I'm making https://getmakerlog.com , which is currently doing $200 MRR.
Love the idea and a great product. But how are you monetizing this? I can't figure from the page.
Gold subscriptions. I'll be working on making that clearer soon.
Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
101–110 of 376 posts
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#102I have been running https://webhookrelay.com/ as I side project for the last two years and since last March it's quite profitable. Environment is highly automated, running on GKE, builds and testing on drone.io while deployments are rolled out by keel.sh, some alerting goes through Node-RED so I don't have to interfere. Still doing full-time consulting but hopefully in the next year or two I will transition full-time…
Great idea! How did you market it?
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#103I am not at liberty to say who it is but I know a one person SaaS (well, now a 4 person SaaS) that does several million a year in revenue. They found a niche and wrote software for that niche. It is the tiniest of niches but is underserved.
I wish I could find a niche :-(
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies pay a yearly subscription fee for content creation and listing their profile on Key Values. I never charge software engineers and I don't charge companies any placement fees for the engineers they hire through Key Values. Having a contingency model is definitely the more lucrative path, but I'm against it for two reasons: (1) I'm a dev, not a recruiter, and (2) I think placements fees are part of what's bro…
^^The incentives are misaligned among recruiters, candidates, and employers when recruiters only want to place someone just long enough to hit the 90-day mark. Precisely! That's why I think Triplebyte.com is such an overrated company. Behind all their new-age silicon valley spin, they are nothing but an old-school scheming recruiter, charging $10K++ per hire. Think of about it - it's the ultimate rent-seeking industr…
$10k per hire sounds like a lot, until you realize that engineers add hundreds of thousands of dollars in value to their companies per year, if not much more. And good hires are worth their weight in gold.
So clearly, Triplebyte’s success is at least to an extent the result of their delivering value to their clients.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#105I run Pinboard by myself and make about $250K/year in revenue, with 97K expenses.
Wow I'm impressed by the revenue for such a site. Congratulations!
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
So how are you monetizing it? Is it ads or paid job advertisements or something else?
Companies pay a yearly subscription fee for content creation and listing their profile on Key Values. I never charge software engineers and I don't charge companies any placement fees for the engineers they hire through Key Values. Having a contingency model is definitely the more lucrative path, but I'm against it for two reasons: (1) I'm a dev, not a recruiter, and (2) I think placements fees are part of what's bro…
Great point. Really impressed with how you've approached it!
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#107I am not at liberty to say who it is but I know a one person SaaS (well, now a 4 person SaaS) that does several million a year in revenue. They found a niche and wrote software for that niche. It is the tiniest of niches but is underserved.
I wish I could find a niche :-(
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#108No one is going to tell you this idiot. They'll build it themselves and reap the profits.
This whole ycombinator post is stupid as hell.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#109Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#110Key Values ( https://www.keyvalues.com ) is a one-woman show (oh hi!). I started Key Values as a side project two years ago, but it quickly turned into my full-time passion and business. I'm doing ~$30k/month and it's almost all profit since I don't have an office or any employees. I recently talked to Courtland of Indie Hackers (already mentioned in the comments) about how I got here: https://www.indiehackers.com/po…
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