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Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

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Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#341

Post by neil_s »

jventura wrote: post #33

I'm running a single person company at http://flatangle.com/ , where I provide traditional astrology software and services. Last week I've made available my latest web app ( http://elements.flatangle.com/ ) but I also sell traditional astrology reports at http://flatangle.com/products/reports/ . The business costs are pretty low, but since I'm not very good at marketing, my revenue is also still quite low. I'm doing…

You have a PhD in Computer Science, and are heavily bought-in to astrology? May I ask what attracted you to it?

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#342

Post by atlet »

I'm running SaaS for B2B and it's successful now for 2 years. I started in 2008 and till 2014 was only covering the expenses. I changed my thinking from "If You Build It, They Will Come" to marketing and this really changed acquisition of new users.

In 2013 I also started another SaaS - monitoring service (Piltek - http://www.piltek.com/), but it doesn't have a lot of customers as the only thing I did was developing it an put it online. I didn't do any marketing (only 1 week at the beginning) as I focus on my first SaaS. It takes a lot of time to build and grow a company (if you are alone and bootstrapped).

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#343

Post by dhruvkar »

atlet wrote: post #342

I'm running SaaS for B2B and it's successful now for 2 years. I started in 2008 and till 2014 was only covering the expenses. I changed my thinking from "If You Build It, They Will Come" to marketing and this really changed acquisition of new users. In 2013 I also started another SaaS - monitoring service (Piltek - http://www.piltek.com/ ), but it doesn't have a lot of customers as the only thing I did was developing…

>I changed my thinking from "If You Build It, They Will Come" to marketing and this really changed acquisition of new users.

What all did you change? What worked?

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#344

Post by matchagaucho »

aws_ls wrote: post #309
matchagaucho wrote: post #159

Some numbers on my single-person company: Market: Add-on tools/plugins/components for enterprise software platforms. Customers: ~30 Growth rate: Adding about 1 new customer per month Revenue: $550K ($300K product / $250K consulting) Gross profit margin: 80% Costs are basically hosting, occasional marketing campaigns, some offshore development, and various SaaS subscriptions to operate the business. The product often…

> My wife increasingly spends more time on front/back-office tasks, so technically this is a 1.5 person company :-) It was nice to hear about this, as my wife also helps me out in running my business. Its ultra important to have the buy-in of your significant other for these kind of operations. In my case I have other developers as well. That's why can't claim to be a single person company. Although, there have been…

Cannot underestimate SO support. My wife fortunately shares my entrepreneurial spirit.

Automation is certainly crucial for one-person shops. Leave nothing to chance or human error.

TDD for both front and back-end code, lint checks, version control, server-less DevOps.... embrace as much as possible.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#345

Post by hefty »

throwaway58182 wrote: post #227
zerr wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Using throwaway so customers don't find this comment. Not sure about your customers, but if I was a customer of some product I'd be happy to know they're are doing well :)

Our competitors are 10 - 1000 times larger than us. Doesn't help us in any way for them to know our size. And the couple of customers that know our size have indicated it's better to appear large. For example, you wouldn't switch a company from using Microsoft Exchange to something else if that something else was run by a couple of guys. Our company would be in very deep trouble if something happened to me. To balanc…

> Doesn't help us in any way for them to know our size.

I'm curious as to what you tell a potential customer if they just ask you directly how big your company is? "It's mostly just me..."? Do you just hope that they don't ask that question?

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#346

Post by matchagaucho »

udkl wrote: post #241
matchagaucho wrote: post #159

Some numbers on my single-person company: Market: Add-on tools/plugins/components for enterprise software platforms. Customers: ~30 Growth rate: Adding about 1 new customer per month Revenue: $550K ($300K product / $250K consulting) Gross profit margin: 80% Costs are basically hosting, occasional marketing campaigns, some offshore development, and various SaaS subscriptions to operate the business. The product often…

I'm curious, how did you break into ? Wherever I look, the enterprise add-on space seems to be already captured.

Enterprise cloud platforms are captured. Niche apps, like "Forecasting for Media Revenue models" or "Foreign Exchange Risk Management for Discrete Manufacturers" are in strong demand.

Really any forecasting, CPQ, quote-to-order, or month end close app that saves users a few hours and clicks per month will demonstrate immediate value and sell itself.

There's always a risk that the platform vendor will fill the niche, so I keep iterating and addressing more edge cases to become the "premium" product with high touch support.

Also.... basically just be happy with 42 customers and let the whales have the other 98% of the market :-)

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#347

Post by atlet »

dhruvkar wrote: post #343
atlet wrote: post #342

I'm running SaaS for B2B and it's successful now for 2 years. I started in 2008 and till 2014 was only covering the expenses. I changed my thinking from "If You Build It, They Will Come" to marketing and this really changed acquisition of new users. In 2013 I also started another SaaS - monitoring service (Piltek - http://www.piltek.com/ ), but it doesn't have a lot of customers as the only thing I did was developing…

>I changed my thinking from "If You Build It, They Will Come" to marketing and this really changed acquisition of new users. What all did you change? What worked?

I started spending money on advertising, before that I only used to do free advertising (mostly SEO) and not a lot: - Adwords - advertising in magazines (it was not worth) - sending letters and cold calling - Facebook ads - Linkedin ads

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#348

Post by asavinov »

udkl wrote: post #328
asavinov wrote: post #111

A couple of years ago I started DataCommandr which was supposed to be an Excel for big data - an easy to use self-service tool for data transformation and analysis: http://conceptoriented.com . Yet, I had to split between several quite different activities: development, marketing, prototyping (it is an innovative product). Eventually, I decided that the process is too slow and with this speed I will never reach the g…

"Transform data into the desired custom format by taking into account semantic relationships and relying on a novel concept-oriented model of data" Way too complex for an introductory line. I had to read it multiple times to get a faint idea of what you might be doing. Screenshots and illustrations might work even better. The design does not look professional. You might want to look at other SaaS sites and themes fro…

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. Your observations actually confirm that it is not the best idea to do everything yourself. In fact, I pivoted three times during the last several years:

1. Windows (WPF) application targeting approximately the same users as Excel, PowerBI, Tableau, Qlikview but providing self-service data wrangling functionatliy (rather than visual analytics). Problem: after finishing 90% of work I understood that I have to do the next 90% - UI development ate all my time.

2. Java framework for complex analytical data transformations targeted as the same users and tasks as, for example, Apache Spark, but providing higher performance at run time and development time (in-memory column-oriented approach). Problem: again, difficulty to attract attention which is necessary to get critical mass of users. Probably the market of classical big data technologies is too tough nowdays.

3. StreamCommandr. Same as previous but focused on in-stream analytics (instead of batch analytics) and IoT. This market seems to be empty (very rare event) and I want to provde the technology as a cloud service (PaaS), say, in IBM Bluemix, GE Predix or AWS. The users of the in-stream analytics service are supposed to be solution/application developers who want to analyze their data (e.g., from devices) in real time. So I am working on this third hypothesis by taking into account my previous mistakes and collected experience. In particular, I am going to maximally simplify everthing even if I sacrify significant pieces of functionality. Time is more important than quality.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#349

Post by udkl »

matchagaucho wrote: post #346
udkl wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, how did you break into ? Wherever I look, the enterprise add-on space seems to be already captured.

Enterprise cloud platforms are captured. Niche apps, like "Forecasting for Media Revenue models" or "Foreign Exchange Risk Management for Discrete Manufacturers" are in strong demand. Really any forecasting, CPQ, quote-to-order, or month end close app that saves users a few hours and clicks per month will demonstrate immediate value and sell itself. There's always a risk that the platform vendor will fill the niche,…

Awesome, thank you for replying.

I want to know more.

Would you mind if we chat on a non-public channel (email/twitter DM/skype chat) where I can pick your brain ?

If you want, in return I could help you out with coding or marketing or even some mundane task that takes time. I'm a software developer.

You can reach out to me on my alias email that is in my profile or let me know the method of communication you prefer.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#350

Post by udkl »

asavinov wrote: post #348
udkl wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Transform data into the desired custom format by taking into account semantic relationships and relying on a novel concept-oriented model of data" Way too complex for an introductory line. I had to read it multiple times to get a faint idea of what you might be doing. Screenshots and illustrations might work even better. The design does not look professional. You might want to look at other SaaS sites and themes fro…

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. Your observations actually confirm that it is not the best idea to do everything yourself. In fact, I pivoted three times during the last several years: 1. Windows (WPF) application targeting approximately the same users as Excel, PowerBI, Tableau, Qlikview but providing self-service data wrangling functionatliy (rather than visual analytics). Problem: after finishing 90% of…

I know of a Business Analyst/manager who use databricks.com spark setup to understand/query & generate visualization from their data.

I remember them saying that the various integrations to data sources that databricks provides was convenient.

With Azure BI (https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/) & Amazon QuickSight (https://aws.amazon.com/quicksight/) the market or such tools is getting competitive. I think your tool might be useful for small and medium businesses.

I would love to chat with you just to understand what you are up to. If you want, you can contact me using the alias email from my HN profile.

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