i am not he, but i believe that macej is the only person behind pinboard.in (which i love to pieces and pay for gladly)
Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
61–70 of 277 posts
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not many expenses, though.
Then why not just list the profit? Typically when I see revenues posted it means the profit must only be a fraction of that amount.
I don't know anything about the person in question, but any "profit" number is going to have to be fictitious anyway. Ideally, you make as little profit as possible so that you avoid paying taxes. You want your money working for you rather than going to the government (or sitting in a bank account). This is one of the nice aspects of taxes and tax avoidance -- it provides incentives for companies to continue investing. Anyway, the point is the person could give an impressive sounding number (indicating that they are bad at managing money) or they could give a tiny (or even negative) number. It's kind of lose-lose.
But I agree with you -- anybody posting "I'm making $X/month doing something that seems easy" is usually trying to sell you a book/workshop/seminar (which is where they make their real money).
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this guy is truly an inspiration. If you're a one person business, you will find this tweet very useful: https://mobile.twitter.com/levelsio/status/93870716650815488... (aka stop running after shiny new things and just do it!)
No offense but Pieter Levels seems like a bit of a bastard, and you can see it in that thread. I don't pay much attention to him, but when I do come across his social media posts they're pretty off-putting. He's pretty successful yes, but €50k/mo is not exactly f-you money.
He's already his own boss, the whole point of f-you money is being able to tell your boss, "f you!"
That means you can either go for the lump sum or the annuity, either one gets you out from under The Man.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#64Here's a couple of links you might like, although not all of them are exactly what you're looking for: - https://www.indiehackers.com/ (of course) - https://www.starterstory.com/ - https://www.authorityhacker.com/undercover/ - https://failory.com/ - Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? (Jan 5, 2017): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13326535 (thanks @jbonniwell) - Ask HN: Successful one-person online…
These examples are "meta" though--like the people who write books about how to get rich quick when in fact it is the act of producing the book.
Here's the truth: You aren't going to get far in a business unless you are the type of person who can go out and make . connections with actual people.
What matters is who you know first and foremost and if you're talking startups, it all runs on bs just like YC does--VC money and massive unreality when it comes to actual profits. Most startups fail losing lots of money and impoverishing the founders.
Didn't mean to sound so negative, it's great that people are thinking about being entrepreneurs. It's just that you have to understand that the tech part is the easy part and that there's a metric crap ton of bs out there.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#65I think https://apex.sh is run solely by TJ Holowaychuk.
I didn't actually realise he started a company. The funny thing about this one is that you have to think, "Hmm... I'll start a company just like TJ. Now, all I have to do is be as good and prolific a programmer as TJ..." It's a pretty high bar ;-)
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#66Coollector Movie Database: https://www.coollector.com/ Small income, but profitable.
Looks great, will check it out in the weekend. Do you have any plans for an Android app which can read bar-codes to register DVDs? Have planned to make that for years but never got around to actually do it. Have tested several before but all have had major problems
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#67Here's a couple of links you might like, although not all of them are exactly what you're looking for: - https://www.indiehackers.com/ (of course) - https://www.starterstory.com/ - https://www.authorityhacker.com/undercover/ - https://failory.com/ - Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses? (Jan 5, 2017): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13326535 (thanks @jbonniwell) - Ask HN: Successful one-person online…
Responses like this really show the best side of HN. I'm not the OP, but I appreciate the work in pulling together these resources.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#68Coderpad [1], an interviewing platform, is run by Vincent Woo [2].
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#69I run one-man security consulting business. Pays well enough to live comfortably and provides enough free time to work on side-projects. Six months ago I started transitioning from service to product oriented approach with online vulnerability scanning service https://getroot.sh aimed at network administrators and webmasters. I have another product targeted at penetration testers in works, to be released in couple of…
How long did it take to get your first client and do you have any advice for someone who would want to become a security consultant without having a large network of business contacts?
Initially I advertised among friends and former co-workers that I knew needed this kind of service for their own infrastructure. They became my first customers pretty much right away, but my first organic users came couple months later. I marketed primarily by writing articles on LinkedIn.
For the second part of the question - I'd say do some original research and publish it. Hang out where other security people are. Still, the easiest way is to build street cred and professional network while you work for someone else.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#70I run BugMuncher on my own ( https://www.bugmuncher.com ), I've been working on it full time since October 2015, and it's been profitable since November 2016, providing all of my income. If you're interested I've been documenting the entire process of taking BugMuncher from a side project to my full-time job on my blog starting here - https://www.bugmuncher.com/blog/from-side-project-to-profita...
I get a certificate error on Firefox Nightly. This is likely caused by https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA/Upcoming_Distrust_Actions