Ask HN: Single Person startup/company? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#61

Post by mark-ruwt » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 3:37 PM UTC

I run Are You Watching This?!, a B-to-B sports excitement analytics company that identifies exciting games in real time by analyzing live game data. Sports, media, and cable companies license that data for use on sites, in apps, and on cable boxes.

A clone popped up in 2010 (Thuuz), run by a VC, with a dozen or so employees and 5M in funding.

We're profitable, growing, and customers continue to choose us over the clone. It'll be 10 years this Fall, and we've been profitable since 2013.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#62

Post by rakeshmukundan » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

I started a side project unifispot.com almost an year back. Its profitable from day 1 since hardly have any cost except for the blog/forum hosting.Doing everything alone in my spare time so far. Revenue varies from 2k$ to 0$ monthly.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#63

Post by tjholowaychuk » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

hobo_mark wrote: post #58

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #51

I started Apex a few months ago, first product is a little uptime monitor built on AWS Lambda: http://apex.sh/ping/ . Almost 2000 users already, not quite paying for itself since I have a free plan but it's almost breaking even at least haha. That said legal bills alone were ~6k, so it'll take a while to recoup that. Long-term plan is to have a bunch of products like this which are low maintenance, as long as they're…

(Very!) naive question: what were those 6k in legal bills for?

For me a few things:

- Incorporating the company

- Terms of Service

- Some weird stuff to transfer the existing product "into" the company

That's about it, but at ~400/hr it adds up quick haha.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#64

Post by joeyspn » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 3:52 PM UTC

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #51

I started Apex a few months ago, first product is a little uptime monitor built on AWS Lambda: http://apex.sh/ping/ . Almost 2000 users already, not quite paying for itself since I have a free plan but it's almost breaking even at least haha. That said legal bills alone were ~6k, so it'll take a while to recoup that. Long-term plan is to have a bunch of products like this which are low maintenance, as long as they're…

Also using lambda for monitoring/restarting/redeployment of microservices here... Are you using any framework like Serverless?

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#65

Post by tjholowaychuk » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 3:53 PM UTC

joeyspn wrote: post #64

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #51

I started Apex a few months ago, first product is a little uptime monitor built on AWS Lambda: http://apex.sh/ping/ . Almost 2000 users already, not quite paying for itself since I have a free plan but it's almost breaking even at least haha. That said legal bills alone were ~6k, so it'll take a while to recoup that. Long-term plan is to have a bunch of products like this which are low maintenance, as long as they're…

Also using lambda for monitoring/restarting/redeployment of microservices here... Are you using any framework like Serverless?

Yep, I built the framework before working on any products and its where I got the name actually haha.. apex(1): https://github.com/apex/apex

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#66

Post by joeyspn » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:10 PM UTC

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #65

joeyspn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also using lambda for monitoring/restarting/redeployment of microservices here... Are you using any framework like Serverless?

Yep, I built the framework before working on any products and its where I got the name actually haha.. apex(1): https://github.com/apex/apex

D'oh! this was out of my radar... it looks pretty cool! I'll have to give it a go.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#67

Post by Lordarminius » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:18 PM UTC

20years wrote: post #48

I have been a single founder company for going on 10 years. Running multiple SaaS services over those years. Some have come and gone and a couple stuck around for 8+ years. Revenue has fluctuated anywhere from $800k+ yearly at its height (before 2008 crash) to as low as $250k yearly.

>> single founder company...running multiple SaaS services

This is the model I am biased towards. Mind giving out more information? What sectors do you operate? Do you currently have any employees? Any tips for a newbie?

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#68

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

malux85 wrote: post #8

Yes, forex trading using deep learning, media monitoring two startups, both profitable I built, support and run them all myself (though everything is automated)

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#69

Post by wpietri » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

One other question for the the solo entrepreneurs: how do you keep momentum?

I have a bucketful of ideas, and I'm endlessly energetic in a team context, but trying to do solo projects wears me down quickly.

Maybe this is just a character difference, but if solo entrepreneurs have tricks or methods for keeping going and keeping focused, I'd love to hear them.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#70

Post by throwaway58182 » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

Just hit $1 million/year in sales :)

About 20 years ago wrote a scratch-my-itch B2B desktop software for Windows. Side project for 10 years which is how long it took to reach about $120K to make the switch to full time. Added features and increased price accordingly.

Hired a few more people. Growth is slow but steady. Yearly renewable support contracts are the secret.

Coding is easy, marketing is hard. Persistence, persistence, persistence. In a very crowded niche. Desktop software is definitely not dead - you can charge a whole lot more for it, and ongoing costs (other than people) is comparable to trendy web apps.

Using throwaway so customers don't find this comment.