I sell random stuff on Amazon, buying wholesale. Current run rate is ~200k/month, more in Q4, figure profit somewhere between 5-20%. Started 2 years ago buying from stores etc, shifted to wholesale a year ago.
200k revenue or profit?
Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
11–20 of 277 posts
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#12Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#13Here's a couple of links you might like, although not all of them are exactly what you're looking for:
- https://www.indiehackers.com/ (of course)
- https://www.starterstory.com/
- https://www.authorityhacker.com/undercover/
- Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? (Jan 5, 2017): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13326535 (thanks @jbonniwell)
- Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? (Mar 9, 2014): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7367243
- Ask HN: Sideprojects/passive income businesses with little or no own coding?: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15806208
- Pieter Levels - Turning Side Projects into Profitable Startups (1h presentation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6reLWfFNer0
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#14I sell random stuff on Amazon, buying wholesale. Current run rate is ~200k/month, more in Q4, figure profit somewhere between 5-20%. Started 2 years ago buying from stores etc, shifted to wholesale a year ago.
what kinds of things do you sell? how do you advertise? do you have a marketing campaign? how do you know people will want to buy what you have?
1. Random, electronics/toys/health/office supplies
2. Not much advertising, just checked and YTD spend is $600, most on a single product. Most traffic is organic
3. Mostly sell existing items that already have a lot of sales and we just get a share of those. That's what I'm paying Amazon enormous commissions for - to bring the eyeballs
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#15I ran a one man side gig for a couple years (farm management software). Got it to $200k and growing after 6 months in the market but I needed to bring the development in-house.
Could've used outsourced talent for all dev and customer support but interestingly enough the reason why I hired was "what happens to all of our customers if I die?". I felt like I owed it to them to put a team in place, albeit a small one.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#16I created and run The Online Slang Dictionary - http://onlineslangdictionary.com/ . It's the eldest slang dictionary on the web.
I started it in 1997 when I was in highschool. I found it interesting that slang terms frequently heard just the year before were already passe. I thought it was something that was worth capturing.
It affords me a modest salary in a fairly high-priced area, on around 2.1 million visitors a month. I estimate that it would get 2.5x - 3x the traffic (and hence the earnings) if google weren't up to strange shenanigans with the site's rankings.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#17https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=idlewords 's pinboard.
That's https://pinboard.in
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#18I ran a one man side gig for a couple years (farm management software). Got it to $200k and growing after 6 months in the market but I needed to bring the development in-house. Could've used outsourced talent for all dev and customer support but interestingly enough the reason why I hired was "what happens to all of our customers if I die?". I felt like I owed it to them to put a team in place, albeit a small one.
How do you get in a market like that? We tried but failed because the owners didnt like the fact that we where from "the city".
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#19I sell random stuff on Amazon, buying wholesale. Current run rate is ~200k/month, more in Q4, figure profit somewhere between 5-20%. Started 2 years ago buying from stores etc, shifted to wholesale a year ago.
Wow! That's pretty amazing!
I have a course on how to do that. It seems pretty easy, but for some reason I never go out and just try it.
I have another business idea that I've been working on for some time. So, maybe that's the reason for not starting this one. But, why not have multiple source of income than rely one thing that may be BIG.
I guess I'm saying I'm throwing my hat into the ring today. Gosh, business is scary and exciting at the same time.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#20most impressive, builtwith.com, 2M / month