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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#131

Post by nathan_f77 »

I'm working on FormAPI [1], which helps developers fill out PDF documents. I started working on this around 2 years ago. I was mostly working on it part-time, and I took a few breaks while I was doing freelance work to pay the bills. This year I raised some money from Earnest Capital [2], which has allowed me to go full-time and hire some contractors.

I used to think that I wanted to build a one-person company and stay very small, but I wasn't able to pull that off. I picked a niche that was too small, and I also didn't have the skills to execute very well (especially in marketing, sales, etc.), so growth has been quite slow. So I've exploring some new features that could increase the number of potential customers, and the new scope is going to be way too much work for one person, so I'm looking forward to building a small team of 5-10 people.

Earnest Capital has been really awesome, and I still think the SEAL is a good deal [3]. My experience has been similar to an accelerator program, but with a bit less pressure. I've had some really helpful calls with mentors, and the weekly update calls are also great for accountability. So I would recommend Earnest if you want to raise some money while building a sustainable company.

[1] http://formapi.io

[2] http://earnestcapital.com

[3] https://earnestcapital.com/shared-earnings-agreement/

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

#132

Post by dajonker »

sdan wrote: post #2

Heard some friends do dropshipping on places like Amazon or Shopify, although I can't attest to the validity/how successful it actually is.

Not a good idea if you have are required by law to take returns (e.g. the country where I live). Returns go to the seller, not the drop shipper. Read about some cases where the seller suddenly had to manage their own stock of returns and had to stop their business because of that.

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

#133

Post by jfoster »

bekman wrote: post #129

I run a popular Quiz website. I make around $6,000 per month from Google adsense. I work between 2-3 hours a week usually posting quiz links on my Pinterest page. My only expense is hosting which is around $20 per month (Digital Ocean). I have never advertised my website and it gets all the traffic from Pinterest Organically. Compare to my salary, I'm an IT Administrator in my day job and make $400 per month. I live…

If your job is less than 10% of your income, why keep it?

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

#134

Post by incangold »

lemming wrote: post #60

I develop and sell Cursive ( https://cursive-ide.com ), which has paid my bills nicely for a couple of years now. Currently I make more than I made in my last job at Google. I never thought I'd be able to make a living selling developer tools, much less into a niche market, but I'm constantly amazed by how well Cursive does. The work is a mix of fun and boring slog, like most jobs I guess. A lot of my time is spent o…

I'm so glad Cursive ended up generating enough to keep you afloat Colin. It's a great product.

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

#135

Post by Crinus »

jcadam wrote: post #125
Crinus wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that but one thing that i always dislike when i consider taking a look at Lisps is how everything seems to be either on Emacs or looks like it'd really like to be Emacs. Personally I want a full blown IDE that takes advantage of advanced modern technologies such as displays that can draw individual pixels, have a model of the codebase that allows advanced features such as word completion and preferably fits n…

> Cursive looks something i'd pay for if i was really interested into Clojure and was using macOS. um... it runs on Linux and Windows as well.

Ah, somehow i missed that it is build on IntelliJ. I thought it was a native macOS application.

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

#136

Post by olivierduval »

__jonas wrote: post #70
warent wrote: post #8

I run a business called FontPeek ( https://fontpeek.com ). It doesn't provide the majority of my income, but it does provide a meaningful amount and it's constantly growing (pretty linearly). It's a simple tool that allows font designers to add a secure font previewer to their web store. Only needs like an hour of technical support a week, and it's currently costing me nothing to run because Firebase has incredibly g…

Just for my understanding, as soon as someone buys a cut of a font and uses it in a web context, it is basically "out there" and could technically be downloaded by anyone visiting that website since there is no font DRM right? Is this mainly targeted at people making fonts for print?

That's true but the real business of font is not selling to any average people but to designers and companies, as part of corporate identities.

In fact, it's quite easy to download some non-free font (let's say Helvetica) and to use it on your web page. Then

- either it's a personal page and very few people will see it (and even less notice that it's the "real" Helvetica and not a free simili-Helvetica)... so there's almost no risk to be sued for copyright/stealing. You wouldn't have bought it anyway.

- or it's a professional web page (or design or...) - high traffic - then you can be sure to be sued if you use it but didn't buy it.

Same for business card: nobody will really notice if you use a stolen font on your own business card but you can be sure that everybody will sue you if your business is to print business cards and you propose fonts without licences

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

#137

Post by gowthamgts12 »

jfoster wrote: post #133
bekman wrote: post #129

I run a popular Quiz website. I make around $6,000 per month from Google adsense. I work between 2-3 hours a week usually posting quiz links on my Pinterest page. My only expense is hosting which is around $20 per month (Digital Ocean). I have never advertised my website and it gets all the traffic from Pinterest Organically. Compare to my salary, I'm an IT Administrator in my day job and make $400 per month. I live…

If your job is less than 10% of your income, why keep it?

Some people stay in jobs not only for money but for other minor stuff. They continue because they don't want to work alone, keep pushing themselves, keeping a routine, etc.

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

#139

Post by bArray »

bekman wrote: post #129

I run a popular Quiz website. I make around $6,000 per month from Google adsense. I work between 2-3 hours a week usually posting quiz links on my Pinterest page. My only expense is hosting which is around $20 per month (Digital Ocean). I have never advertised my website and it gets all the traffic from Pinterest Organically. Compare to my salary, I'm an IT Administrator in my day job and make $400 per month. I live…

What's the quick website?

Well done on getting your operating costs so low, I think that's the key to getting things up and running.

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

#140

Post by michaelbuckbee »

Jaruzel wrote: post #48
onion2k wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that. The success rate for running a profitable social media powered business is very, very low. Of the hundreds of thousands of people who try maybe 5% of them make any money, and 0.05% make enough to quit their jobs. The number of people who qualify as what most people would call financially successful (eg a stable mid 6 figures income) is even lower still. The creativity and freedom might still make it wor…

Not to mention, that the burnout rate is VERY high. People should not underestimate the pressure of producing interesting content every couple of days for years without being able to take a break.

Which I think has only accelerated for things like Twitch streaming, where it's every single day for hours at a time.
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