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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?

#201

Post by Procrastes »

coderholic wrote: post #72

I started https://ipinfo.io as a side project, and then ran it fulltime as a one-person SaaS app for over a year. We're now a team of 8, profitable, and growing quickly. We're still 100% bootstrapped, and I have zero plans to raise any outside funding. We started with a simple IP geolocation API, which now handles over 20 billion API requests per month. We've added new data to that service, such as IP type classifica…

Really appreciated your service at my last company, and I recognize some of how hard what you do really is. In my case you're over 400 miles off. That's not a complaint; I'm amazed at how much you manage to get right.

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

#202

Post by Swalden123 »

nodesocket wrote: post #170
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…

> I'm doing ~$30k/month and it's almost all profit since I don't have an office or any employees. Awesome job. I am really surprised with that kind of revenue you don't spring for an office or dedicated office space at WeWork. You might as well spend money on your business, either that or you paying taxes to uncle sam (assuming you based out of the US). I try and buy a new MacBook Pro each year, might as well get a h…

I’m not sure how the US tax system works, it seems doubtful that if you spend money on an asset you can deduct the full amount from the tax you pay? In Australia you would basically deduct the purchase price of a MacBook Pro off the total profit you calculate tax on so it ends up being around a 30% discount on the MacBook Pro. If it’s similar in the US at all spending profit pointlessly would just be throwing money away?

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

#203

Post by throw03172019 »

davej wrote: post #194
throw03172019 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was really impressed with the flow but I hate being so tied to this. For example, what happens if you go out of business? Now we have 10,000 users on an app we can’t update, etc.

That's actually one of the great things about being bootstrapped and profitable. I can grow naturally and I don't need to scale rapidly and hit huge customer numbers to keep VCs happy. I'm in this for the long run. Even if 90% of my customers left me tomorrow then I would keep this going as a side gig. I'm also able to facilitate customers that want to move off the ToDesktop platform to their own (i.e. built in-house…

Thanks for the response. This definitely helps us think deeper!

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

#204

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Swalden123 wrote: post #202
nodesocket wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm doing ~$30k/month and it's almost all profit since I don't have an office or any employees. Awesome job. I am really surprised with that kind of revenue you don't spring for an office or dedicated office space at WeWork. You might as well spend money on your business, either that or you paying taxes to uncle sam (assuming you based out of the US). I try and buy a new MacBook Pro each year, might as well get a h…

I’m not sure how the US tax system works, it seems doubtful that if you spend money on an asset you can deduct the full amount from the tax you pay? In Australia you would basically deduct the purchase price of a MacBook Pro off the total profit you calculate tax on so it ends up being around a 30% discount on the MacBook Pro. If it’s similar in the US at all spending profit pointlessly would just be throwing money a…

surely that depends on the type of company you have? If you have a personal company then I expect it is like that, if on the other hand you are incorporated the full purchase should be deductible, the reasoning of course is that a product you buy for a personal company is also used for you.

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

#205

Post by wyclif »

frenchie4111 wrote: post #158
idlewords wrote: post #38

I run Pinboard by myself and make about $250K/year in revenue, with 97K expenses.

Where does 97k expenses come from, if you don’t mind me asking

I expect much of it is co-location, hosting, and dedicated hardware.

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

#206

Post by lgregg »

Swalden123 wrote: post #202
nodesocket wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm doing ~$30k/month and it's almost all profit since I don't have an office or any employees. Awesome job. I am really surprised with that kind of revenue you don't spring for an office or dedicated office space at WeWork. You might as well spend money on your business, either that or you paying taxes to uncle sam (assuming you based out of the US). I try and buy a new MacBook Pro each year, might as well get a h…

I’m not sure how the US tax system works, it seems doubtful that if you spend money on an asset you can deduct the full amount from the tax you pay? In Australia you would basically deduct the purchase price of a MacBook Pro off the total profit you calculate tax on so it ends up being around a 30% discount on the MacBook Pro. If it’s similar in the US at all spending profit pointlessly would just be throwing money a…

I have photography equipment that I used while working a media consultant. It was a 100% deductible business expense back then, I get a tax break every year as they continue to "depreciate". It's been a few years, I still do some photography on the side mostly portraits or headshots.

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

#208

Post by Aeolun »

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…

It may just be that all companies select the same values, but even deselecting basically everything I still get +/- 80 results.

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

#209

Post by paulstovell »

jwr wrote: post #187

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. Sho…

> But then you'll notice that they mostly talk about marketing marketing apps for marketers

I loved this point! It’s so true. They go on about how such and such strategy worked so well for HubSpot. Of course it did, HubSpot has an easy audience: marketers! Turns out those strategies work a lot less well for technical or more discerning audiences.

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

#210

Post by bentossell »

mbrameld wrote: post #180
faitswulff wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just looked around. Great content! But how do you monetize a site like this?

Affiliate marketing. Referall kickbacks from the recommended products.

No I don’t actually make my money from this
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