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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#571

Post by spraak »

blazespin wrote: post #569
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…

I've often though the real hard core startup community should be in Chiang Mai living in 250$ per month condos. Pretty easy to get to Ramen profitable..

waives hello from CM

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

#572

Post by umen »

adpoe wrote: post #327
umen wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the info Question: how do you find the vendor in AliExpress ? do you need to talk with him before ?

You can--but AliExpress has a good reputation system. I mostly use that. And if a vendor burns me, I remove their products and look elsewhere.

Thanks for answering , is it your full time ? or just pocket money?

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

#573

Post by robryan »

adpoe wrote: post #387
xcubic wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. Simple but efficient. Last question, you send directly from aliexpress to your clients right? Does it not bother you, your clients receiving packages coming from a different store than expected and with a Chinese address?

Yes, that's right. I was also initially concerned about that, but I have not had complaints about it. Oberlo (the drop shipping service) does have an email system that lets you track the package on its journey and see where it is shipping from, after an order is placed. So it's not unexpected that the address is Chinese. Most of the vendors actually do a good job on the packaging/presentation, but it's advisable to t…

Have you tried going to these vendors directly to dropship? I assume you would get big savings cutting out 2 middlemen. Most suppliers aren't properly setup to dropship but would probably be pretty easy to get an account with a bigger discount without white labeling, at the cost of having to do custom integrations.

There are certainly faster shipping options from HK and China that aren't overly more expensive that you could get them to use or provide your own account given enough volume.

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

#574

Post by robryan »

tomashertus wrote: post #183
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…

I've been reading about drop-shipping for quite time and it seems definitely achievable. One thing I'm not sure is how do you handle returns? What is someone wants to return the product back to you? Do you send it back to China or just take the lost? How do you handle the costs for shipping etc?

In some cases where the product was received damaged can't be resold a good dropshipping company should just take the hit without a return.

Depending on the shipping company in use, there may be local returns addresses in some countries that will get on forwarded, or it may be worth it for you to set something up.

Assuming you are upfront about the product coming from China I don't think it is too bad to get them to send back there, obviously in some cases a customer won't be happy and you would offer to cover the return on a case by case basis.

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

#575

Post by robryan »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #423
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…

Are you guys actually getting enough sales to live off that business? Your site is on the 2nd page of Google results even when I type the exact address in, your Instagram was last active 13 weeks ago, and your Facebook page only has 50 likes. Something just seems... off.

Depending on your niche and the margins often it can be possible to be profitable simply paying for traffic via Google Shopping and converting off that.

So your website could have little social and organic search presence but still do decent sales just off Google Shopping. Certainly if I was starting a new solo dropshipping site I would be looking to optimise my Google Shopping traffic over building a following in social media or creating content to attempt to boost my organic search rankings.

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

#576

Post by dgranda »

eljs wrote: post #503
dgranda wrote: post #79

I run https://www.fortsu.es (also https://www.fortsu.co.uk , https://www.fortsu.de and https://www.fortsu.com ) a price comparison website for running shoes. Original one is focused on spanish market while expanding into interesting ones. It started as side project some years ago when I wanted to buy running shoes online and it has been improved over the time. To-Do list never ends ;)

How do you market this? Is it mostly SEO or ads as well? Must be expensive if you want to compete with Nike and Adidas for clicks...

At the beginning it was basically word of mouth and niche related forums on the internet.

Then I started reading about SEO and advertising. Organic search more or less work but I got almost no traffic from a couple of banners on related pages during few months. I didn't try advertising networks like AdWords.

I don't see big brands as my competition. I have partnered with some but I don't think they sell much on the internet (typically higher price tags) compared to full equipped city centre stores.

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

#577

Post by robryan »

FT_intern wrote: post #344
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…

Is it feasible to get your own warehouse storage, go direct with manufacturers and buy wholesale instead of just reselling Aliexpress items?

Depends what you see as your competitive advantage. Of course it is easy to be seduced by the possibility of big margins in scaling up like that. If you are a software developer looking to run a solo or small business though you are suddenly spending most of your time doing deals and managing warehousing and inventory.

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

#578

Post by whiplashoo »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #329
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 saw your work on Reddit earlier today[1], nice. I was thinking of building a mobile app to track movement and show this same data. Can't decide if its a passing fancy or not, so, maybe just a free idea for you. :) [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5m5tj9/cou...

I don't have any experience with mobile app development, so feel free to try something similar there!

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

#579

Post by whiplashoo »

kubami wrote: post #457
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…

Is this profitable? What's the business model, I can only see a donation button.

This is a side-project, so no business model so far. There have been some small amount donations over the years and I have 1-2 Google Ads on the front page that generate a small passive income. In that way, yes, it is profitable, as the only cost is $15/mo, which is the hosting provider's plan.

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

#580

Post by whiplashoo »

koheripbal wrote: post #399
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?

Yes, the extremely detailed world map is coming this month! I have spent many hours on it and it depicts all first-level administrative divisions of countries. It needs some more polishing though, so please stay tuned!
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