue, like many kinds of consulting, for every hour you spend onsite, you spend half an hour to three hours offsite. Doing research, coordinating subcontractors, and so on. If you are online and can be on the phone for a while now and then, it doesn't matter if you're home, at work, or in the middle of a bro
Re:Fix the house, skip the 2nd job (Score:5, Interesting)
Check for a loose neutral, neutral tied to ground outside the panel, or (*much* worse, but probably more likely) a split neutral tying into your dryer. At absolute worst (VERY unlikely) you have an issue at the service not being tied into the panel correctly where one of the phases is loose.
Good suggestions. I still own that house, but I'm not interested in fixing it anymore (it was ruined in a flood).
The "neutral tied to ground outside the panel" reminds me of what I found when I moved into my new house:
In the process of replacing the plumbing, I cut the water main near where it entered the basement using a Sawzall. As I separated the pipes, sparks jumped between them (!). Turns out the furnace, installed and inspected in 2002, was using the water line as a neutral return (!!!!!), and there was no earth connected to the chassis. So, only one wire out of a 14-3 Romex was connected to the furnace at all with the rest clipped off.
Scary shit, though it had apparently been running the furnace just fine until I fixed the plumbing. (needless to say it is not like that any more.)
And if you don't read a resource like that you won't know what you're doing! Eg: You can have a single outlet above the fridge tied to the fridge outlet (which otherwise MUST be on it's own independent circuit and MAY NOT IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES be GFCI protected, BY LAW). Or that you may (nay, MUST) use a single neutral when running two phases to a SPLIT duplex outlet (you may use this configuration for kitchen outlets, but you'll need GFCI breakers). Bedrooms MUST be protected by AFCI breakers, etc, etc. :-)
Interesting. Why would I want an outlet on top of my fridge?
And I never understood the whole split-phase duplex outlet thing. Why do you Canadians do that? :) (And doesn't it lead to an overloaded neutral?)
And, AFCI breakers. I've seen those for sale, and shudder at the expense. And while I'm all for cheap insurance, nobody here is telling me that I need them.
Besides, I'd have had so much less fun as a kid if my bedroom had AFCI protection. There wouldn't have been any meaningful fireworks from sticking a pair of needlenose pliers into the cord for a boombox, nor from driving the mounting screws into a 120V Erector Set motor so far that I'd shorted the windings. It'd have been so much harder to learn what not to do.
I'll look up the book -- thanks for the reference. The wiring here isn't quite done (downstairs, yes - upstairs, no), and I'm all for learning new stuff.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let me think... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fix the house, skip the 2nd job (Score:3, Interesting)
Please don't hold me to the dates, I'm pulling them from memory. AFCI (arc-fault circuit interrupter) is required by code in the US, beginning in 2003(?). Any circuit (including ceiling lamps) going into a bedroom must have an AFCI breaker. As of 2008(?) Series AFCI is required.
I've just bought an old house and am beginning the remodel... got a notebook full of tasks to be done. Since a panel upgrade and rewire are in order, I have been checking into the code requirements.
You might want to check with your local codes compliance office to determine what year code book they will hold you to (they're still using the 2005 version where I live) and at what point you have to meet the new code requirements. For example, if I'm adding a new circuit to an existing panel I am only required to meet the old rules; but, they'd prefer I follow the new ones if possible. Unfortunately, I need a new panel; so, I must upgrade to the current code requirements.
Re:Fix the house, skip the 2nd job (Score:3, Interesting)
Or you could ignore the permits as no one will ever know anyway.
As long as you don't try to sell your home, no one will know. But I guarantee you, a decent home inspector will discover it, and will determine that it wasn't done to "code". Which could mean that other corners were cut, which will almost certainly discourage buyers (not to mention you can't transfer title until everything is brought up to code, anyway). So now you're stuck with a house you can't sell. How's that gonna work out for you?
I'll happily concede that building codes are entirely too onerous in most cases, but they do serve a useful purpose, in theory: to make sure that people who don't know anything about construction don't get screwed over by shifty conmen.
Re:Fix the house, skip the 2nd job (Score:3, Interesting)
In my family when my father ran out of things to fix on a house it was time to move. But to be fair he is a civil engineer so he spends his days telling people how to build buildings but is not allowed to actually touch the tools him self. We have done massive renovations over the years some of them just to see if we could. For example our pool has both a solar heater and a connection to the heat in the house. We hardly use either.
With some work you can do almost any fairly large project on a house in a month or two. You'll still spend money on parts and have days where it's just frustrating but it's all doable.
That said I would like to point out this bit from the parent "Hire out the big jobs -- anything foundation-related/structural especially". Very true. My dad is as cheep as they come and knows how to build a house from end to end but we still hired people for several things. Installing the pool, working on a water leek in our driveway, framing the addition of a second story to the house. Some jobs need LOTS of time and energy and must be done with in a reasonable time frame. If you plan on working on something that is time critical or critical to the functioning of the house the money is well spent.
Re:Eldercare-a legal way to sell to the less capab (Score:4, Interesting)
"His stuff" turned out to include over a dozen (literally) file cabinets and approximately 300 sq feet by an average of five feet tall pile of boxes full of mixed bike parts, radiation monitoring components, and papers, including everything from personal letters to unwashed laundry, and uncashed checks and unregistered stock certificates. (The certificates eventually added up to about a third of a million dollars. I get the impression from the lawyers that about half of that was either underdocumented in the records they had or simply not recorded anywhere.)
My friends knew that I was sick of corporate IT, but was hurting for money and they knew that I always ended up coordinating things whenever a friend was moving or when something otherwise needed logistics or other organizational help. They also knew that I A.) was trustworthy, B.) could sort out machine tools and financial statements, and lab equipment, and hundreds of videos and movies and furniture to be donated, and on and on, and C.) was able and willing to give the appropriate class and demographic "recognition codes" to make the family feel that I would (and did) understand their concerns.
So two different people I knew socially recommended me. Every job after that came the same way. I never needed a resume. It was all word of mouth. Mostly I ended up working for people in an assisted living place called The Hallmark a few blocks from the WTC site. I got hired to help one couple there about a month after 9/11 with sorting out an apartment in the still somewhat secured area. Then the same family hired me to help them at their place, and so on.
As for charging, I started out pretty damn stupid. At first I did it for free, since I was helping friends of friends. Then I only charged expenses, then idjit stuff like expenses plus fifteen an hour or whatever. The only excuse for this is that I was dead broke and was using the shut down apartment I was working in (the former resident was too sick to be there) as a base of operations to get my work done. As I pointed out above, work like this means spending almost all of your onsite time in decidedly fancy places. If they can afford somebody like this, then they'll have unlimited calling on the phones, not care how long you run the air conditioner, and in cases like this, have cool tech stuff that most people wouldn't be able to even identify that I was quite glad to take as barter. So at a time that I was dead broke I was willing to charge very little to maintain the freedom to come and go any time I wanted (sorta) and to have an air-conditioned, quiet place to make my phone calls, do my reading, etc. Over time, as the time commitment got bigger and my finances got tighter, I started pulling out my old consulting timesheet templates and billing them as I would somebody I was doing computer work for.
Fwiw, I always insisted on flexible hours and the right to pick and choose what I did. I usually was given keys to places where I would be doing a lot of work and as long as I stayed very presentable (usual IT guy khakis but a bit more high end, with understated but expensive shirts, bag, and accessories) and made myself useful, I could work pretty much as much and when I chose. Obviously it helped to have as many as five clients in the same building at a given time. BUT to keep this flexibility, I always undercharged my competitors and always cut some slack on what expenses I billed. Since I was competing largely with lawyers and other overpriced pondscum, this wasn't all that hard. I als