191–200 of 666 posts
Launched it to almost immediate ramen profitability, but haven't focused full time on it yet. Bills get paid through consulting. On schedule to re-launch within 1-2 months with a stricter focus, better defined use-cases, and stronger differentiation from competition.
I run an ecommerce store from Shopify which fulfills the orders by drop-shipping through AliExpress. This is definitely doable for one person, and it isn't technically challenging for a software developer--but the hardest part (at least for me) is marketing, creating content, advertising, and so on. Actually running a Shopify store and fulfilling by drop-shipping is simple. I would definitely recommend that as a good…
I don't know anything about drop-shipping - do you have any good resources that serve as a guide? In particular, I'm wondering about how to handle problems - when orders don't arrive, when customers want to return defective items etc.
https://www.shopify.com/guides/dropshipping
Fair warning though: you'll still have a ton of problems and spend time dealing with customers.
For example, the first time I got a $100+ sale on an item, I went to ship it and found that the vendor took the product down from AliExpress... but my Shopfiy account didn't update to reflect that.
So there are tons of pitfalls and things to be careful of, but like any field, you need to experience them firsthand, it's just part of the process. You can make money at drop-shipping, but it really is not easy, and there's still risk involved, like any business.
https://www.indiehackers.com/ Here is a good list of 1 or 2 people software SaaS/websites along with interviews
Why people share their revenues? Every product can be copied. If you know revenue, you know what product you should copy.
* Building a personal brand - everyone loves to read about business adventures, and the more details the better. Financial details are great for drawing audiences. If you feel your brand could be worth more than the project you're discussing, it's worth it to share
* If your market is developers or software managers or small lifestyle businesses, they'll learn about you through your posts. They're not looking to copy you. You'll be more easily discoverable than those who copy you, so it might be worth encouraging imitators in exchange for increased exposure to your market.
* If your finances are solid (the only reason somebody would copy you) it might give customers who are worried about choosing a small, fragile business enough confidence to use your solution.
Seven years later I find myself running a business making video games in the more traditional pay-to-download format, like this one, called The Cat Machine - http://store.steampowered.com/app/386900. I'm sure compared to other online businesses, or even other indie game developers, comprised of one person it's not mind-blowingly successful, but my games have paid my modest (single guy) living costs while I work on my next project.
My games are multi-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) and I sell on my website, Steam, Humble Bundle, the Apple Mac Store and a few other places, and they write me cheques every month. Every project has a long tail with regards to revenue, and occasionally there are spikes, like the Steam Holiday sale a few days ago, and just this morning I woke up to The Cat Machine being on the main page of Apple's Mac Store in a 'Popular Puzzlers' section. Each of these bump my budget for my next projects up another month or so. The initial sales spike when a game is released is bit crazy, suddenly having your salary for the next one and a half years dropped into your bank account all in one go.
The reason I can do this as a one-man band is that I can program, but I also have some artistic skill, so I can draw and digital paint and animate. To speed up development as much as I can, I write within the Unity engine with C#, which has a great pipeline for art assets, which I create in Photoshop and Spine for 2D characters and textures, and The Foundry's excellent Modo software for 3D assets. The only things I don't do for my games are the music, I have an excellent composer friend who works for TV and Film, and I'd be silly not to contract him to do that. But apart from that, I do all the design, writing, programming, marketing, etc, which is part of the fun, wearing lots of different hats.
If you're _really_ interested in how I work, I actually do a series of high-level development videos on my current project: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsg018B0PK60ZoaNqw_in...
Also happy to answer any questions, within reason, about making a living making games about cats riding around on trains.
Developer of Mac apps, selling via the Mac App Store. Started several years ago as a "let's see if I can make this work" project.
I am always curious about people having succesful businesses with desktop apps. There is even a thread that I started some months ago asking if there's anyone making a living out of desktop apps [0]. Can I ask you what kind of apps are you doing, and what are your prospects about the future of Mac development? I'm asking this mostly because I would really like to get back to desktop application development, but now I…
I started Hobo Hammocks a year and a half ago (www.hobohammocks.com) I got the idea when a buddy of mine and myself decided to live out of our cars and sleep in hammocks on the backstop of an abandoned softball field. Doing so made me more aware of the homeless and what they are going through, and I wanted to do something to help them. I started the company and donate a meal to the homeless with every hammock I sell.…
TotalFinder.app sales is what allowed me to work on my own projects full time. This is what I personally define as a success. I own 100% of my time and stuff I create.
Since introduction of macOS system integrity protection sales have been poor. But luckily I made enough in previous years so I have pretty long runway to build something new.
If you are interested how it got started you might want to read my blog posts from 2009 - 2011: https://blog.binaryage.com
Have been investing heavily into Clojure(Script) tools and libraries over last 2 years:
https://github.com/binaryage/dirac
https://github.com/binaryage/cljs-devtools
https://github.com/binaryage/chromex
https://github.com/binaryage/cljs-oops
https://github.com/binaryage/env-config
https://github.com/darwin/plasticI run an ecommerce store from Shopify which fulfills the orders by drop-shipping through AliExpress. This is definitely doable for one person, and it isn't technically challenging for a software developer--but the hardest part (at least for me) is marketing, creating content, advertising, and so on. Actually running a Shopify store and fulfilling by drop-shipping is simple. I would definitely recommend that as a good…
How do you deal with the insane delivery times? Do you tell customers up front that it might be weeks until they receive the product? Most sellers I've seen on AliExpress estimate 15-30+ days for delivery. In the age of ubiquitous 1 and 2-day shipping, I just can't see customers going for that. Seems like there'd be tons of people who change their mind after a week or two and then start demanding a refund or pesterin…
You just need to clearly state all over the site that your delivery times are 3-4 weeks.
It's unfortunate, but part of the business.
The only way around it is to have products that aren't easily sourceable via Amazon. They're out there, but mostly in very targeted niches.
You also might find that you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for profits, but the money is still there to be had. I guess nothing ever comes easy, in any business--but there's still money to be made.
We are both programmers and she always wanted to do something like this so gave it a shot..It's been successful so far and we are starting to see a rise in orders.
Like a lot of people here, we started from scratch. No mentors, no prior experience. Worked on it weeknights and weekends.
I'm not sure if this qualifies as an "online business", but I started an ISP in November '15. It's also not entirely "one-person". I am the sole founder, but I do hire part-time help on occasion if I'm swamped. It started off as a WISP and has finally grown to the point where we are beginning to deploy fiber. The site is https://nepafiber.com I still work full-time as a systems engineer, but the business started brin…