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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?

#51

I run Nomad List ( https://nomadlist.com ) which is not exactly a SaaS but it is a subscription revenue based company. It just passed $300k/y

Have you thought about adding vacation rental listings? I'm in the vacation rental space on the backend at http://ownerrez.com . I hear a lot of customers clamoring for the old school pay for listing, get inquiries via emails method, particuarly after the big guys in the space are stumbling: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/homeaway-vrbo-service-f...

Yes I have Airbnb median prices listed https://nomadlist.com/airbnb-vs-hotel

It's not my main focus atm though!

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

#54
post #24

https://serpscan.com

How does it work? As far as I can remember - Google's API was deprecated and their ToS forbid scraping, right?

There are several services like that. They all scrape Google: think tons of distributes proxies all over the world, regular IP/proxy rotation, etc.

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

#55
I run S3stat (https://www.s3stat.com) and Twiddla (http://www.twiddla.com) by myself and they combine to bring in a nice living.

I built both with the stated goal of bringing in recurring income while minimizing the amount of time I actually spent "working". As such, I had plenty of time along the way to bootstrap via consulting work and to travel and otherwise lead an interesting life while the product businesses ramped up in the background.

They're both ticking away nicely now, to the point where it's Officially Silly to continue working for anybody else, ever. As a result, "work" hours are defined as the ones where it's raining, the kids are in school and I've been mountain biking recently, or it's been sunny for a week and I need a rest day. Even with those constraints, you'd be surprised how many new features get shipped.

I mention this side of the business by way of convincing anybody sitting on the fence that it's probably worth giving this whole SaaS thing a try. It really doesn't impact your life in the way a "startup" would, can be done while still doing gainful work for others, and doesn't take much in the way of capital investment.

But if and when it starts paying dividends, it does in fact get as good as it seems it should.

Good luck!

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

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice sites! I've got a small plugin that I've been struggling to get traction with ( https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-content-calendar-lite/ ). Would be very interested to know what you've done to get users.

It's pretty hard to get traction through the plugin repository. I offer mine for sale at codecanyon.net. I feel the repository is good for utility plugins, but well-made, premium plugins should definitely be on a marketplace.

I sell a plugin on CodeCanyon as well. They get a big cut from the sale value and the marketplace could have been better but there's no better of its kind so I can't complain. I make around 400usd a month with very little effort.

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

#57
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI: uBlock Origin blocks formcrafts because it's used by malware.

We do get people using our site for phishing (perks of a freemium model), and, being a small fish, sometimes get the whole domain blocked. Working on the uBlock thing. They haven't replied back.

> They haven't replied back.

I am responsible for uBlock Origin (the other uBlock is abandonware), and I haven't received anything from you. In any case, my answer would have been that I am not responsible of the content of 3rd-party filter lists, and in the current case you would need to contact malwaredomains.com, they are the ones listing you as malware.

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

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to see you're still around. I remember when you used to post on SitePoint often. I always looked up to your work. Just felt like saying that.

Hey, thanks. I remember the old SitePoint forums fondly, and other people there inspired and helped me get W3Counter off the ground. I occasionally check up on people I knew from there as well... Zach Holman (lo0ol) sold Good-Tutorials and became one of the first engineers at GitHub, Josh Pigford (shpigford) went on to make Baremetrics, Roger Stringer (freekrai) made Flybase, Josh Catone (bleys) became a writer then…

I miss the old SP days, I wasn't very active as a user, but I did a lot of business there buying services. The redo messed that all up and since I haven't had as good of luck finding talent. :/

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

#60

I run Nomad List ( https://nomadlist.com ) which is not exactly a SaaS but it is a subscription revenue based company. It just passed $300k/y

Loved the site and became member few months back and went on my first nomad trip in South Asia. Keep it up your good work.
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