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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?

#241

Post by jjeaff »

nodesocket wrote: post #212
Swalden123 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are right, of course it's not 100% deductible. I am not advocating spending wildly on things you don't need for the business. If you have lots of revenue and not a lot of expenses, it makes sense to splurge on physical assets you can use and then expense and in the future sell. I.E. computers, networking equipment, storage, monitors, etc. Furthermore, it also make sense to spend on things that can help you grow t…

If you deduct the expense, and then sell it later, your going to have to claim the sale as income. And pay tax on it.

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

#242

Post by amelius »

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…

Nice idea, but I miss society related values here (which are increasingly important for many people). For example, what if I don't want to work for a company that trades user data? Also negative externalities of a company are not clearly shown.

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

#243

Post by jjeaff »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #204
Swalden123 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No matter the type of company, deducting 100% of something does not reduce your tax burden by that amount. Multiply your tax rate times the amount of the deduction to see you tax savings. If you deduct 100% of a laptop and you or your company pays 30% tax rate, then you save about $300 because you were able to deduct.

You aren't getting the laptop for free.

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

#244

Post by mac01021 »

dkersten wrote: post #224
lynnetye wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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!) That’s sad to hear. I’m currently working part time (I value my free time much more than the money I would make) and it took quite a bit of effort to find a place.

What place did you find? (Or how did you find it, if you would rather not divulge names)

I will be looking to go from full time to part time in s couple of years.

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

#245

Post by davidbanham »

wayoverthecloud wrote: post #238
davidbanham wrote: post #14

I run two SaaS products. Both are entirely my work and both are modestly profitable. I split my time about 50/50 between the the SaaS side of my business and consulting. The consulting revenue stream is much larger than the SaaS one but it's growing. https://takehome.io And https://clubman.app

Which is bringing in more profit? Clubman looks super niche. Unless you know ski clubs really well, looks hard to market.

Takehome brings in more revenue and takes less time to administer. Clubman has only just gone live with its first client, though. I think Clubman will outperform Takehome quite soon.

Takehome is in a pretty crowded market space. It has its own distinct niche but it can be quite difficult to communicate that difference to potential buyers.

Clubman, on the other hand, has few competitors. The clients are relatively homogeneous and their needs well articulated. They're a smaller total addressable market but with a higher percentage hit rate.

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

#246

Post by rlonn »

azhawkes wrote: post #154

I'm the solo founder of Loadster ( https://loadster.app ) which has been profitable for a while and is now making me pretty close to a comfortable living. I really enjoy the freedom and variety that comes with running a SaaS, and while the grass is always greener on the other side, I think I'm pretty much ruined for a regular job at this point. So beware! One piece of unsolicited advice: if I were to start all over a…

Great work w Loadster. Didn't know it was a solo effort! I founded another load testing service - loadimpact.com, which is doing very well but certainly not a solo effort and has taken on investors along the way. I'm now trying to build something solo again, and would echo the advice to go for something less technical. Plus do B2B if financial success is important. I have three projects atm, trying to figure out which has the most potential - 2 of them are consumer apps (one unreleased, the other is a crossword game for kids - https://puzzlepirate.net) and one is a technical data storage SaaS for IoT sensor data storage (https://pushdata.io). The latter product is a lot more demanding, from most aspects. A simple and maintenance-free product is worth gold when you're running it solo.

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

#247

Post by rlonn »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #215
azhawkes wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks!! The Loadster Fuel option is just that, where you buy a bunch of "fuel" (credits) and use it whenever you need to run tests. Each unit of fuel is enough to run 1 virtual user for 1 hour and it never expires. Loadster's revenue split is something like 70/30 between MRR and Fuel. As the founder, of course, I love MRR, but many customers are like you and load testing is an occasional activity where it wouldn't m…

Thanks for sharing your experience! I've been thinking about adding a credit system to my PDF generation product [1], so that people can perform one-time batch jobs, or for companies that have very seasonal workloads. I agree that recurring revenue is the best, but there's also nothing stopping people from suspending their account if they don't need it anymore. I haven't had anyone do that so far, so maybe this would…

At Load Impact we faced this issue also: us wanting a predictable revenue stream, and the customers often preferring a pay-as-you-go model. In my mind you should always be customer-centric and offer what the customers want. Otherwise someone else will.

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

#248

Post by wkoszek »

nate wrote: post #74

I continue to run the writing software Draft ( https://draftin.com ) all by myself. It can largely run on its own without a ton of interruption to me so I can work on other things.

Hi Nate. I've looked at Draft when I wanted to build something similar. Is it profitable to the point where you could do it full-time?

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

#249

Post by bentossell »

bentossell wrote: post #210
mbrameld wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affiliate marketing. Referall kickbacks from the recommended products.

No I don’t actually make my money from this

I’ve had like 3 referral kickbacks at around 12 dollars each just to be totally transparent ha

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

#250

Post by bentossell »

schappim wrote: post #78
bentossell wrote: post #39

This may not qualify as SaaS but I built makerpad.co to show people how to build products/businesses without code. Currently $27k over the last month. One person, not my full time gig. Wtf am I talking about?! I’m basically showing people the power of not needing to code to build something. I built an Airbnb “clone” by linking webflo, Airtable and zapier. Basically trying to show people they can build their first ver…

How did you market to businesses ?

I’ve built up an audience around no code building and think I’m one of the first people others think of in this space. I understand the audience as I’m a non technical maker too.
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