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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#191

Post by gmays »

dlss wrote: post #118
whatevsbro wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This website is protected and guaranteed secure by a 100% hacker free security guarantee. This guarantee ensures that this website was scanned and deemed free from of any phishing scams, exploits, or malware that could infect your computer and jeopardize your safety. So you're selling snake-oil too?

I think it's in the same spirit as a 100% update SLA or a 100% satisfaction guarantee

Exactly! From the beginning I considered this an essential feature of a business website that the budget website builders didn't offer. So after putting it together, why not offer it as a key feature/differentiator? We'll see if it helps over the next few months.

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

#192

Post by daniel-levin »

bemmu wrote: post #107

I run http://www.candyjapan.com It just crossed 500 paying members. I started it with my wife, but recently the shipping part is no longer done by us two manually, but by a local supermarket. In the beginning it was just an email to some previous customers asking if they might be interested in a club like this. Then a landing page and a HN post. From there it grew through blog mentions and now there is a trickle of o…

I love this.

I clicked on the link, and being South African, I've been conditioned into thinking that all sorts of cool services/products from overseas either aren't available here or are prohibitively expensive to import. So, I was delighted when your page said, "Free shipping from Japan, even to South Africa". Thank you.

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

#193

Post by lettergram »

I don't know exactly how you define "successful online business," but I am currently a university student making $500 - $2000 a month at about 5 to 10 hours a week.

Basically, there is a market for vintage computer hardware, so I post some adds offering to take away old office items they can't just throw away. Such as old keyboards, terminals, etc. and they pay me a nominal fee ($1 - $5 per item depending) to rid them of their "trash". I then resell those items after cleaning them up a bit for extremely high profit margins $35 - $120 for 20 minutes of work (since I was payed to take away the trash).

One of the things I did was sold Model M keyboards which I made USB compatible: http://austingwalters.com/keyboards/

Another way I make money is by tutoring or helping out with programming, I use to help out local people, but I have since switched over to Google Helpouts. Usually, it's just explaining some algorithms and writing some C code. Pretty easy, no real upkeep, and I can set what ever hours I want.

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

#195

Post by eropple »

sixQuarks wrote: post #187
danpat wrote: post #24

I created: http://skitrails.info/ I'm an avid cross-country skier, and traditionally daily trail reports are done by hand by the maintenance staff after they're out all night working on the trails. I had the bright idea of putting GPS tracking devices in grooming equipment and creating the "what's been groomed" report automatically, in real-time. It took about 4 seasons to really get it right, and there was no apprec…

OP asked for businesses that provide a majority of your income. With a site that has an alexa ranking of over 3 million, there is no way this is your primary source of income.

> it looks like I'll be able to make it my sole income source next season

Chill, man.

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

#197

Post by itry »

ohashi wrote: post #163
itry wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. You make a living from this? Is it all SEO driven?

Yeah, I've been working on it for 3 years, in the past year it's been able to support me. It's not a lot of money, but it's enough that I can subsist on it. It also doesn't eat my time 100% anymore, I can do some consulting on the side when I feel like it. I'm actually just traveling in south asia now, trying to live cheap and seeing if I can work from anywhere. As far as SEO, I get some SEO traffic although most of…

Thanks for the info. Inspiring. So you have other traffic sources apart from SEO?

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

#198

Post by georgiecasey »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #102
joelennon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a bizarre comment, I expected to see American flags and red and blue text but the site looks like any website, American or otherwise.

I thought that until I visited the page, the graphics and content both feel American to me.

the american phone number is the only thing that stands out for me

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

#199

Post by pinakothek »

stevesearer wrote: post #185
pinakothek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is possibly the chrome webfont rendering bug that's been popping up on chrome 33, WordPress sites seem very susceptible to it: https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/chrome/tYHS...

Excellent! Thank you - I'll take a peek to see if I can find a working fix.

Please let me know if you find a good one, that bug is affecting me as well.

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

#200

Post by spiritplumber »

Blahah wrote: post #92
spiritplumber wrote: post #53

http://www.robots-everywhere.com I used to employ two people, but I automated them away. I am successful in the sense that I have clear title to my home at age 33, if that counts.

Did the employee contract include a waiver: "The undersigned, for one, agrees to welcome our robot overlords." Also, clear title at 33 should meet anyone's definition of successful. I just got a mortgage at 28 and that day is a long way off. Must feel good :)

Yeah, it did actually. The whole thing was written fairly tongue in cheek.
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