It's not easy. I had the same plan a few months ago. Thought I'd share my own (ongoing) story, maybe it will give you some ideas. Some background, I'm a engineer at a YC company in San Francisco. I was also looking for a passive income side project and after a few attempts from scratch sputtered I happened upon a website auction at flippa.com for an interesting webapp: www.postrgram.com
I spoke with the owner over Skype about it, he'd run the site for a couple years, had invested a lot of time into getting the licensed mosaic software tuned correctly, but had put virtually nothing into marketing and was still printing orders himself with a giant industrial Canon printer. Not surprisingly he was tired of it. I realized the printing process could be automated and business could potentially be expended by integrating with Facebook and offering a free digital option if the customer allowed a post on their wall. Long story short I bought 80% of the business a few weeks ago and I'm working on those things right now. I'm sure there will be snags in the road but I'm on my way toward my primary goal of getting a product on the market that will not require my time to run on a day-to-day basis. Currently income is less than 1000/month but I hope to see that grow.
My advice when thinking about a project like this yourself (and it's fine to start from scratch, though that's not what I did) is to take the basic tenants of running a startup to heart and just apply them on a micro scale:
1) let the real world inform your choices. In my case I happened upon a product that already had some validation. In your case maybe you just need to find that one pain-point you can help solve. Always be thinking of ideas, ask your friends, read a lot.
2) be efficient. get good at rapid prototyping and shipping ideas for validation. Always be asking yourself this question: is this the most valuable thing I can be doing with my time right now? Force yourself to move fast. You'll get better at learning what works and what doesn't.
3) Consider finding a partner who you can join forces with. Two people can be more effective than the sum of their parts. Not to mention expanding your network of friends and contacts is in many ways more valuable than wealth.
4) follow the money. It sounds crass but after all it is the goal and it's also the most tangible effect of providing value to someone. Even at a micro scale if you're not converting customers it's a red flag.
5) my personal style is to be be wary of saturated markets like social networks, mobile apps, etc. on the flip-side i personally feel there's potential in the blogging landscape and popular product integrations (like widgets).
Sorry that ran a little long, I'm on a road trip right now (not driving), just some stream of thought ideas. Good luck!
I spoke with the owner over Skype about it, he'd run the site for a couple years, had invested a lot of time into getting the licensed mosaic software tuned correctly, but had put virtually nothing into marketing and was still printing orders himself with a giant industrial Canon printer. Not surprisingly he was tired of it. I realized the printing process could be automated and business could potentially be expended by integrating with Facebook and offering a free digital option if the customer allowed a post on their wall. Long story short I bought 80% of the business a few weeks ago and I'm working on those things right now. I'm sure there will be snags in the road but I'm on my way toward my primary goal of getting a product on the market that will not require my time to run on a day-to-day basis. Currently income is less than 1000/month but I hope to see that grow.
My advice when thinking about a project like this yourself (and it's fine to start from scratch, though that's not what I did) is to take the basic tenants of running a startup to heart and just apply them on a micro scale:
1) let the real world inform your choices. In my case I happened upon a product that already had some validation. In your case maybe you just need to find that one pain-point you can help solve. Always be thinking of ideas, ask your friends, read a lot.
2) be efficient. get good at rapid prototyping and shipping ideas for validation. Always be asking yourself this question: is this the most valuable thing I can be doing with my time right now? Force yourself to move fast. You'll get better at learning what works and what doesn't.
3) Consider finding a partner who you can join forces with. Two people can be more effective than the sum of their parts. Not to mention expanding your network of friends and contacts is in many ways more valuable than wealth. 4) follow the money. It sounds crass but after all it is the goal and it's also the most tangible effect of providing value to someone. Even at a micro scale if you're not converting customers it's a red flag.
5) my personal style is to be be wary of saturated markets like social networks, mobile apps, etc. on the flip-side i personally feel there's potential in the blogging landscape and popular product integrations (like widgets). Sorry that ran a little long, I'm on a road trip right now (not driving), just some stream of thought ideas. Good luck!