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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#231

Post by nateberkopec »

I made an almost-full-time income off programming content in 2016 (through my Rails performance course at https://www.railsspeed.com).

I'm writing up a big blog about how I did it right now, but the gist is:

1. Treat blog posts like miniature products - opportunities to test, measure, learn.

2. Have a unique voice and viewpoint.

3. Write about a growing or mature field. (early to late majority)

4. Main distribution channels are email newsletter and social media.

5. Create an information product (book, course, videos, whatever) and convert newsletter signups into sales.

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

#232

Post by cylinder »

dgranda wrote: post #160
tuffer wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very nice! Couple of questions if you could answer please. How do you host your site? How do you compare the similar products and aggregate them within your database? Unique identifies etc.

Thanks! > How do you host your site? TL;DR: entry level Virtual Private Server (VPS) per country. Based on some SEO articles, I decided to go for Top Level Domains depending on target market (.es for Spain, .de for Germany, etc.) so I needed properly geolocated IP addresses for each country. Each server is around 10 USD/month making this approach affordable. I do all operations. > How do you compare the similar produ…

This is good advice. I'm going to be building a site and replicating across TLD and IPs like this across countries. My only question is, if you are using the same content (ie, you write content on the blog for SEO) across each site do you run into trouble with Google for copying existing content?

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

#233

Post by beeker87 »

My previous SaaS product, Navilytics, I built from scratch and ran completely on my own (minus a couple of blog posts from a friend). It very well could have been successful, but I made the mistake of thinking the product would sell itself and never did any real promotion leading up to launch. I paid for this as another competitor, who had the same idea I had at the same time and built their own version of the product, starting marketing it before it was even in beta. They're doing > $1 mil per year now in revenue.

Previous one before that was an affiliate network I ran with a buddy of mine, so just two people. We did very well with this one (but only mildly when compared to other large affiliate networks at the time).

My new project, I'm working with a buddy of mine who's good at the things I'm not so good at. While I think it's 100% possible to be a sole founder and do very well, having a solid team makes the entire process a lot easier. Plus, having people to bounce ideas off of usually leads to making better decisions.

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

#234

Post by adpoe »

floydax wrote: post #221
adpoe wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, here's my URL, feel free to share =) http://modshop.guitars/ For customer issues, you just need to be responsive and as helpful as you can be. I've also had issues shipping outside the US, but Shopify (the platform that I use) lets you disable shipping outside of certain countries. I've had some issues shipping to Canada, (never had an EU customer), so I only ship within the USA now. And changing that was only a…

Thanks for sharing, looks awesome :) Do you use Shopify for any specific reason? Or it simply satisfies your needs? Last question (I promise!): Do you place the orders manually or do you have any sort of automated system integrated with your supplier?

No worries =), I'm happy to help if I can.

So yes -- I use Shopify primarily because it's a relatively simple way to get up-and-running.

You'll make less money on Shopify, overall, because they take part of the profits you make (~2% to 5%). And that turns some people off, but the payoff is this: You can make secure, good-looking and effective site in just a few days. With no coding or server management involved.

Now, I'm a software developer, and I'm capable of building an ecommerce site from scratch (as I'm sure you are, as well) -- but why? It's not worth that kind of time investment until you know that you're going to make $$$ from the project.

Shopify is almost like rapid-prototyping. It lets you get started quickly with a working version. So, even if the first business fails (mine did), you're not out 6-months of time and effort from site-building, design etc. Customers don't really know (or care) for the most part that the site is built on Shopify. Overall, it just works.

But yes -- I use an automated drop-shipping system called Oberlo: https://www.oberlo.com/

This only works for connecting AliExpress-->Shopify, so it's constraining in that way. But mostly anything you'll want to sell can be found on AliExpress.

Try it. =)

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

#235

Post by nbrempel »

novaleaf wrote: post #168

I run https://PhantomJsCloud.com I started it as a free MVP about 2 years ago while in Thailand, and given that I was attracting a slow but steady stream of users I decided to build out a commercial v1 from it. The freemium SaaS went live in March and it's growing monthly. If I still lived in Thailand I would consider it very successful, but I am in the Seattle area now so it's ramen profitable. The biggest surprise…

Side note: try Bing ads as an alternative to Adwords for cheaper clicks. Might be the wrong audience given that you're advertising a dev tool but I found it pretty useful.

If you search around, Bing has a $100 coupon right now that you can use to play with the service.

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

#236

Post by stunthamsterio »

tylerhall wrote: post #206

I started selling macOS (and now iOS) software on my own website back in 2007. https://clickontyler.com My original goal was to earn enough money to refinish the hardwood floors in my house. Since then, however, it's taken on a life of its own and become a suite of three main products. It enables me to live comfortably in the Nashville suburbs. All that said, I've been doing this for ten years now and am burnt out. I…

HostBuddy is the perfect example of an app I didn't realise I needed until I tried it. My hat goes off to you sir.

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

#240

Post by dr_win »

tylerhall wrote: post #206

I started selling macOS (and now iOS) software on my own website back in 2007. https://clickontyler.com My original goal was to earn enough money to refinish the hardwood floors in my house. Since then, however, it's taken on a life of its own and become a suite of three main products. It enables me to live comfortably in the Nashville suburbs. All that said, I've been doing this for ten years now and am burnt out. I…

Nice job. You've been an inspiration. Best luck looking for someone to take over.

We've tried to do a similar thing, I was burnt out and we found another dev to take over: https://blog.binaryage.com/meet-steve-the-new-lead

It didn't work out in the end. But at least I got 10 months of "recovery time" out of it. And that seems helped a lot. Maybe you just need a break for 6+ months and then you could return with recharged batteries. The challenge is how to "park" your business in capable hands. Product maintenance/support is a serious burden.

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