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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#71

Post by treyfitty »

I launched a men’s skincare line about 3 months ago (https://www.mendskin.co) which isn’t “successful” yet, but it’s my first experience selling physical goods and I think these things take time.

It’s tough. There’s a reason a lot of companies spend $1MM from investors before launching a product, but I wanted to test the hypothesis that this need not be the case. “Beauty products” (for lack of a better term) definitely require heavy capital, and it’s becoming hard to do everything by myself. All the individual things that need to be done aren’t hard- it’s just that there’s so much to do in order to deliver successful physical products.

But I enjoy it.

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

#72

Post by stanislavb »

khuknows wrote: post #14

I run https://pageflows.com and have been living off it full time for a little over a year. The business makes a bit more than what I was earning a few years ago as a junior developer in London, so it's not a huge amount of money, but it's enough. It's a fairly boring business to run and not as predictable or sexy as some sort of micro saas, but it's I'm happy with how things have been so far. Happy to answer any que…

Nice one. It's on SaaSHub, you should verify it https://www.saashub.com/page-flows.

Do you know who are your top competitors?

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

#73

Post by WA »

krn wrote: post #62
WA wrote: post #47

I have a consumer app with a subscription model. I'm a single developer with no employees. I work between 10-30 hours per week. Last year, my EBIT was close to 300,000€. This year, it's going to be around 370,000€ (and since I live in Germany, my income is in the top 0,5% or so). In the first year, my EBIT was merely 30,000€. It's been going up steadily since then and my product has been around quite a while. Please…

> This year, it's going to be around 370,000€ (and since I live in Germany, my income is in the top 0,5% or so). Is your business focused on the German market or the US market? Or is it multi-lingual / international? What percentage of time is spent answering support requests? > The subscription model helps you to stay afloat. People will pay for a product they use every day (and thus, derive value from every day). H…

German market only. Going international is an option I considered, but it is a lot more complex than simply localizing the app. Since I make more money than I need and I don't want my job to become a different one (I still get to code a lot), I didn't do it yet.

> "Have you experimented with different pricing models?"

No, I kept the pricing model very simple. The price increased a bit throughout the years. I charge what feels fair.

There's a trial period and if you like the product, you pay for it. If not, then not. There is no freemium, I never give discounts, I don't sell ads or data or make money in any other way. It's a simple thing :)

Some people claim that it's easy to test prices. But this is not true.

If you serve a niche, people talk. If one person pays more than another for the same product (and signed up for the same version at a similar time), you'd lose trust.

The nice thing about making more money than you need is that it frees you from thinking about "making even more money". Yeah, I like making more money, because all of this could be over one day, but there is no need to stress myself about it.

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

#74

Post by sellingwebsite »

Jaruzel wrote: post #68

For the period of 2008 to 2014 I built and ran an online webshop[1] selling Bath bombs and soaps - the product was specifically picked because in 2008 there wasn't that many online shops selling low cost bath products in the UK. What I did differently was I wrote everything from scratch, built the product databases, designed the graphics, wrote the front and back ends etc. I did it mainly as a learning exercise. It n…

what were your marketing strategies at the time ?

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

#75

Post by BerislavLopac »

WA wrote: post #47

I have a consumer app with a subscription model. I'm a single developer with no employees. I work between 10-30 hours per week. Last year, my EBIT was close to 300,000€. This year, it's going to be around 370,000€ (and since I live in Germany, my income is in the top 0,5% or so). In the first year, my EBIT was merely 30,000€. It's been going up steadily since then and my product has been around quite a while. Please…

> I'm a single developer with no employees. I work between 10-30 hours per week.

I'm curious -- how much time do you spend on marketing? How do your customers find your app?

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

#76

Post by BilalBudhani »

I have been building https://www.flowboardpro.com - It is an artist management software for agencies. I went full-time on it in April of this year & have been working solo on it since. I have 3 agencies using it which is right now enough to pay off my bills. This month I'm wrapping up all the feature development to focus on the marketing side of it.

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

#77

Post by tilolebo »

freshfey wrote: post #69
tilolebo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have so many questions, but let's start with a few ones: Is this a web application or a smartphone one? What did you have to learn, tech-wise, to be able to build it? How long did it take you, from your first line of code until you released the first prototype? How did you get your first user(s)? How did you get the business idea (without details)? Was it a personal pain point, or did you work in that field before?…

I'd argue that only the last two questions are relevant. - Both web and smartphone apps can create this kind of revenue. - The tech stack is 99% irrelevant unless the end customer depends on it, which in 99% of the times, isn't the case.

Please note that I have just edited my answer and added a question, so your comment actually refers to the 2 questions before the last one.

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

#78

Post by Jaruzel »

sellingwebsite wrote: post #74
Jaruzel wrote: post #68

For the period of 2008 to 2014 I built and ran an online webshop[1] selling Bath bombs and soaps - the product was specifically picked because in 2008 there wasn't that many online shops selling low cost bath products in the UK. What I did differently was I wrote everything from scratch, built the product databases, designed the graphics, wrote the front and back ends etc. I did it mainly as a learning exercise. It n…

what were your marketing strategies at the time ?

A little bit of social media (twitter posts, product page on FB), and a big push via Google AdWords at Easter and Christmas. Sales tended to be fairly seasonal so we focused on those periods.

Also, spent a lot of time getting the meta tags on every product page exactly right - which I felt (at the time) was the benefit of rolling my own shop front-end instead of using one of the pre-made big name shop engines.

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

#79

Post by techtor »

I turned a software development blog into a profit-generating asset in 2 years.

I then used it to market my skills as a Software developer and it helped me gained employment.

I highly recommend any developer to start a blog, and just see where it takes you.

My blog is https://zeroequalsfalse.com

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

#80

Post by WA »

tilolebo wrote: post #65
WA wrote: post #47

I have a consumer app with a subscription model. I'm a single developer with no employees. I work between 10-30 hours per week. Last year, my EBIT was close to 300,000€. This year, it's going to be around 370,000€ (and since I live in Germany, my income is in the top 0,5% or so). In the first year, my EBIT was merely 30,000€. It's been going up steadily since then and my product has been around quite a while. Please…

I have so many questions, but let's start with a few ones: Is this a web application or a smartphone one? What did you have to learn, tech-wise, to be able to build it? How long did it take you, from your first line of code until you released the first prototype? How did you get your first user(s)? How did you get the business idea (without details)? Was it a personal pain point, or did you work in that field before?…

> "Is this a web application or a smartphone one?"

It used to be a web app, but nowadays, most people use it as an app.

> "What did you have to learn, tech-wise, to be able to build it?"

At first, PHP. Then JS. I've been coding for 15-20 years now. The app is made in Ionic + Cordova. As I wrote often here on HN: End users give zero fucks about the technology. Most people (unless they're designers or coders) don't even see the difference between a native app and a hybrid one.

As a single developer, Ionic is great, because you have truly one code base for all platforms. If the apps were native, I probably couldn't do all of this by myself.

> "How long did it take you, from your first line of code until you released the first prototype?"

2-3 weeks, and then I iterated a lot with actual feedback. But: I didn't introduce a pricing model for the first couple years. It was a hobby back then. It also was a different internet. So take this with a grain of salt. I don't have experience on how to start a niche product and get paying customers from day 1.

> How did you get your first user(s)?

Through forums.

> How did you get the business idea (without details)?

A friend of mine said: "It'd be great if there was a software that could do X". It wasn't directly my own pain point, but of a friend. I didn't work in that field before, but read a lot over the years to acquire the domain knowledge.

Thanks :)

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