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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#561

Post by PakG1 »

vfc1 wrote: post #433
shrimpx wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reply seems rooted in the fairly widespread assumption that having your own online business that makes solid "mrr" is some kind of supreme achievement and you should relish in it solely. Some people have higher-dimensional desires and interests in life.

I have a simpler explanation, what likely happens is that most people don't even try to do it (even though they could do so like the case here) because it's different than the social norm, which says that you should be an employee working for someone else. I'm saying that there are other dignified ways to live that are different, you don't absolutely have to be an employee at all costs. Independent work, running a sm…

Your comments and parent's interpretation of your comments aren't necessarily in conflict with each other.

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

#562

Post by seventhtiger »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #368
bekman wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question, my career is very important to me. It gives me an identity. I just can’t sit at home all day. I’m gonna die with boredom.

I don't think I'll ever quite understand this mentality that "not having a job"=="sitting at home all day". Do people not have hobbies of any kind? They really only find meaning in pursuit of money?

Some people thrive in structure. Taking away their job wouldn't be freeing. It would remove a big foundation their life is built on. Not everyone want to self-motivate and build their own structure because there already exists large structures you can just find your place in.

So it's not about not having a hobby. It's about having a place and purpose in life.

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

#563

Post by biolurker1 »

jfoster wrote: post #133
bekman wrote: post #129

I run a popular Quiz website. I make around $6,000 per month from Google adsense. I work between 2-3 hours a week usually posting quiz links on my Pinterest page. My only expense is hosting which is around $20 per month (Digital Ocean). I have never advertised my website and it gets all the traffic from Pinterest Organically. Compare to my salary, I'm an IT Administrator in my day job and make $400 per month. I live…

If your job is less than 10% of your income, why keep it?

for all the discussion go to r/financialindependence

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

#564

Post by ospider »

pakwa wrote: post #549
bekman wrote: post #129

I run a popular Quiz website. I make around $6,000 per month from Google adsense. I work between 2-3 hours a week usually posting quiz links on my Pinterest page. My only expense is hosting which is around $20 per month (Digital Ocean). I have never advertised my website and it gets all the traffic from Pinterest Organically. Compare to my salary, I'm an IT Administrator in my day job and make $400 per month. I live…

Wha tech do you use for your site?

I don't think that would be a significant difference here.

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

#565

Post by vfc1 »

PakG1 wrote: post #561
vfc1 wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a simpler explanation, what likely happens is that most people don't even try to do it (even though they could do so like the case here) because it's different than the social norm, which says that you should be an employee working for someone else. I'm saying that there are other dignified ways to live that are different, you don't absolutely have to be an employee at all costs. Independent work, running a sm…

Your comments and parent's interpretation of your comments aren't necessarily in conflict with each other.

Not sure what you mean, mind being more specific?

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

#566

Post by ospider »

shantly wrote: post #307
josephwegner wrote: post #237

Everytime I see these threads I end up feeling inadequate. For the rest of the folks like me, I will share a small tidbit of wisdom: Starting a business is really hard and it's totally OK to just go work for Salesforce. You do you.

It mostly makes me sad that I can't come up with any good ideas, and when I do I find it's already a thing and they're charging so little I can't figure out how to even cover costs at twice the price. So there's that.

There's a lot of search engines before Google, maybe you could offer a better service than the existing ones?

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

#567

Post by codesushi42 »

lemming wrote: post #457
billconan wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also want to focus on the developer market. How did you do marketing? I found it difficult. How do you handle sales tax? I found it very very complex.

I think that marketing is one of the main advantages of selling into a very niche market - I really do no explicit marketing at all. I've spoken at various Clojure conferences, appeared on Clojure-related podcasts etc but I've never run a single ad for Cursive. Just by being active in the community (which I would do anyway, it's just part of my job) people hear about it, and it doesn't take much SEO for Cursive's web…

Your story is an inspiration. There seems to be a ton of opportunity in the devtools and RPA spaces. Thanks.

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

#568

Post by blunte »

hnick wrote: post #530
blunte wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretending to be a bigger company than you are is not fraud, it's perception management. Whether justified or not, many potential customers will choose a seemingly bigger company over a smaller one (especially a one-person company). Now if they were billing based on number of people working for a client, and they were charging for phantom people, that would be fraud. This guy just has an optimized workflow that he pr…

Except one consideration that lead to paying what they are paying is that they also get the risk reduction and redundancy of a team and not a single person who could easily end up out of action taking all productivity with them.

These days, companies much larger than one person can shut down overnight, without warning. It happens.

Frankly, barring some accident, I'm betting the solo company is more motivated to keep things running than the larger company that might sell out to a larger rival and allow their service to be shut down or changed negatively (with little or no warning to customers).

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

#569

Post by RikNieu »

WA wrote: post #220
dbancajas wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> t pricing models? Is Duolingo / Tinder model (1 month / 6 months / 12 months) the best choice for B2C subscriptions without Spotify / Netflix-like licensing costs? is it a mobile app or a desktop or SAAS? just curious.

Mobile/webapp, not really SaaS, because there is hardly a backend. It works basically standalone in the browser.

I'm so curious about what your app does I can almost die!

Good for you though, living the dream.

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

#570

Post by sah2ed »

b00tstrapp3r wrote: post #556
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to share the URL?

I prefer to keep the actual link private, we've never shared revenue numbers and I prefer to keep it that way. As long as I keep it anonymous I'm glad to share details on everything.

1. Do you have employees (or virtual assistants) to handle support requests?

2. What is your competition like?

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