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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#201

Post by ohashi »

itry wrote: post #197
ohashi wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I have honest to god links, which actually still send traffic (amazing, right?). I also get some from social sources. I apparently get a bunch of direct traffic too... no idea where/why they are coming, but some days it's pretty good. Today's direct traffic is probably all HN.

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

#203

Post by dublinben »

imjk wrote: post #168
glazskunrukitis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pato11's stories are always inspiring and interesting to read. They were a huge motivator to start my own business, which I eventually did. My first attempt in online business was GetSSL.me ( https://getssl.me ), which has been one-man shop most of the time. It was pretty simple to set up and run, but the biggest pain point was payments, because of my geographic location. Also marketing was a big issue, because I am…

As someone who has no idea about the SSL certificate business, how does your business work? Are you a reseller or do you make money on affiliate commissions? Just genuinely curious.

For one thing, their first product is sold for $2 more than it costs from other resellers.

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

#204

Post by dublinben »

patio11 wrote: post #90
zerr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really requires a different mindset. For instance, while BCC makes sense, I can't imagine someone willing to pay for something like Appointment Reminder.

Suppose you run a professional services business where you have appointments. If people don't come to an appointment, you don't get money. You might pay an office manager to call people the morning of their appointment to remind them, so that they come into their appointment, so you get paid, right? Appointment Reminder is like an office manager who costs $200 a month, not $4,000 a month, is vastly more likely to suc…

> If people don't come to an appointment, you don't get money

This might only be common in the medical field, but I've always seen cancellation fees of around 100% of the appointment price.

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

#205

Post by declan »

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…

What a great idea! I'm looking at the site right now and I'm planning to sign up.

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

#206

Post by cauterize »

stevesearer wrote: post #52

I run http://officesnapshots.com which publishes photos of office design projects from around the world. I started it in 2007 as a gin side project to teaching history. I'm no longer teaching and it is the majority of my income.

What is meant by a "gin side project"?

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

#207

Post by dublinben »

kyleblarson wrote: post #142
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…

This is cool. I live in the Methow Valley and the MVSTA should use this!

Or they could use a service that doesn't charge the public for the information.

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

#208

Post by ivanca »

pinakothek wrote: post #199
stevesearer wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22011139/google-fonts-are...

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

#209

Post by dublinben »

cauterize wrote: post #206
stevesearer wrote: post #52

I run http://officesnapshots.com which publishes photos of office design projects from around the world. I started it in 2007 as a gin side project to teaching history. I'm no longer teaching and it is the majority of my income.

What is meant by a "gin side project"?

It might be a typo for fun side project.

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

#210

Post by ivanca »

hgfischer wrote: post #51

I live in a draconian tax country. How can I open a online international business and receive money from anywhere in the world? Do I need to move to a tax heaven?

You can save the money in an international account (paypal?) and when you need to retrieve the money fly to such country or someone else who can do it for you.
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