Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#131

Post by maxk42 » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

fecak wrote: post #126

For the past 20 years I've been a recruiter, and a few years back I started a resume writing and career consulting business called Resume Raiders ( http://resumeraiders.com ). It's a literal mom & pop operation and I do 99% of the projects myself. I started the business because I've always loved writing, am good at navigating tricky job search and career situations (I've seen it all after 20 yrs in recruiting), and I…

Ha! Hi Dave! I've been watching your little business flourish via your LinkedIn page for a couple years now and it's been a joy to observe it blossoming. Keep up the good work and I bid you continued luck in the future!

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#132

Post by mi100hael » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

IMO these two are mutually exclusive:

> successful profitable business

> provides the majority of the owner's income

Building a business takes a lot of time & dedication. It's going to be very challenging to reach long-term stability and profitability if you go into it with your sights so low that you think "this will be successful and I can coast if it makes $100k per year."

Play to win.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#133

Post by nickjj » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

I do freelance development work and sell video courses focused on building and deploying web apps.

I started by thinking to myself "what would happen if I tried to make training videos?", slept on it and dove right into it the next day without knowing anything about creating videos.

Hosting fees and a hell of a lot of time are my only expenses.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#134

Post by et-al » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

WalterGR wrote: post #16

I 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…

That's amazing! I've definitely stumbled upon your site while searching some phrases.

How has UrbanDictionary affected your traffic?

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#135

Post by mperham » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

mindhash wrote: post #125

mperham wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMA!

Most of my worry with one person business is what happens when you are not well or need to take personal vacation. How to arrange an ongoing support ?

My business is based on OSS; people are used to no support. I've tried to guide my customers to open issues and stackoverflow questions to get a response from the community. This makes for a nice historical archive that others can search and find similar questions and answers.

I explicitly state in my support policy that emailed questions can take 48 business hours to answer. I take my laptop with me on vacation to answer support questions every morning. The rest of the day is free.

You could also contract out support for a week if you really want to avoid the laptop. Pay a contractor friend $$$ to answer your support emails for a week.

My main issue is that collecting money takes as much time/email as support. ~30% of my customers have some need for a manual touch during their annual renewal: forgot password, change email, billing question, etc. My first hire is likely to be an AR person who can handle that administration.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#136

Post by hprotagonist » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #114

hprotagonist wrote: post #61

i am not he, but i believe that macej is the only person behind pinboard.in (which i love to pieces and pay for gladly)

That is correct (and thank you!)

you enable me to be even more annoying in conversations by emailing links to people on the spot!

i don’t know if this helps you sleep better or worse at night but it’s been really nice for me.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#137

Post by mrskitch » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

I've started one after listening to a lot of indiehackers podcast's. Mine is https://browserless.io, which is IaaS, and I just hist ~$1k/mo at about the 3 month mark.

Still not providing the majority of my income, however it's growing to the point where it will in a year or so, depending how things go. If anything else it's been a wickedly fun ride, and I've learned quite a bit in doing it.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#138

Post by osrec » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

I do employ a few people now, but in the beginning, it was just me for about 4 years:

OSREC - https://osrec.co.uk Bx - https://usebx.com

Got started with OSREC because I could see a gap for a good suite of tools that could automate mundane data tasks in banks and hedge funds. Also, I did not enjoy my investment banking job.

Got started with Bx because many people complained to me about Quickbooks/Sage/Xero and I thought I could do better :)

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#139

Post by bredren » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

fecak wrote: post #126

For the past 20 years I've been a recruiter, and a few years back I started a resume writing and career consulting business called Resume Raiders ( http://resumeraiders.com ). It's a literal mom & pop operation and I do 99% of the projects myself. I started the business because I've always loved writing, am good at navigating tricky job search and career situations (I've seen it all after 20 yrs in recruiting), and I…

I worked with Dave, too! While I didn’t get the gig I was after at the time, I was super happy with the help I got from him. Not surprised, but glad to hear the biz is working.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

#140

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #115

Tarsnap. I have an employee now, but I ran the company myself for the first ten years and from ~2011 onwards Tarsnap has been the vast majority of my income. I got started by... well, sitting down and scratching my itch. I wanted good backups, and it turned out that other people wanted them too.

Can you give a simple explanation why a Tarsnap backup is superior to competitors, but for someone who isn't going to understand the research paper?

Does it backup my website like S3, or does it back up my personal files like Dropbox?