If You Had My Skill Set, What Would You Build for $3k/Month?

Hi everyone,

I'm a senior DevOps engineer with around 10 years of experience, and I'm looking to build a small business on the side.

I'm not trying to quit my day job. I actually enjoy it. My goal is simply to create another income stream that can eventually become as passive as reasonably possible.

The target is around $3,000/month. I'm not chasing a unicorn or VC funding—just a solid business that solves a real problem.

My background is mostly:

• Kubernetes & GitOps
• WordPress hosting and automation
• On-prem HA infrastructure
• Golang & Python
• Scraping (Scrapy + Playwright)
• AI agent workflows
• General automation

I have a few ideas (managed WordPress, monitoring-as-a-service, AI tools for small businesses, data services), but I'd rather validate first instead of spending months building the wrong thing. I've got my time and about 3K USD for making this work.

If you were in my position, what would you build?

I'd genuinely appreciate honest opinions from people who have already done something similar. If you're already making around this level, what worked? What would you avoid?