Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

news.ycombinator.com

621–630 of 666 posts

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

#621
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Will do:)

I can't figure out if I appreciate your honesty or if I think you're a giant douche

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

#622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Been thinking about doing book reviews on the blog actually. Any tips/ideas for crowdsourcing it and getting the community involved? Maybe I'll try using the forum for that. 2. Will try to do updates every few months or so in the future, don't want the interviews to get stale!

hey courtland, another big fan of indiehackers here. keep up the good work! Consider this suggestion as my form of paying it forward. ;) Don't do book reviews and the value of your site is in the data. What you should do is, for every interview, add a question in the form of "what books do you read" or "what do you recommend people should read?". Then for every book listed, add an amazon affiliate link (don't forget…

This is what I have seen on a lot of sites that have a podcast. Specifically the Tim Ferris podcast page.

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

#623

My grandfather has Parkinson's disease and the hand tremors that go with. This makes using a mouse nearly impossible because the cursor flies all over the place. I created free software called SteadyMouse[1] back in 2005 to remove this tremor while letting normal mouse motion through. It eventually moved up near the top of Google's search results. At the same time, the free version began to show its age with compatib…

do you do an fft and remove higher frequencies?

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

#624
post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Very cool, I've been thinking of doing an affiliate website for a while. But it seems like it could take a lot of time and patience to get it profitable. Thanks for sharing!

The sooner you start it, the quicker you see some results ;)

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

#625

I run a non-tech based business www.texadmissions.com while traveling the world full-time. I help students apply to college specializing in admission to UT-Austin. I am a former admissions counselor for UT. I founded my business in April 2015 and it is my only revenue stream. I work 99% by e-mail, though occasionally I skype or receive calls via international sim card. I am a lead moderator on www.reddit.com/r/applyi…

Why do you only focus on UT-Austin? Could you expand to different universities or colleges?

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

#626
post #497

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 t…

Nice idea, and congrats. I think this can be a category of apps - automating the tracking of info of various kinds that people want to track. Had thought of another one but in a different domain. Not done yet. But when I mentioned it to a friend they said it could be useful.

Thank you. I agree. JobTrack serves as a CRM for the job search but I think there is definitely space for CRM-like functionality for a lot of aspects of everyday life.

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

#627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure he runs a great business, but unless the man never sleeps or goes on vacation he can't always be available in minutes.

you don't actually understand what it takes to run a small technology business, because you're a guy who just has a normal job. you don't make a lot of money because there aren't a lot of expectations and obligations in your line of work. 1. yup. he doesn't take vacations. 2. if he's sleeping, he gets woken up, or he loses the business. when you run a business there's nobody to pass the buck to. it's your problem, en…

> there are people who get blown up by bombs in the middle east, today. right now. those are real people. do you think not taking a vacation is some kind of huge sacrifice in the grand scheme of things, especially if you're trying to make a large amount of money?

Give me a break; what the hell does that have to do with the discussion?

Forget about the vacation then. Suppose he gets hit by a car.

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

#628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much power do the cabinets get allocated? When (ages ago) talking to places about colo, it turns out places like HE would only allocate 7 amps for a full rack. Completely useless. ;)

Generally 30A for a full, 15A for a half, etc. Then $12/Amp for extra power.

That's much more reasonable. :)

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

#629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't actually understand what it takes to run a small technology business, because you're a guy who just has a normal job. you don't make a lot of money because there aren't a lot of expectations and obligations in your line of work. 1. yup. he doesn't take vacations. 2. if he's sleeping, he gets woken up, or he loses the business. when you run a business there's nobody to pass the buck to. it's your problem, en…

> there are people who get blown up by bombs in the middle east, today. right now. those are real people. do you think not taking a vacation is some kind of huge sacrifice in the grand scheme of things, especially if you're trying to make a large amount of money? Give me a break; what the hell does that have to do with the discussion? Forget about the vacation then. Suppose he gets hit by a car.

> Suppose he gets hit by a car.

let's suppose he does. let's also suppose a probate lawyer will notify you that the principal of the firm you are working with has been killed, the company will go into receivership and run by an organization that specializes in that sort of thing until all the customers have been notified of the need to switch providers. then the assets will be liquidated, either by the estate or the government in lieu of an estate if there is no next of kin or trust / family / whatever.

suppose your large provider goes bankrupt and is bought out, and accidentally shuts off your fiber as part of the takeover process? what then? do you think anyone gives a shit about you then?

this has happened to me, personally. i have 3 internet connections at home for this reason (2 LTE lines and a cable line). in addition, i know _ALL_ the spots around my house where i can get a wifi signal. this is because i take my business seriously, like most people do. i don't expect some magic person to drop out of the sky during an emergency and fix everything for me.

my primary cable ISP is one of the largest in the nation, i'm not going to be fooled into thinking they're somehow reliable. they're never on time, and their service sucks. yet my plumbing company, owned/run by a single guy, always shows up on time and fixes my problem (i live in an old building with plumbing problems).

you live in a world of constant "what if" fear because you lack the experience to know how to handle bad business situations. a small business has more to fear from their customers simply not paying than from inability to deliver good service.

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

#630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are people who get blown up by bombs in the middle east, today. right now. those are real people. do you think not taking a vacation is some kind of huge sacrifice in the grand scheme of things, especially if you're trying to make a large amount of money? Give me a break; what the hell does that have to do with the discussion? Forget about the vacation then. Suppose he gets hit by a car.

> Suppose he gets hit by a car. let's suppose he does. let's also suppose a probate lawyer will notify you that the principal of the firm you are working with has been killed, the company will go into receivership and run by an organization that specializes in that sort of thing until all the customers have been notified of the need to switch providers. then the assets will be liquidated, either by the estate or the…

If you interact with people this way normally I think I'd rather take my chances with the script-readers, but I'm glad things are working out for you.
Post reply on HN