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Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

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Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

#181

Post by zrobotics »

lynnetye wrote: post #139
mrfusion wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat! Could you add a category for part time? How do you enforce that the companies are being honest? Also the filters seems to OR each other so the more I pick the more results I get. I think most people expect filters to be AND.

1. I think only ~1/150 companies I talk to are actively hiring part-time engineers, so it's unlikely I'll add this category any time soon... if ever. (Sorry!) 2. A lot of people don't trust employers, but in reality, hiring managers aren't trying to mislead people. Especially at small startups. It's extremely expensive (and heart-breaking!) to interview, hire, and onboard devs only to have them leave soon after. It's…

Consider that you may be turning people off the product: I had run into this service before (as a job-seeker) , but gave up simply because I couldn't actually drill down to anything meaningful-it didn't offer anything above browsing job boards. Even with a small # of offerings, AND logic allows people to filter down to what they are actually seeking. Providing a ranked list that grows the more specific I am being is, in my mind, negative value, since now I have to sort through a longer list of results that likely don't match at all. There's nothing wrong with providing a page that states "there are zero results for this query, but if you relaxed {X} then there are {y} employers avaliable.

Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

#183

Post by tomhoward »

_bxg1 wrote: post #117
benburleson wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate that I'm responding here, but have to point out that your comment is obviously not true.

Yes, yes. My point is that people create throwaways in order to knowingly post low-quality (toxic or otherwise) replies without having the downvotes affect their main accounts. If they thought their comment was going to make a positive contribution, they'd use their main account. So if they disvalue their own post, I'm certainly not going to value it.

Not always true. People have various reasons for using throwaway accounts, depending on the context.

HN's guidelines don't prohibit throwaways; they only discourage routine use of them:

Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create them routinely. On HN, users should have an identity that others can relate to.

It may be right that the throwaway account you replied to was gratuitous, but it's not true that they're only ever used for low-quality comments.

Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

#184

Post by ttty »

lynnetye wrote: post #16

Key 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…

A suggestion would be to make that select values button to work or do something.

Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

#185

Post by AlchemistCamp »

cperciva wrote: post #68

Depending on how you define SaaS: I started Tarsnap in 2006 (launched in 2008) and it was a profitable one-person company for many years. (Now it's a profitable two-person company.) Mind you, it isn't a side project -- this has been my full time job for a dozen years. Starting a successful SaaS company as a side project is much harder.

Did you ever take patio11's advice about charging more?

Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

#186

Post by AlchemistCamp »

srecio wrote: post #65
ed wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe Atlas is awesome for C corps, which is great if you plan to raise outside capital. If you plan to bootstrap, you're better off creating an LLC in your home state. Atlas only offers LLC's in Delaware.

Why not set up a Delaware LLC? Makes sense if you're doing business online

Why Delaware for an LLC?

Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

#187

Post by jwr »

Yes, PartsBox is (Electronic parts inventory & production: https://partsbox.io/). Some key points I would have told my former self:

* Do not expect any kind of explosive growth, especially in B2B. Expect linear growth. Search for "slow SaaS ramp of death" for a pretty good description of what to expect.

* Marketing is a huge problem. If you look around, you will see lots of marketers talking about marketing. In. Short. Sentences. With. Deep. Meaning. But then you'll notice that they mostly talk about marketing marketing apps for marketers. Unless you are building apps that help marketers market, much of this advice will be useless. And the short sentences are annoying.

* Paid ads are a waste of money, though I heard that with 4-5 digit budgets you can make them work. I never could.

* It is extremely difficult to get a working SaaS business at price points below $20/month. If you look around, businesses with these price points are VC-sponsored and are burning through investor money. I would not start a sustainable SaaS with price points below $40/month.

* When thinking about pricing, remember about support. There is no such thing as "no support", every product needs it, and it costs time and money.

* It's hard. Everything is hard. And there is always too much to do.

* Anxiety eats at you. No matter how good you are at keeping it at bay (I was pretty good), it will eventually catch up with you. I still don't have a good solution to that.

* If you pick a good niche, you can live in a world with nice and smart customers. It's a good world!

* When planning, be careful to set goals based on realistic financial assumptions. If this is to be your full-time job, it needs to support your business (including all hardware and office costs), you (your salary, insurance, retirement savings) and your family. People tend to vastly underestimate how much revenue is needed, especially if their past experience is mostly living with parents or surviving on ramen as a college student.

* I would not trade this for a "normal" job, ever :-)

Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

#188

Post by dosy »

lynnetye wrote: post #145
_Nat_ wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're making 30 kUSD/month without any employees, it sounds like you could reasonably hire someone to take some of those responsibilities off your shoulders, freeing you up to do more stuff. Have you considered hiring an employee or two to help with some of the basic responsibilities? Or do you feel that there may be some nuance to the work that you're hesitant to trust to someone else? Or, do you simply enjoy it…

You are spot on, my friend. These are the tough questions I've been asking myself every day for the last few weeks, and I'm still trying to answer them! I've had two people/friends do a bit of contract work for me (a few hours a week), but I'm not sure if hiring someone full-time is the right move. Not only do I genuinely love what I do every day, but I also really want to soak up the freedom I currently have while I…

I guess for the companies you're interacting with you are part of your brand. If someone else was going to take over talking with them, it would probably feel different to them. In a way you're already a mommy of your business. It must be hard to change that status quo for yourself.

Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

#189

Post by onesmalluser »

lynnetye wrote: post #16

Key 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…

How much do you charge each company?

Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

#190

Post by aacook »

derrida wrote: post #144
aacook wrote: post #137

Go for it! I'm working on NanaGram ( https://nanagram.co ) solo and bootstrapped. Although I'm not making a full-time income yet, it's generating a profit. It's mostly automated. NanaGram is the 3rd greatest generator of happiness and fulfillment in my life (after my wife and my dog). I get a constant stream of good vibes from customers, most recently voicemails from grandmothers! ( https://nanagram.co/blog/feedback-…

I really like this since everything is changing and who knows what will be profitable or survive next year, but if you look back at what you directed your efforts towards, even if everything fails (which it will, eventually) you have hard times in the future this would be a source of happiness :) I'm looking at this thread for a livelihood myself and I'm not motivated by being a middle-man or selling more consumerist…

Thank you. :) I originally built it for my 94-year-old grandpa who thought of himself as “the luckiest guy in the world.” We were very close. On one hand, I wanted to make the product as amazing as possible. On the other, he always impressed on me that he was old and his days were numbered. The original product decisions were on a fine line between awesome and fast. The whole goal was just to make him and my grandmother (also 94) smile. I still carry that with me in decisions now. Even if a feature or improvement only helps one or a handful of people, that’s ok in my book.
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