I started https://apility.io about 16 months ago and it’s profitable since month six. It’s not profitable enough to leave my job and fully dedicate my time to this, and who knows if it ever happens. I started the project just for fun, btw...
Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
251–260 of 376 posts
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not set up a Delaware LLC? Makes sense if you're doing business online
Unless you live and work in Delaware, you will foreign qualify in another state. You pay taxes to the states you operate in, so if you e.g. register in Delaware and operate in California, you'll be stuck paying both CA ($800) and DE ($400) taxes.
I think Delaware allows “anonymous” llc which not a lot of states do. That is the main draw iirc.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#253I run one, a minimalist personal finance app. It's about 11 years old at this point. I built it up as my full-time gig and ran it initially for about six years. At that point: A) I had hired someone part-time to do customer support; B) the feature set was stable enough that it didn't need constant attention; C) I was missing working with people. So I moved out to SF and started working with a startup as an engineer.…
Do you have a link to your product? A cursory search turned up nothing.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neat! Could you add a category for part time? How do you enforce that the companies are being honest? Also the filters seems to OR each other so the more I pick the more results I get. I think most people expect filters to be AND.
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…
your A/B tests can also be lying to you.
just because a test is giving you a result of doubling down on a particular feature, it doesn't mean you should.
now of course, if you just need the clicks so that you sell to the greater fool, by all means boost that engagement sister!
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#255I created excellent product for test automation
https://github.com/alaserm/VisualTAF/blob/master/README.md
maybe someone wants to join for marketing and sales, profit sharing.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
A common belief on HN is that any SaaS/tech business is constrained by the complexity of its code and product. Famously, the top comment[0] on Dropbox's HN launch was about how it's not a valuable business because the commenter could build it for himself. There were similar comments here about Asana recently, too, and I'm sure many other startups. If I had to guess, this is due to a combination of two factors. First,…
I've also noticed that a lot of successful solo projects seem to be network/directory platforms - i.e. building an audience through free content that you then monetize through commercial partnerships. As you said, these require a lot more on the marketing/partnerships side, rather than the technical side (in fact, one of the great things is that MVPs can be built in a couple of days on something like Wordpress).
> I've also noticed that a lot of successful solo projects seem to be network/directory platforms - i.e. building an audience through free content that you then monetize through commercial partnerships.
Nailed it! What others have you noticed?
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#257I created excellent product for test automation https://github.com/alaserm/VisualTAF/blob/master/README.md maybe someone wants to join for marketing and sales, profit sharing.
write to my email: alaserm@yahoo.com
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#258Key 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 hope you can add more remote work soon.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#259There's my https://teams.cardsync.xyz/, which I did as toy and forgot about, then months later I realized there were many many users using it for free, then started charging a little and people indeed started to pay! Then many people told me to raise the prices, which I did reluctantly and now I have a nice product that is grossly overpriced, but people pay anyway (not many people, but sufficient to be profitable and perhaps make a very modest living).
I recommend first trying out plugins and extensions for established products instead of trying to launch the new Facebook.
Stuff like https://www.ragic.com/, for example, are niches no one seem to be exploring.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#260[deleted]