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

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#71

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

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #63

hobo_mark wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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.

Ouch! That is really high for just that. Must have been some really one-off stuff for the transfer.

Edit to add: I guess it really isn't that high at that rate. It made me curious as to what we paid for similar services at the same rate so I had to go check. Ours came in at just about $4000. The TOS/EULA/privacy policy are what ate into ours.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#72

Post by wnm » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

I started https://presskithero.com as a Shopify App ~8 months ago, and it is doing around 1k MRR. A few weeks ago I launched a standalone version, which was well received on ProductHunt (https://www.producthunt.com/tech/presskithero).

The Shopify App is growing about ~100$ each month without me doing much.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#73

Post by hartator » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

mark-ruwt wrote: post #61

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 clo…

Seems so unfair and unprofitable to me that a VC will spin up a competitor in this niche. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#74

Post by ilamont » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

Is there a Y Combinator for single founders?

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#75

Post by nicholas73 » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:36 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)

I realize this may be your bread and butter, but what kind of news do you find tradable?

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#76

Post by tjholowaychuk » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

throwaway58182 wrote: post #70

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, p…

Nice congrats!

I often hear the same thing, it doesn't matter what your product is, it's how you market it. I still want to make a nice product of course haha but marketing is new to me.

Any generic software marketing tips? I promised myself I wouldn't be one of those annoying startups that emails you ever day or two

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#77

Post by SoftwarePatent » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:37 PM UTC

throwaway58182 wrote: post #70

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, p…

> "Coding is easy, marketing is hard"

It took me over five years in this business to fully internalize this. Programmers (me included) often complain about clueless entrepreneurs in this business, but even more rare than a good programmer is a good entrepreneur, who can sell/market and turn code into money.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#78

Post by adjwilli » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

I've been running Pangaea Learning (https://www.pangaealearning.com) solo for about 6 years now. I recently found a guy who helps me manage the community around Polly Lingual (https://pollylingu.al), but it's mainly me and a small cadre of freelancers. All of our projects have been bootstrapped. Since you're curious about profitability, I'll be honest and say that the golden years of the App Store are probably behind us (or at least me) and I'm starting to seriously entertain other work possibilities.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#79

Post by tjholowaychuk » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

jeffmould wrote: post #71

tjholowaychuk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ouch! That is really high for just that. Must have been some really one-off stuff for the transfer. Edit to add: I guess it really isn't that high at that rate. It made me curious as to what we paid for similar services at the same rate so I had to go check. Ours came in at just about $4000. The TOS/EULA/privacy policy are what ate into ours.

I thought it was high too, I was expecting ~3k. Apparently the terms alone took them 6 hours haha.. pretty boilerplate stuff I'm sure, oh well, next time I'll try and push for faster results if they want the business

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#80

Post by Frondo » Sun, Jul 10, 2016, 4:44 PM UTC

SoftwarePatent wrote: post #77

throwaway58182 wrote: post #70

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, p…

> "Coding is easy, marketing is hard" It took me over five years in this business to fully internalize this. Programmers (me included) often complain about clueless entrepreneurs in this business, but even more rare than a good programmer is a good entrepreneur, who can sell/market and turn code into money.

Yep, this times a ten thousand. It took me years to unlearn all of the "marketing is all bullshit" attitudes I grew up with. Whole different set of skills to learn, and not like, say, imperative->FP. Much harder.