I created 2 side projects.<p>- https://myanpx.com and
- https://www.myanmardevjobs.com<p>Added Google Ads. Since the traffic is very low I got a few dollars only. But, every day I read about all those indie hackers who got so much traffic and got lots of money and living by themselves. But, how did they do that? Why it's so hard to get income from the side projects?
This is a larger problem with the world.<p>So many people have been promised dreams of modest wealth or more via side hustling.<p>But those dreams are an illusion. Passive income, for most of the population, is an illusion.<p>I don’t want to knock anyone for trying side projects. You might even get rich, but the odds are low (so make sure you enjoy it somewhat in case it doesn’t pan out).<p>Money for most people in their lives will come from steady, well-paying, full-time work.
Is your sole business plan "collect ad revenue from Google"? Unless you have a particularly good way to bring a lot of traffic to your site, ad revenue is not going to do much for you.<p>Consider that most people here are not looking for dev jobs in Myanmar. How do you plan to get people that are to that site? And is the number of people looking for dev jobs in Myanmar enough to bring in a bunch of ad revenue? (Hint: Answer is no.) Also, especially for a dev site: We're running ad blockers or tracking blockers at the very minimum. I don't see any ads on your site.<p>With a job site, for example, you'd likely bring in more trying to cash in on headhunting bonuses. Maybe let anyone post a dev job, but have a paid dev job offerings which are placed more prominently and let the company include more content/photos/whatever.<p>Note that I had no idea what "myanpx" was before I opened the URL. Even after opening the URL, I didn't know where the name came from, until I realized your other site was "myanmar dev jobs", and so it was probably meant to be "myan pics", whereas I initially read it as "my anpx" out of the URL.
You need a very specific set of users that you can explicitly identify and know how to reach online that have a specific problem that your side project helps solve. Can you identify such a user? If not then that is your first job to find one. If yes then your job is to go talk with that user and find out if they are willing to pay and if not, how you can you tweak your project so that they will pay. Rinse and repeat
I made a similar mistake early on: I underestimated the business side of things. It turns out business majors did actually learn important stuff in their classes—market analysis, how to validate products, how to price and sell, which are much more important to making products which make money than engineering.
Your side projects need unique features and design. It's not that easy to get customers. But, when you got customer or community. You can surely live by yourself.