Ask HN: How would you come up with $1500 in 30 days or monthly?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6230690

by davidsmith8900 • 13 years ago

4 18 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Good Evening & Happy Saturday, If you didnt want to have a corporate america job, but was a beginner-type novice programmer/proficient Electrical Engineer with okay skills in Java/PHP/C/C++, how would you come up with $1500 in 30 days or monthly?

davidsmith89009• 13 years ago

I tried freelancing, but all the work I got were way over my head. The easy ones that I try to get were already taken. I tried building a startup app but I need more time.

NonEUCitizen• 13 years ago

It sounds like you should get a job at the moment so you can build up your skills. Then you can quit and build your startup app much more quickly, and freelance on the side as necessary.

davidsmith89009• 13 years ago

- Thanks for the wisdom NonEUCitizen, but what about the time that I'll be losing while working for someone else? I can never get that back. Also, in life, I wont always have the skills needed to conquer a job/project I just have to be ready for whatever n learn along the way. I can never learn everything.

armenarmen• 13 years ago

Exactly, make a list of companies doing something similar to what you plan on doing try work for them and learn the trade on their dime.

sukaka2• 13 years ago

There is risk involved, but you could be a trader. Lots of successful algorithm traders are one person shops that are later bought by banking firms like Goldman Sachs. I'd trade forex because it's simple. Two simple strategies are trading at ema crossovers and arbitrage. As a programmer, you have power to play with data and build automated trading systems (bot or assisted trading). I recall from a book on stock/futures trading that around 70% lose money, 20% stay the same, and 10% make money. Also, 10% is the average annual return rate of the stock market, but you also need to calculate taxes. This thread is a great resource on exploiting bitcoin trading, which is applicable to forex in general. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=60501.0

davidsmith89009• 13 years ago

- I dont mind the risk, I believe, life is a risk itself. Thank you so much for this info sukaka. I will look more and, do research in this.

sukaka2• 13 years ago

good luck! Also know about stop loss. More often than not, sell if the price has dropped more than 5%. If not, you'd be out of the picture and might be waiting indefinitely for the price to crawl back up to just break even.

TheLegace• 13 years ago

I have been doing Forex on an off, lost tiny bit of money, but overall having a lot of trouble consistently profiting in the market.

Do you have any serious tips on how to be consistently successful.

billybob255• 13 years ago

Forex is an extremely risky niche, try stocks or something that isn't zero sum.

davidsmith89009• 13 years ago

- How long did it take you to learn Forex?

andyakb• 13 years ago

This is really, really misplaced advice. As a programmer, he knows how to program, he does not know how to profitably trade, nor is it easy to learn. An analogy would be telling a chef to open a restaurant because they are a good cook. While common advice, it isnt that simple. The analogy also fails because it is much easier to learn to run a restaurant than it is to trade profitably, let alone on the forex markets.

He has valuable skills that should easily command him more than what he "needs" to make, he should use those skills instead of attempting to learn an unrelated, saturated, and difficult field.

vinceguidry• 13 years ago

Why the hate for corporate America? It really isn't that bad. You work half as hard for twice as much money as you would freelancing or consulting.

But if you must, front-end development is hot right now. Learn a popular JS framework like Angular or Backbone and whore yourself out to design shops. They'll work you to death but you'll have your $$. Bonus points if you can pick up Rails and therefore be able to develop an entire app soup-to-nuts.

davidsmith89009• 13 years ago

- I have no hate for corporate america vinceguidry. I had 2 jobs as an Electrical Engineer before I resigned and decided to do a startup. Still,, I want to thank you for your advice and knowledge. Im famaliar with HTML, JS, & CSS but I will step my game up as you've suggested.

Ask HN: How would you come up with $1500 in 30 days or monthly?

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