Tangentially related. If someone wants to sell his side project, please list here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19693520
Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
31–40 of 376 posts
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#32StatusGator is the status page monitoring service I built. It’s been profitable since about 2016.
Though I very recently took on a partner to try and grow it because I believe it can be more than just “profitable” but perhaps actually a sole income source one day. It’s great to have a “one person” company but I feel it’s even better to have a partner to help inspire and motivate you, especially when it’s a side project and not a full time job.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't set up a corporation until you have either a reasonable amount of cash coming in or someone ready to give you a check. After that, I'd start with an LLC in your home state, unless you think there's a chance you'll take outside investment. If you do, conversion to a Delaware C-corp costs around $10K in legal fees.
I thought that an LLC in California required a yearly fee that was close to a $1000 the last time I looked. Is that no longer true or not true at all? Related - isn't it much cheaper in other states?
Yea, $850 franchise tax minimum. I personally think it's a bit excess even by Californian standards.
Also, you'd need to get an office in Delaware to not mandate a foreign registration in California which still involves the taxes. Getting an office in Delaware is pretty expensive but it's about $400 cheaper than California franchise tax. They assess their own but it still works out lower.
Edit: Nevermind, they still tax you on that. I don't condone tax evasion, but Wyoming doesn't track the owners of a corporation.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#34Key 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…
Really good website. However, I'm wondering as to why this is a full-time business. Is most of your time taken by marketing and sales?
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, some kind of "visibility bias," where we all tend to overvalue things that are highly visible. And second, "man with a hammer" syndrome. We're programmers, so we tend to overvalue the importance of code.
But the reality is just as you guessed — marketing, sales, partnerships, content, customer service, etc all play a huge role in a business' success. They require a lot of time, too.
Not understanding this is one of the reasons many developer-founders make the mistake of taking on overly ambitious product ideas and not allocating enough time to the rest of their business.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#35I co-founded Pigeon SMS (https://pigeonsms.com) with my dad just a couple of years ago and we reached profitability just a few months after founding.
We provide business texting services to businesses of all sizes. Some of our customers include a city, vet clinic, glass shop, screen printing firm, boutique retailers, and on and on. Really any business can benefit from adding texting to their communications.
My advice: Pick something that will keep you interested and motivated to come back to when life gets busy.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#36Two-person but close enough - We're building Leave Me Alone (https://leavemealone.xyz), an app that helps you unsubscribe from spammy mailing lists. Currently at ~$500/month (full stats are public here https://leavemealone.xyz/open)
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#37I am not at liberty to say who it is but I know a one person SaaS (well, now a 4 person SaaS) that does several million a year in revenue. They found a niche and wrote software for that niche. It is the tiniest of niches but is underserved.
Atleast giving an idea of the general market would be great. Otherwise, your answer has no meaning
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#38I run Pinboard by myself and make about $250K/year in revenue, with 97K expenses.
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#39This 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 version without the classic “needing a technical cofounder” or “learning to code”. Tools out there right now are insane and can help you get to a place you couldn’t previously.
Okay Lynne is a recent friend and been huge in helping me the last couple weeks.
I did the normal shit of b2c (and still do) but the power of b2b is huge. I flipped my strategy and went from ~10k one month to now 30k (yes got 3.5k more since my initial comment).
Re: Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?
#40Key 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…
Really good website. However, I'm wondering as to why this is a full-time business. Is most of your time taken by marketing and sales?
Yes, I spend a good amount of time doing marketing and sales, but I also spend a lot of time working w/ each engineering team, helping them to articulate and express their values. Culture is really hard to pinpoint. Companies (and especially eng teams) struggle to identify and convey what's actually unique about them, and many don't even realize they're different from other companies!
People sometimes ask me how I scrape content for each profile, but it's obvious to anyone who actually reads them that they're thoughtfully curated. A lot of time, care, and attention goes into each profile, which is what makes Key Values valuable.