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Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

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Re: Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

#71

Post by buboard »

spottybanana wrote: post #19
101008 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, those number sound so high for a third world country that I can't help thinking that if I were in your situation I would give half of that salary (5k monthly) to my brother and father so they wouldn't have to worry about money again. Congratulations for being in that situation!

Coming from scandinavian welfare state, it is really difficult for me to understand why someone would give to their relatives some of their income. Especially if you earn it by working, and the reasoning being so that they don't have to worry about money = have less pressure to work. I don't want to judge anyone, just wanted to state that there is clearly quite a big cultural gap here. I don't know anyone around here…

> just wanted to state that there is clearly quite a big cultural gap here

This is why socialism works in scandinavian countries (it's a need, not a luxury), but fails in the south of europe

Re: Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

#74

Post by AznHisoka »

spottybanana wrote: post #19
101008 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, those number sound so high for a third world country that I can't help thinking that if I were in your situation I would give half of that salary (5k monthly) to my brother and father so they wouldn't have to worry about money again. Congratulations for being in that situation!

Coming from scandinavian welfare state, it is really difficult for me to understand why someone would give to their relatives some of their income. Especially if you earn it by working, and the reasoning being so that they don't have to worry about money = have less pressure to work. I don't want to judge anyone, just wanted to state that there is clearly quite a big cultural gap here. I don't know anyone around here…

siblings are one thing, but your parents most likely worked very hard and spent a lot of money on you when you were young. They probably sacrificed some of their desires just so you could get an education, live comfortably, etc.

If you can repay them somehow and make their lives easier, why not do so?

Re: Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

#75

Post by buboard »

aerovistae wrote: post #60

I have so many ideas and the path to reaching customers just seems impossible. I am constantly saying to myself, who could be persuaded to PAY for this? And yet so many people here have successful products that I NEVER would have thought could work (a color gradient on text?!?!). I do not know how people reach actual revenue on their side projects.

what kind of ideas about what audience? perhaps talk to other makers with overlapping audiences, and help each other. sadly, the main online media have become hostile to boostrapped sites.

Re: Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

#76

Post by spectramax »

quelsolaar wrote: post #73

I'm running MinistryOfFlat.com and I have made 7 figures this year. No investors or co workers. No marketing beyond my 2k twitter followers and a website. Solve a very specific and hard problem and the right people will find you.

This has to be one of the most astonishing and remarkable work I've ever seen in recent times. Holyshit.

UV mapping is a royal pain in the ass and I can't believe it can just be automated away. Many big studios tried - from Houdini to Maxon to large open source projects like Blender. You deserve huge returns, kudos! All the best!

Nit: you need a SSL cert on your website :)

Re: Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

#77

Post by ivalm »

quelsolaar wrote: post #73

I'm running MinistryOfFlat.com and I have made 7 figures this year. No investors or co workers. No marketing beyond my 2k twitter followers and a website. Solve a very specific and hard problem and the right people will find you.

That'a pretty cool work; I've worked with UV mapping a bit and if this works this is beast. Side note, the top/hero video crashed mid animation for me (chrome/win10/modern hardware); everything else works fine.

Re: Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

#78

Post by batt4good »

csallen wrote: post #37

Ben Tossell of Makerpad. He made about $200k in the past year from a site that teaches others how to build interactive sites and apps without writing code. Lynne Tye of Key Values. She made about $400k in 2019 from a site that connects software engineers with companies that that share their intangible values, e.g. diverse team, good for parents, fast or slow-paced, etc. Robert James Gabriel of Helperbird. He struggle…

I'm still blown away that Key Values (as cool an idea as it is) manages to pull that kind of revenue. One thing I'd be curious to see is if the site actually can maintain revenue past year one?

Re: Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

#79

Post by quelsolaar »

spectramax wrote: post #76
quelsolaar wrote: post #73

I'm running MinistryOfFlat.com and I have made 7 figures this year. No investors or co workers. No marketing beyond my 2k twitter followers and a website. Solve a very specific and hard problem and the right people will find you.

This has to be one of the most astonishing and remarkable work I've ever seen in recent times. Holyshit. UV mapping is a royal pain in the ass and I can't believe it can just be automated away. Many big studios tried - from Houdini to Maxon to large open source projects like Blender. You deserve huge returns, kudos! All the best! Nit: you need a SSL cert on your website :)

Thank you very much! Its pretty good but its not even close to as good as the version I have in R&D.... SSL is coming, thanks for reminding me.

Re: Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

#80

Post by rodolphoarruda »

gnicholas wrote: post #69
rodolphoarruda wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it makes sense to sell instructional content under IP licensing for basic education institution? I have produced a lot of basic infosec awareness materials this year I could be revamping to make suitable for teachers and school administration. Payment would be done once a year, more or less aligned with a new pack release which would contain updates/new content.

Just to clarify, would you be selling to K12 or higher ed? This could wrap into a "media literacy" package, which is taught in K12. My gut reaction is you would not want to position this as IP licensing if selling to schools. We do IP licensing to edtech/education companies, but our school offerings are all software/SaaS. I think schools would find the notion of IP licensing to be a mismatch, which would create frict…

Basic education, mainly. All levels except higher-Ed. Yes, the idea is to wrap it into digital literacy/citizenship modules that teachers could be using in their classes as complementary topics.

I'm struggling to find the right way to position this as a service in which the client/user can work, edit, deliver the content or part of it without having commercial ownership over it, e.g. cannot resell my content to 3rd parties.

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