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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#81

Post by blakesterz »

artiscode wrote: post #27
blakesterz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that from 2002 until now, though I'm shutting down. It was a decent source of income, I could've made WAY more and probably made a good living, but I never charged people enough because many of them couldn't afford to go anywhere else. It was a great hobby and it got me my current day job. It was interesting work, but the internet has become too dangerous, it's impossible for one person to keep up with all the…

Similar story over here. I started by offering shared hosting with supervision as added value, expanded into reselling VPS'es and eventually leased bare metal servers that I partitioned into VPS'es. I could have made a lot more money if I didn't treat every customer with utmost care and attention. Now I'm stuck with clients that can't afford to go elsewhere and clients with grossly outdated software that would be a n…

Sounds familiar! I really did enjoy the work and helping people, but I could never find anyone to help me, and it's a 24/7 thing. I have basically never been offline since 2002. There's been a few exceptions, but I'm always on call. It's been a good ride, and I know I'll be sad when I cancel that last server next month. Let me know if you need help, I'm available now :-)

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

#82

Post by zapstar »

Endlessly wrote: post #62
zapstar wrote: post #47

Define "success"... I make a few bucks a day from https://unitprice.org and it doesn't require any effort from me on a day-to-day basis. (I calculate the best price per unit on Amazon for a variety of different products, so the money I make from the affiliate links is typically enough to cover the cost of hosting plus an extra Lego set or two for my son.) Sadly, I have seen an uptick in revenue as a result of COVID-1…

I mean, if you’re really concerned about people buying more than they need, just so say on your site - obviously a valid concern and don’t think any reasonable person would be offended by a reminder that everyone can make a difference by individually making an effort to do what’s right for them AND everyone else too.

Oh no, sorry if there was a misunderstanding. I said "sadly" because it is so unfortunate that we are all in this current situation -- a pandemic. And it feels "sad" in this specific context because I am seeing an uptick in searches for toilet paper, a result of people being unable to find it anywhere else. It's a sad state of affairs all around. I have no judgement on people buying extra toilet paper.

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

#83

Post by zapstar »

moltar wrote: post #75
zapstar wrote: post #47

Define "success"... I make a few bucks a day from https://unitprice.org and it doesn't require any effort from me on a day-to-day basis. (I calculate the best price per unit on Amazon for a variety of different products, so the money I make from the affiliate links is typically enough to cover the cost of hosting plus an extra Lego set or two for my son.) Sadly, I have seen an uptick in revenue as a result of COVID-1…

Do you compile this info manually or do you scrape Amazon? If you scrape, how do you get around the blocking restrictions?

I do not scrape Amazon. That would be practically impossible, especially if you want to keep your costs low.

I utilize their product advertising API, which provides enough data for my needs (since I'm not interested in every single product and I only update once a day presently).

The manual part is figuring out how many units are in each item. For Lego, it's pieces. For Poptarts, it's individual pastries. For toilet paper, it's individual sheets of TP. Every product is slightly different, and it's often times not obvious. Once this manual part is done once for an item, I never have to do it again -- it gets an updated price from the API, calculates the unit price (because it already knows the total units), and then it updates the website.

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

#84

Post by willnz »

sahillavingia wrote: post #11

Does Gumroad count? We raised VC but most of that was bought back or written off. I run it by myself now. Gumroad helps creators sell digital products directly to their audiences. We're expanding to Memberships this year. I wrote about most of the story here: https://marker.medium.com/reflecting-on-my-failure-to-build-... And COVID-19 has been a boon, as we help folks earn a living from home. We'll see if it sticks!

I remember hearing Gumroad became it's own acquirer (for Visa/MasterCard), is that correct?

If so, surely that wouldn't have been possible without VC funding?

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

#85

Post by aacook »

haltingproblem wrote: post #77
aacook wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. When I initially launched on Reddit, lots of folks asked for an "adopt a grandparent" mode. I talked with some nursing homes last week and we're exploring the possibility now. I've always been hesitant to do this, primarily out of concern for abuse (e.g. elderly financial abuse) but a partnership with nursing homes plus background checks could be the answer.

You gave me an idea. I can use this to send prints to anyone who would enjoy physical prints. My friend's mom whom I dearly adore loves pictures of flowering plants :) Thank you!

Awesome! Check this out: https://usdawatercolors.nal.usda.gov/pom/home.xhtml

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

#86

Post by quotz »

bemmu wrote: post #6

I’m still making almost all of my income from Candy Japan, which is a Japanese candy subscription service that I launched many years ago as a HN post. The shutdown halted international shipping from Japan to over 100 countries, so I’ve had to pause subscriptions for the time being: https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes/on-pause-due-to... I’m taking this as a much-needed break from running the site!

Bemmu! How do you manage free worldwide shipping? Thats insane for only 12$ a month! Almost impossible?

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

#88

Post by altmind »

hartem_ wrote: post #41

I found this Twitter thread ( https://mobile.twitter.com/zenorocha/status/1249348452095373... ) that explains the origin of https://draculatheme.com/pro . It's a single person selling a terminal and IDE color scheme for developers.

hmm. is it dracula or is it darcula theme? intellij idea is pretty persistent calling it darcula

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

#89

Post by lcall »

Late to this, but this is our son-in-law, Benjamin. Seems he is an effective teacher of 2D game development (godot, gamemaker, pixel art), with good pacing, honest/golden rule type treatment toward customers (and pleasant to be around). Some examples of his work, which supports his wife & children:

https://www.youtube.com/user/uheartbeast/about

https://www.heartgamedev.com/1-bit-godot-course-youtube?r_do...

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