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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#31

Post by goodproduce »

I've worked full-time as a consultant since 2007 and make a little over low six figures after taxes and paying contractors. We (http://www.goodproduce.net) do a lot of basic services like content development, web design (mainly WP), social media management, hosting, deck creation, and general "digital" consulting for high net-worth individuals (primarily athletes and their brand partners.

In the early days, I worked to stay visible through conducting interviews for my company blog - that got us on the map in the sports community. It also helps that we never say no to a request...ever.

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

#32

Post by pokoleo »

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…

Hey - you should add a "how to setup" link to your site.

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

#34

Post by leobelle »

dangrossman wrote: post #28
leobelle wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ghostery blocks w3counter so it blocked pretty much everything on the actual site, maybe use a static domain that isn't blocked by ghostery. :O

You're running Ghostery for the purpose of blocking W3Counter and every other site like it. You can't really do that then lament the fact that it worked. I'm not going to invest time and effort into evading you; if you want to see web stats sites, you can just turn off the extension. Somehow I don't think there are any Ghostery users looking to sign up.

I meant you should use a different domain for static content on your marketing page, and I'm not lamenting anything. Just giving you some advice. Ghostery has been installed over 1 million times just in Chrome. Any one has ghostery installed and is going to your site will see a completely broken webpage.

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

#35

Post by gmays »

adventured wrote: post #15
gmays wrote: post #5

I'm doing http://justaddcontent.com solo and self-funded. It turned into a bigger project that I anticipated, especially for my first product. I started working on it full-time in October. It started as a hobby project about two years ago. It took particularly long because I have a non-technical, military background and had to teach myself to code, design, write copy, marketing, etc. It's been a fun challenge. I stil…

What technical skills did you end up teaching yourself (if you don't mind answering)? I was reading the about page, fast skimming, and thought for a moment you flew the FA-18. Nope, just your awesome wife! In looking over your site, it might be valuable to add a blog, where you write about the needs of small businesses regarding hosting (what's new, what's coming, etc). Can be a great way to build some extra traffic,…

Everything. My BA is in Psychology, my MS is in Finance, and I spent the last 8 years in the Marine Corps (joined right after college) so I had no experience with programming, design, product development or anything like that.

In grad school I built a website for my thesis (2010) and fell in love with web development. I originally wrote it in HTML, but became cumbersome updating menus on every page, so I 'discovered' PHP includes, which was like inventing the wheel for me. From there I started playing with different web development frameworks and doing more advanced stuff. I really just fell in love with web development even though I sucked at it (particularly because I'm color blind, figure that one out).

It was fun to see my skills evolve. I still have a long ways to go, but as I iterate I see my own progress. Since I've worked on it alone it's like a journey of self-discovery.

Yeah, my wife is awesome. I surprised her in when I told her I wanted to leave the Marine Corps to turn my hobby project into a business, but she was totally supportive once she saw how passionate I was about it...really can't ask for more than that. She also works 12-14hrs a day and we don't have any kids, so it's perfect.

I agree, you're absolutely right about the blog. I've been 'meaning' to do it for the last few months and I'm finally getting around to it. The blog should be up in the next week or so.

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

#37

Post by BorisMelnik »

ohashi wrote: post #12

1 man startup - http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/compare I do web hosting reviews. Not the scummy pay-for-placement stuff you see, but an actual review site. It tracks what people are saying about hosting companies on Twitter and publishes the results. The story is told a bit here http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/web-hosting-reviews-are-a-c... I was just tired after 10 years of still relying exclusively on my exper…

wow, love this. may actually be the first web hosting review site I would ever look at. I get more spam on my blog from web hosting review sites than anyone. not sure why but seems like you have a lot of blackhat competition.

love your site & framework. good luck! Will share.

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

#38

Post by zbeewhs »

dangrossman wrote: post #19

Hey there. /raises hand. https://www.improvely.com and https://www.w3counter.com Five figures a month, just me, I've written about my solo business a couple times in other Ask HN threads. Ten years ago (almost to the day), in my college dorm, I was looking at the Webalizer web stats report my web host provided for my blog, and thought "I could do something much cooler than this". So I did. I had built a few education…

If you don't mind me asking, what is your background? Do you have any advice for someone who aspires to follow in your footsteps?

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

#39

Post by dangrossman »

zbeewhs wrote: post #38
dangrossman wrote: post #19

Hey there. /raises hand. https://www.improvely.com and https://www.w3counter.com Five figures a month, just me, I've written about my solo business a couple times in other Ask HN threads. Ten years ago (almost to the day), in my college dorm, I was looking at the Webalizer web stats report my web host provided for my blog, and thought "I could do something much cooler than this". So I did. I had built a few education…

If you don't mind me asking, what is your background? Do you have any advice for someone who aspires to follow in your footsteps?

I was just a kid whose family bought a computer at the right time. I got hooked, taught myself programming from online tutorials, and never stopped creating things. The stuff I made got more complex and more polished each time, until it got to the point that I can create stuff other people are willing to pay to use. There's really no prerequisite other than a computer and an interest in programming.

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

#40

Post by zbeewhs »

dangrossman wrote: post #39
zbeewhs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your background? Do you have any advice for someone who aspires to follow in your footsteps?

I was just a kid whose family bought a computer at the right time. I got hooked, taught myself programming from online tutorials, and never stopped creating things. The stuff I made got more complex and more polished each time, until it got to the point that I can create stuff other people are willing to pay to use. There's really no prerequisite other than a computer and an interest in programming.

Awesome. Thanks for the response! It's always nice to get some motivation to crack open a few books on a Saturday night.
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