This year I built five side projects trying to create passive income.

The funny thing is that the most boring one ended up making more money than all the others combined.

A few months ago I got a remote part-time job that pays me fairly well. For the first time in a long time I found myself with something I didn't have before: free time.

So I decided to use that time to build ideas.

Some failed.

Some got users.

One actually started making money.

Here's what happened.

Project	Result
Playit	0 users, 0 revenue
Smart CCTV	Personal use only
BusRadar	2,080 monthly visitors
CleanTracker	360k TZS/month
GariWatch	257,800 TZS/year

Project 1: Playit (CrowdPlay)

In January I was in Dar hanging out with a long-time friend.

One evening we went to Star Bay at Mbezi Beach. While sitting there having a few drinks, I noticed something interesting.

Every few minutes someone would stand up, walk over to the DJ, and request a song.

Then the idea hit me.

Why can't people just request songs from their tables?

Many restaurants already have QR codes for menus. What if the same QR code could open a simple page where customers request songs directly from their phones?

The requests would go to the DJ dashboard.

To make it even more attractive to venues, customers could pay to prioritize their requests and the venue would get a cut.

I loved the idea.

I went home, built the MVP, thought through all the edge cases, and got everything working.

Then I started pitching it.

Nobody cared.

Well, not enough to actually start using it.

So the project never officially launched.

Current stats:

• 0 users
• 0 revenue

Ironically, it's still one of my favorite ideas.

Project 2: Smart CCTV

In February I was driving to a supermarket in Arusha.

At the entrance I noticed a security guard manually writing down every vehicle that entered and left the premises.

I asked him what would happen if the notebook got lost.

He laughed and said:

"I don't know."

That answer stuck with me.

The funny thing was that there were CCTV cameras all around us.

So I started wondering:

Why is someone manually recording information that cameras are already seeing?

The cameras were old and couldn't do any intelligent processing on their own.

That sent me down a rabbit hole.

I bought a CCTV camera, a Raspberry Pi, started learning computer vision, and eventually built a system that could detect vehicles and notify me when they arrived.

Technically it worked.

But I never launched it.

The more I thought about it, the more it felt like a service business instead of a software business.

Today it's installed at my house.

Whenever a car arrives or someone is at the gate, I get a notification on my phone.

So the project wasn't a complete waste.

It just became my own personal product.

Project 3: BusRadar

This one came from a frustration I've had for years.

Whenever I travel by bus, I rarely board from the main terminal.

Instead, I usually wait at a pickup point somewhere along the route.

The problem is that you're often standing there wondering:

Has the bus left?

Is it close?

Did it already pass?

Usually you're given the conductor's phone number, but as many Tanzanians know, estimated arrival times can be more of a suggestion than a reality.

I had been thinking about solving this problem for a long time.

Eventually I posted about it online and got enough positive feedback that I decided to build it.

After some research I managed to access GPS data for long-distance buses operating in Tanzania.

A few weeks later BusRadar was live.

Current stats:

• 2,080 monthly visitors
• 600+ buses tracked
• Pre-revenue

I haven't monetized it yet.

I mainly wanted to answer one question:

"Is this useful to anyone besides me?"

So far the answer seems to be yes.

Project 4: CleanTracker

This is where things get interesting.

One day I took my blankets to a dry cleaner in preparation for the Arusha cold season.

When it was my turn, they had run out of receipt books.

The staff had to write my information on a random piece of paper.

Immediately my brain started asking questions.

How do they track everything?

What happens when customers lose receipts?

What happens if employees lose records?

How does management monitor multiple branches?

I started talking to the manager.

I suggested a simple system that could:

• Create receipts on a phone
• Send receipts via WhatsApp or SMS
• Store customer records
• Take photos of clothes being received

She loved the idea.

Then she told me someone had already tried selling them software for nearly 1 million TZS.

I asked how much she'd actually be willing to pay.

She didn't know.

So I made her an offer.

Use my system for two weeks.

If you like it, pay 30,000 TZS per month.

She agreed.

I went home and built exactly what they needed.

Nothing fancy.

No AI.

No machine learning.

No groundbreaking technology.

Just a simple tool that solved a real problem.

Two weeks later she called back and wanted to keep using it.

Then she asked for support for multiple branches.

We agreed on 20,000 TZS per branch.

They had six branches.

A few weeks later they referred me to another company with twelve branches.

Today that one "boring" app generates about:

360,000 TZS per month.

The simplest project I built all year became the first one that consistently made money.

Project 5: GariWatch

My newest project.

This one started because I kept forgetting things.

Parking tickets.

Insurance renewals.

Vehicle-related payments.

I always felt like the information existed online, but nobody had built a simple way to monitor it automatically.

So I built one.

GariWatch checks for parking tickets and fines and reminds you when your insurance is about to expire.

I built it for myself.

Then I shared it online.

To my surprise, a lot of people had the same problem.

Some own multiple vehicles.

Some manage entire fleets.

Some only discover penalties after they've grown into larger amounts.

So I launched it.

Current stats:

• 16 active subscribers
• 13 paid 9,900 TZS
• 2 paid 14,900 TZS
• 1 paid 100,000 TZS

Total revenue so far:

257,800 TZS

It's still very early, but I think it has potential if I can get it in front of the right audience.

What I've Learned

The biggest lesson from all of this is that customers don't care how technically impressive your solution is.

BusRadar gets thousands of visitors.

Playit is probably the coolest idea.

Smart CCTV taught me a lot about computer vision.

But the project that makes the most money is the one that helps dry cleaners replace paper receipts.

The boring one won.

Maybe the best opportunities aren't hidden in exciting startup ideas.

Maybe they're hiding inside businesses that still run on paper.

For those of you building products in Tanzania or other emerging markets:

Do you focus on one thing and keep pushing until it works?

Or do you keep jumping from idea to idea like I do?