[HN Gopher] I Just Hit $100k/Yr on GitHub Sponsors (2020)
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I Just Hit $100k/Yr on GitHub Sponsors (2020)
Author : tosh
Score : 241 points
Date : 2022-04-19 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (calebporzio.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (calebporzio.com)
| orliesaurus wrote:
| Working on opensource is fun if you're paid to work for it!
|
| What's not fun is being an unpaid open source maintainer that has
| to deal with toxic "open issues" by ungrateful people on the web.
|
| I wish github would have a system where you need to donate $1 to
| open an issue and it's down to the maintainers to decide whether
| it's a good issue or claim the $1 if the issue opened is kinda
| toxic.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| You could write a bot to do that.
| capableweb wrote:
| What's fun with open source is that even if you're paid or
| unpaid, you owe people absolutely nothing and you can close
| whatever issue you want, for whatever reason you want. Tired of
| dealing with toxic issues? Turn off issues and let people fix
| their own shit.
|
| No one is forcing you to accept issues, toxic or not, same goes
| for patches. In open source, you create your own project and
| you run it however you want.
| jph wrote:
| This is brilliant and congratulations. You're showing exactly how
| to users can fund open source projects, and also how developers
| can create better reach. Kudos.
| samspenc wrote:
| Yeah I'm surprised this post doesn't have more upvotes. A rare
| positive story in the open source world, where the author is
| able to generate enough revenue to compensate for quitting
| their full-time job and work on their open source project full-
| time! Plus he has fully laid out the template for how he did it
| and other open-source maintainers can do it too. This isn't one
| of those "get rich quick" stories / ads you see on Youtube,
| it's actually a fully self-sustaining model for open source
| that the author has lived out.
| samspenc wrote:
| No longer able to edit my original comment but just wanted to
| note that I'm glad to see this post has picked up more
| traction (and has a lot more upvotes) compared to when I made
| my comment.
| motoxpro wrote:
| Absolutely genius. The three phases are so great. Very very cool,
| non exploitive, and smart. Sponsorware concept is new to me and
| extremely awesome.
| pbowyer wrote:
| Your reminder that if you live in Europe and want to stay on the
| right side of your tax authority then what Caleb did is likely
| breaking the law in your country without some extra steps.
|
| Why? If you offer incentives in return for sponsorship (e.g.
| extra videos) this turns it from a donation to a business
| transaction. That has tax implications - and you need to know
| which country the people sponsoring you live in to bill the right
| tax.
|
| When I last checked GitHub wasn't doing this automatically
| (https://twitter.com/rafaelcodes/status/1448987494553473024) so
| it adds a bunch of complexity for you to keep track of.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| The easiest way to do something like this as a European is to
| use something like MyCommerce to sell your stuff. They take
| care of VAT for you, and you don't need to do anything. Of
| course, they charge a percentage of your revenue for the
| privilege.
|
| (I've tried Fastspring too, but I vastly prefer MyCommerce.
| MyCommerce sends you proper invoices every month that make tax
| reporting trivial for EU businesses. With Fastspring you have
| to export lots of CSV files and do lots of work in Excel to get
| the data you need)
| 12907835202 wrote:
| This sounds less like making money from open source alone and
| more about running a subscription video tutorial service.
|
| The guy from laracasts has lots of open source code on GitHub but
| it would be weird to say he's making money from open source. He's
| making money selling a subscription to a video tutorial website.
|
| The author has just swapped out Stripe or another payment gateway
| for GitHub Sponsors.
|
| I'm not sure how this is any different from Laracasts or any
| other tutorial site other than the fact that he does make some
| money directly from the open source, but it's not enough...
| outcoldman wrote:
| Even on the enterprise level, all the open source companies
| such as Elastic Search or MongoDB don't make money on "open-
| source", but enterprise subscriptions, which would include
| support and some guarantees on the product, including stupid
| acceptance of your PR for fixing some bugs. And Amazon,
| Microsoft, Google use their open source to bring customers to
| cloud or sell some other products.
|
| People don't like to pay for what is "free". Have you seen any
| street performance? The artists have to walk to every viewer
| and look them in the eye to ask for money, they have to keep
| some money in the hat in specific bills so people around kind
| of understand how much to pay, they have to keep their own
| viewers who definitely put money in the hat all the time, so
| others feel the pressure.
|
| That is the reason why I personally don't want to run any open
| source projects. I just don't like to ask people. I would never
| want to ask anybody to contribute, I don't want to find a way
| to make it profitable. Not saying that it is bad, I just feel
| so much pressure for asking people to do something. To help, to
| support, to try to sell something to them.
|
| I am running pretty much 2 companies with close source
| software. One is very successful, which pay my bills, another
| one is more like a moonlight project, that makes around $1k to
| $2k a month (currently contribute most of that to various
| foundations to support Ukraine). And for the last 5 years I got
| used to being ok for blame not to write any open source
| projects. I personally don't use much open source software
| myself. Not for the reasons I don't want to, just because I am
| ok to pay for quality. And I don't have time to review some
| libraries, when I can just write something in a day or two.
|
| I don't sell my software, I publish on Reddit, and other
| channels about something I do, run promotions, but don't talk
| to customers to sell anything. All my software is easy to
| download and try, and purchase without talking to me. But if
| you are my customers, I would be happy to help you.
| rglullis wrote:
| If people can only get the software by buying it, you are
| pretty much "asking" them to do something. Just because you
| are not interacting with them does not mean you are not doing
| sales.
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23618363 made the same
| observation 2 years ago:
|
| > The vast majority of developers don't make any significant
| money. The outliers that do use the platform as a general-
| purpose payment processor. They take donations, but they also
| sell things. The line between isn't terribly clear
| vmception wrote:
| I've been watching educational screencasts for a while, its an
| interesting concept. You sprinkle in your own tools into a
| general tutorial about something else, and the whole crowd uses
| your tools.
|
| Its also being abused in some areas on youtube right now with
| people deploying malicious code from the tutorials. The code
| isn't hosted on github its hosted on IPFS
| ausbah wrote:
| this needs a 2020 tag?
| dang wrote:
| Yes, added. Thanks!
| tyingq wrote:
| That's awesome. Not knocking it at all, but for others, comparing
| the $100k from GitHub sponsors to a corporate-type salary isn't
| always straightforward. You would have to consider a lot of
| things, especially in the US. Things like 401k matching, cost of
| health insurance for a 1-man company versus as an employee,
| vacation and sick time, and other benefits. Oh, and self-
| employment tax (ouch). And a few other items like carrying your
| own liability insurance if needed, other expenses you might have
| as a freelancer, etc.
|
| Again, not diminishing the accomplishment at all...very
| impressive.
| dpweb wrote:
| Some tips.. As I've made up for loss of benefits, etc. in other
| ways after going self-employed. I've always done my own taxes
| so was comfortable with that aspect.
|
| - Everything is deductible, your computer, home work space,
| etc.. They have phased out most deductions for employees.
|
| - Max your 401k if you can (~55k Solo 401k) - this will make up
| for SE tax AND reduce your AGI so you can be less likely to be
| income phased out of certain benefits.
|
| - Move to a state income tax free state, if feasible. Saved me
| $10k/yr.
|
| - Look into short-term health plans. They aren't ACA, but have
| very desirable terms. For instance, marketplace plan for me
| 8700 deductible, 16000 out of pocket max was $550. Short term
| plan $2500 deductible $2500 out of pocket max (just no ACA
| protections/benefits) was $330 and is ALSO tax deductible, so
| more like $240. Networks are similar for instance mine is
| United Healthcare national network.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > Move to a state income tax free state
|
| It's not binary. State has to get its revenue from somewhere,
| so then you will pay higher property tax and/or sales tax
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| For example...
|
| As the "show me" state, Missouri does not tax the income
| generated by Twitch hot tub streamers and OnlyFans content
| creators, but the viewers pay an ogling tax based on
| tracking eye movements.
| outcoldman wrote:
| Also move to North Carolina and purchase a house for 200k
| instead of 2M in Seattle area ;)
| mindcrime wrote:
| Sorry, North Carolina is full. We're not taking any new
| incomers. Please consider Florida, which has the added
| benefit of "no state income tax."
| s5300 wrote:
| Florida is a never. They're truly trying to completely
| dismantle public education.
|
| In a lot of parts (suburbs & such) people will ask
| anybody new they notice what church you go to. If your
| answer is anything other than a church you actually go
| to, word will spread pretty quickly & they'll genuinely
| harshly look down upon you. This is overwhelmingly upper
| middle aged to elderly, but some of their kids follow
| suit.
|
| It's a fuckin swamp. Humans were not very made to live in
| swamps.
|
| Without trying to sound more xenophobic than this already
| does - the Cubans need a generation or two more away from
| Castro... some of them are quite openly insane about
| perceived issues that don't actually exist in our
| country.
|
| Pipeline to prison is very real & social safety nets are
| non existent. It very much pushes people to either kill
| themselves or become very... unfortunate people to find
| yourself having to deal with. That said, most humans
| don't go the route of killing themselves (a good thing)
| so you have a lot more of the latter.
|
| Police like to think they're Wild West cowboys & they get
| the authority to execute you with no repercussions faster
| than barbers get licenses to cut hair. Training with
| their weapons less time than a boy scout took to get a
| (weapons related) badge.
|
| Sorry for the rant. Florida is one of the rudest
| awakenings for many who move there with happier ideals in
| mind. Much worse than a lot of Texas.
| queuebert wrote:
| Also, free Hurricanes and alligators.
| andrew_ wrote:
| Sorry, Florida is full. We have lots of hurricanes and
| gators and bugs and crazies. Please retreat north, which
| has "seasons" and mountains and things. I hear the
| hipsters up there make great beer.
| jkepler wrote:
| Florida also has pythons, moving north from the
| Everglades.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| The pythons are there to keep the alligators from gettin'
| too uppity.
| spiffytech wrote:
| North Carolina won't have cheap homes for long. Housing
| prices are already skyrocketing, and several big tech
| companies are building new offices in the Triangle. NC is
| going to befall the same fate as Austin and every other
| once-affordable area that tech moved into.
| samwillis wrote:
| Worth noting the trajectory of that chart though, if he keeps
| up the momentum he could double his revenue from sponsors this
| year.
|
| Edit:
|
| Just noticed that it's a post from 2020, he now has 823
| sponsors vs 535 then. So assuming the same average sponsorship
| that takes him to $173k/year.
| dsmmcken wrote:
| the author has written on exactly that topic in a follow up
| post: https://calebporzio.com/making-100k-as-an-employee-
| versus-be...
| armoredkitten wrote:
| That's a good follow-up, with the quibble that the math is
| wrong -- he added $7.5k for insurance as a benefit for a
| salaried employee, then also subtracted it as an additional
| expense for being self-employed. So he double-counted it.
| Which is odd, given that he didn't use the same logic when
| talking about the other benefits he lists, like vacation,
| 401(k) matching, and equipment. Either he should have
| subtracted all of those from the self-employed amount, or
| added them all to the salaried amount, but not both.
|
| So really, the difference in take-home pay should be $98,058
| vs. $77,842. Or to put in terms of gross revenue ("Total
| Income", as he puts it), the comparative target number for
| self-employed people would be $132,371. It doesn't negate his
| overall point, I just figured I'd mention it.
| tyingq wrote:
| Good catch, though any decent health insurance you can get
| on your own would be quite a lot higher than $7.5k/year.
| What I currently pay ~$500/month for via work used to be
| $2k+/month when I was self-employed. So in real-life it
| wouldn't always be a wash.
| jjav wrote:
| > Good catch, though any decent health insurance you can
| get on your own would be quite a lot higher than
| $7.5k/year.
|
| I mean, my salary contribution to paying the company-
| sponsored health plan is ~$2K/month, so 14K/year. That's
| with my employer paying the other ~half of the cost!
|
| Health insurance in the USA is brutal.
| tyingq wrote:
| Oh, yeah, that's perfect, and hits my list plus a few more.
| melony wrote:
| It is also a lot easier to get cancelled and deplatformed.
| There needs to be the equivalent of a golden handcuff/insurance
| for crowdfunded content creators.
| onion2k wrote:
| ( _I don 't want this to come across as overly negative but it
| might. That's not my intention._)
|
| There are many reasons why quitting your day job and growing a
| presence that will get you sponsorships is worthwhile, and I am a
| strong advocate for paying open source devs who maintain the
| packages you use. However, if you're thinking of trying to copy
| Caleb's success, remember that it'll take 28 years before he'll
| have earned more than he would have if he'd kept his $90k/year
| job.
|
| Arguably a talented dev will _never_ earn more than if they 'd
| had a job instead. Open source is a route to working on something
| you love, but you _will_ be leaving money on the table to do it
| unless the landscape changes a lot.
|
| There is still a ton of change necessary in the open source model
| before it becomes a viable 'job' for most people.
| throw03172019 wrote:
| Curious how you got to 28 years? Can you help explain? Thanks!
| onion2k wrote:
| He cut his salary by $70k for 4 years ($280k 'lost'), and now
| he's earning $100k which is $10k more than the $90k he was
| on. It'll take 28 years to make up the lost salary.
|
| I mean, the math is very much simplified. People get raises,
| and change roles, and there's tax to deal with, and jobs have
| benefits, etc. The core point is that you'll probably earn a
| lot more in a job. If you can find one where you're paid to
| maintain a library you like that's probably better for you
| _financially_ than trying to get sponsors.
| cestith wrote:
| This assumes a static number of sponsors, which I doubt is
| the case. Somewhere else in the thread I read there are
| currently over 800 sponsors now.
| onion2k wrote:
| True, but salaries go up too.
| winslow wrote:
| I think there's a small error in the calculation. The article
| is from 2020. So looks like he hit 100k about 1 year after
| leaving his full time job. Using his current sponsor count of
| 832 and the minimum sponsorship level of $14 he's making
| $138k/year.
|
| With all that said. There is definitely some survivor bias
| here. He found a great niche and a appears to already have had
| an audience which helps tremendously compared to starting from
| scratch. Not everyone will have the same success experience.
|
| Hoping I can get a similar thing going in the near future.
| Stevvo wrote:
| If you work on Web3 projects you can easily make a living in
| the open source model. I did it for a year; there is a large
| amount of work and funding available on Github through
| gitcoin.co. and other organizations. If you have the skills you
| can pick and choose projects at will and get paid handsomely
| for it.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| More than the amount of money, he's trading dealing with all
| the bullshit rituals of being employed in a company with
| strangers writing crap on GitHub issues.
| capableweb wrote:
| Open source is still a better deal, you can just turn issues
| off and never hear any strangers writing crap in GitHub
| issues. "Turn off" your ears at a company to avoid crap and
| you'll be fired quickly.
| [deleted]
| capableweb wrote:
| "leaving money on the table" is not the same as "becoming a
| viable job". For many, enough money is enough, and the culture
| of the workplace, who you work with, what product you're
| building and more, is more important than the amount of money
| you earn. At a certain point, you earn enough money monthly to
| be happy and increasing that some percent but having to work a
| lot harder (or worse: working on things you don't really care
| about) is a shitty tradeoff.
| cookie_monsta wrote:
| > it'll take 28 years before he'll have earned more than he
| would have if he'd kept his $90k/year job.
|
| Sorry, I'm having a brain fade here. Are you talking about the
| time required to make up for lost earnings (and ignoring that
| the current 112k is not a fixed amount the way a salary
| generally is)?
| ahmedalsudani wrote:
| +1 brilliant idea!
|
| People willing to put money into your product sends a great
| signal about its quality/usefulness.
|
| This is a great model for generating useful OSS projects.
| tough wrote:
| Today I just got hired to work on an open source company. I could
| not be happier, I may not be rich but I can work at something I
| love in public, with great team mates, and in an async-remote
| first company with little to no office politics or mandatory all
| hands meetings.
|
| It would be 100x times harder for me to get paid via small
| sponsorships like this.
|
| There's hundreds of YC companies building open source, look for
| them, apply to the ones you like. Enjoy.
| dsQTbR7Y5mRHnZv wrote:
| Where would one even begin looking for opportunities like this?
| nwsm wrote:
| Here are job postings for YC companies:
|
| https://www.workatastartup.com/
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring
| tough wrote:
| Yup those two are the best ROI for me too. Had to politeley
| turn down 3 other offers/contacts from last month at
| workatastartup (didnt pursue them tbh, I hate interviews)
|
| And HN who's hiring has gotten me several contracts/gigs in
| the past so can vouch for its usefulness too
| tommoor wrote:
| If you're looking at this want to get paid to work in public -
| I'd love to hire some TypeScript contractors to work on
| https://github.com/outline/outline - hmu!
| tough wrote:
| Hey! I actually looked into contributing into outline
| (awesome notion FOSS alternative btw) when I had this crazy
| idea for a DAO/Web3 about research publishing platform
| (outline + latex support would have been great for that,
| there was an open branch and looked into it).
|
| Kudos on the great product and project, I am sure it's a
| great company to work at!
| openthc wrote:
| This is very awesome! Well done! Seeing how these sponsors can
| have success like this is inspiring; just wish we weren't blocked
| (by Stripe) from going this route :(
| tough wrote:
| Well sometimes you've to work around it.
|
| Why not crypto? Seems pretty good for a problem like yours.
|
| Why not other stripe-like providers which financial
| backing/integrations aren't run by american prudish double
| standard will deal with the cartel but not with a legal pot
| seller banks.
|
| You've mollie which is very stripe-like and from the
| netherlands, sure there's more possibility they allow you than
| others.
|
| Stripe is bringing crypto a la coinbase soon, could you use
| that with them?
| openthc wrote:
| The Stripe part is baked into the GitHub Sponsors. So while
| we qualify for one, we are blocked because of the dependency
| on Stripe.
|
| My industry does not have wide support for crypto payments
| (which is a surprise); it's still difficult to turn it back
| into USD (eg: crypto.com, coinbase.com don't allow it).
|
| We do accept some crypto payments but it mostly stays in the
| crypto space; until get to pay someone else that takes it.
| It's a PITA for taxes however.
|
| In USA our payments are handled by typical banks/providers
| (except the one mentioned here). It's not like we're totally
| blocked.
| rglullis wrote:
| To add to the sibling comment and to make a shameless plug to
| my own project: if you want to accept payments with crypto,
| take a look at Hub20 [0], a self-hosted payment gateway for any
| blockchain compatible with Ethereum.
|
| I'm working on the upcoming release (hopefully by the end of
| this month) which will make it a lot easier to add stripe-like
| checkout systems, so you can have a donation page or even
| "sell" sponsorship packages.
|
| And yes, to get it on github [1] sponsors was a royal pain.
| Github/Stripe kept denying my application because they thought
| I was asking for crypto payments.
|
| [0]: https://hub20.io
|
| [1]: https://github.com/sponsors/mushroomlabs
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _I Just Hit $100k /year On GitHub Sponsors_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23613719 - June 2020 (493
| comments)
| n-i-g-g-e-r wrote:
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(page generated 2022-04-19 23:01 UTC)