Gabe Weinberg started DuckDuckGo solo, as well as his previous businesses... I think it was several years before he brought on anyone else, and while other early stage investors talked about preferring to fund a small team of at least two, he talked about how he was willing to fund individual founders :-)
Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
51–60 of 666 posts
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#52I am running a niche SaaS for franchisees of several buy/sell/trade retail stores. Http://ResaleAI.com
I built the entire thing myself, handled partnerships, support, sales, etc. All while still running three of these stores.
While I did all of the development, I do have a full-time executive assistant who helps me with a ton of things (email, scheduling, errands, etc).
Now I am building a team because there is no way I would be able to maximize this opportunity by myself.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. An idea is just that, an idea. It takes months and years of hard work to turn an idea into an income stream.
Most of the businesses in the list are very easy to copy. There are neither rocket science, neither patents to protect them, neither big money to pay lawyers to protect their work. Knowing how well the product sells, you can copy it piece-by-piece by saving a lot of time trying different approaches. Author of original product already did all the hard work guessing what will work the best. You just come, copy and prof…
This is not true. People who copy will mostly do it for money. Finally the passion for the idea trumps the desire to chase money and your product will eventually suck. On the other hand if you think you can make a better product from existing solution, then there is a good chance of you succeeding.
You can try copying any one of those of ideas for money and see for yourself.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#54Stratechery is an example of this. If you get the FEI newsletters, many of the businesses they are brokering for sale are one person efforts.
I have not heard of the FEI newsletters yet and cannot find them via Google. Would you mind sharing the link?
http://feinternational.com/ is a brokerage of Internet-based businesses; presumably the newsletter is something that goes out to folks who've expressed some level of interest in attempting to buy one via the website. (I've sold two businesses through FEI.)
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#55We're a two person startup that is doing/growing very well. This was no overnight success... we've been at it for years now.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#56In 2016 I took content creation somewhat seriously and the end result was enough income to sustain living in NY. Not sure if it's worth blogging about yet. Are other developers interested to see how to potentially make software engineer-tier salaries without having to work for another company? (Note: I also started with nothing. No mentors, no following, no existing profile, no paid advertising, etc.). Edit : If you'…
NY really? Do you live on Long Island? Manhattan is so expensive. I'd be interested. I'm in LI.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#57I've been running https://www.candyjapan.com for about five years. It has (just barely) made enough to support my life in Japan. I'm currently writing a "year in review", will probably post it next week.
I like the - "Try unique sweets even if you are in ." headline. Did you test the website with and without it?
Haven't tested it, as with my level of sales it takes about 6 months to run a proper test.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good for customers but not for business. Competition tends to minimize margins and profits. While main business goal is to make money, competition is against business goals.
Many one-person businesses focus on niches and do one thing great. Often they also offer great (aka personal) support. Also, quite often, they are great in building a community around their service. Additionally, many of the solo entrepreneurs are good teachers and share what they know. All these factors together make their services (and themselves) so valuable that a competitor with a slightly better price will not…
You're talking about acquisition channels. Community, blog or webinars are great channels, but there are also organic search, paid search, traditional advertising, native advertising, bundling, paid promotions, upselling. If the copy-cat is better at these, their product will out-sell yours.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#59Developer of Mac apps, selling via the Mac App Store. Started several years ago as a "let's see if I can make this work" project.
Have you also tried selling outside the Mac App Store? (The old Fastspring / Paddle / Stripe route?)
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the businesses in the list are very easy to copy. There are neither rocket science, neither patents to protect them, neither big money to pay lawyers to protect their work. Knowing how well the product sells, you can copy it piece-by-piece by saving a lot of time trying different approaches. Author of original product already did all the hard work guessing what will work the best. You just come, copy and prof…
But by the time finishing the copy, the owner had improved their product and advanced the roadmap. The key here is constant move, IMO.
From my experience copying a feature is about twice cheaper than trying different approaches. You may not figure out a good way to implement it until you build first version and let people try it. You may need re-iterate to find perfect implementation. The copy-cat will come later to see what you've done and will implement the good solution without iterations.
The copy-cat may have more developers too.