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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#391

Post by nickpsecurity »

chrishacken wrote: post #182
juliangoldsmith wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of investment did it take to get started? Have you written anything about starting off, and your transition from a WISP to fiber?

I started with around $15k, but that's nothing compared to what I've dumped into the business since then. If I knew then what I know now, I'm not sure I would have started this. I have not written about it, yet.

Add my email to list of people you send that write-up to. Im collecting all the examples and experiences I can on this topic.

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

#392

Post by [deleted] »

adpoe wrote: post #127

I run an ecommerce store from Shopify which fulfills the orders by drop-shipping through AliExpress. This is definitely doable for one person, and it isn't technically challenging for a software developer--but the hardest part (at least for me) is marketing, creating content, advertising, and so on. Actually running a Shopify store and fulfilling by drop-shipping is simple. I would definitely recommend that as a good…

[deleted]

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

#393

Post by adpoe »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #367
adpoe wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is one of the bigger problems, and there's no good fix for it. You just need to clearly state all over the site that your delivery times are 3-4 weeks. It's unfortunate, but part of the business. The only way around it is to have products that aren't easily sourceable via Amazon. They're out there, but mostly in very targeted niches. You also might find that you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel f…

Wow, I made it up to the payment portion of your checkout process. Not a single mention of the shipping time. The button says "Complete Order" so I assume this is the last chance to notify people before they pay. That's shady as hell, dude. > You just need to clearly state all over the site that your delivery times are 3-4 weeks. You definitely don't do this... at all. It's clear that you've intentionally buried that…

Thanks for that -- I actually think that's good feedback, and something I hadn't thought of.

We do have the shipping times listed on 3 different pages accessible from the top nav (and bottom nav), one of which is labeled 'How We Ship'.. so I dunno. It's not really something I'd considered before this, or had offered as feedback (everyone so far has advised me that outlining your details on the Shipping page is the industry standard.) And I can definitely say that I have many more visits to the FAQ and Shipping pages than I have orders, so I'm guessing people actually do read them. But again, I can't say for sure, and I haven't seen complaints about it.

It also might have to do with the products themselves. These are unattached pieces of metal/wood for the most part, at lower prices than you'd see in a guitar shop.

Beyond that, Oberlo and Shopify are setup for these kinds of businesses, so users get a stream of emails confirming each order and tracking the package throughout the journey. That seems to be enough, so far, at least. But like I said, I think that's fair criticism and something I'm actually looking to change on the checkout. It would be great to load in a shipping time on checkout pages (this information is available from the vendors), but that's not supported yet, it doesn't look like.

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

#394

Post by zinxq »

Running http://www.clickrouter.com - worked out well because I needed it for my other projects and it was an instant revenue win for those use cases alone.

Spruced it up (could use more I know) and opened it to others thereafter. Free money for users.

(It's a service that captures outbound clicks from your site - apart from giving fancy graphs about those, it then affiliatizes the links across all your affiliate accounts - skimlinks, viglinks, cj, etc)

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

#395

Post by wastedhours »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #367
adpoe wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is one of the bigger problems, and there's no good fix for it. You just need to clearly state all over the site that your delivery times are 3-4 weeks. It's unfortunate, but part of the business. The only way around it is to have products that aren't easily sourceable via Amazon. They're out there, but mostly in very targeted niches. You also might find that you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel f…

Wow, I made it up to the payment portion of your checkout process. Not a single mention of the shipping time. The button says "Complete Order" so I assume this is the last chance to notify people before they pay. That's shady as hell, dude. > You just need to clearly state all over the site that your delivery times are 3-4 weeks. You definitely don't do this... at all. It's clear that you've intentionally buried that…

Assuming a specific shipping time would be ultra-weird to me - why is 5-10 days "standard". There's no default shipping time anywhere, unless you count the specific next day ones. Certainly wouldn't claim it as "shady as hell".

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

#396

Post by adambedford »

I launched JobTrack (https://jobtrack.io), a CRM for job seekers, about three months ago and have been seeing decent growth since then. I've predominantly relied on word of mouth and organic social media marketing but also launched a paid marketing campaign on Facebook a few days ago.

The overall premise for the product is that when searching for a job, the job seeker will likely make a spreadsheet or notebook of the jobs they're interested in and applying to, along with some notes and key dates. JobTrack replaces spreadsheets with a straightforward app to track that information, and more, in a structured manner that is also available from mobile (and Chrome extension coming soon). JobTrack also has analytics to show how the job search is progressing.

I'm hoping to go full time in 2017 and raise investment. At that point I'll likely try to bring on a co-founder and perhaps an employee or two.

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

#397

Post by beachstartup »

emodendroket wrote: post #321
beachstartup wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've considered the psychology of our position. the difficult part is getting someone to understand that they have been vastly overpaying -- that means they must call into question their own (past) judgment, which for some people is easy, but for most people, is extremely hard (mild cognitive dissonance). i find it especially interesting that the question is coming from a small private school, who's business model is…

> offering a superior alternative to larger, better funded incumbent institutions. I don't know that that is necessarily an accurate way of describing the role of a private school.

so how would you describe it?

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

#398

Post by beachstartup »

emodendroket wrote: post #318
beachstartup wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i run a small tech company, though not an ISP. i hear this question a lot. "how do you compete with xyz megacorp?" delivering a better/faster product for less money, is the easy part. nearly everything is overpriced from megacorps. believe me, it's easy. even the accounting is harder. the hard part is selling it. people will complain all day about megacorp sucking, but when it comes right down to it, they won't go wi…

I mean surely the biggest thing is that if my ATT service goes out I can probably get someone on the phone (especially if I'm a business customer).

it's easier to get the small provider on the phone.

but i mean, this is simply what you believe to be true. in reality, it doesn't matter if it's true or not, because you believe it. that's what small companies fight against every day of their life.

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

#399

Post by koheripbal »

whiplashoo wrote: post #247

I run https://mapchart.net . It is a simple tool that lets you create custom maps of the World, USA, Europe, UK, France and more. I treat is as a side-project, but I am constantly adding new maps or expanding some features. The biggest advantage is that it costs almost nothing to maintain it, as it is completely client-side, so the only cost is the basic hosting plan. I launched it almost 2 years ago and right now it…

I'd love to have a global map with more granularity than just country level. Is that in the works?

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

#400

Post by adpoe »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #384
adpoe wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Wow, ok. So you can just set up a Shopify store, set up an oberlo account, find some products on AliExpress... and that's it? Do you use any other services? And how often do you need to reply to customer emails?

From an inventory perspective, yes. =)

But -- you still need to get people coming to your site somehow, which is actually the harder part.

You can buy ads, do social media marketing, blog posts--lots of techniques. And there are a ton of services for that. I've experimented with many, and continually try to refine that aspect of the business, but I can't claim to be an expert yet.

I reply to emails every day. Once you get orders, you do need to check and make sure everything is going smoothly, and ensure that your customers' needs are met.

I also get a lot of emails asking for advice about various upgrades, fixes, product recommendations. And these often lead to sales, as long as I have something that works. Depending on your store, there can be a consultative aspect to it.

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