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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#101

Post by okramcivokram »

__jonas wrote: post #70
warent wrote: post #8

I run a business called FontPeek ( https://fontpeek.com ). It doesn't provide the majority of my income, but it does provide a meaningful amount and it's constantly growing (pretty linearly). It's a simple tool that allows font designers to add a secure font previewer to their web store. Only needs like an hour of technical support a week, and it's currently costing me nothing to run because Firebase has incredibly g…

Just for my understanding, as soon as someone buys a cut of a font and uses it in a web context, it is basically "out there" and could technically be downloaded by anyone visiting that website since there is no font DRM right? Is this mainly targeted at people making fonts for print?

I was also curious so I've taken a look at it (but not in detail) and it looks to me like it sends what you type to the server that generates an image in real-time using the font, so you don't have the font itself, just what it's going to look like with your text.

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

#102

Post by phito »

callym wrote: post #61
phito wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My website is https://phito.be :) I ship in the EU and any other countries that have trade deals that allows plant transfer without requiring phytosanitary certificates (Switzerland for example)! Sadly after Brexit I don't know if I will still be able to ship over the UK :( Finding the growing space is hard, especially if your plants are big. Thankfully I focus mostly on the Drosera genus, which are mostly small plan…

Yeah there's been a lot of Brexit talk in the orchid communities, it's a big problem because of how hard they are to propagate - there's only a few orchid nurseries left in the UK that can grow from seed because you need a lab setup, which is a huge shame I've had good luck growing a few Drosera from seed, never even thought about leaf cuttings, that's super interesting! Hopefully depending on Brexit I'll be able to…

Yes Brexit is a real mess for plant collectors (and for almost everyone else, but that's just my opinion).

Looking forward to send you plants, make sure to say you're from hacker news in the notes of your order ;) I don't have a mailing list yet, although that is a good idea and I will look into it for the next season!

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

#103

Post by boothead »

0898 wrote: post #64

I run a series of events for people who run agencies. (By agency, I mean creative, marketing, or technology agencies.) Events are a good business to get into as a solo founder. You can book a venue, and you don't have to pay until a few weeks before the event. If you haven't sold any tickets you can just cancel the venue and walk away. I started Agency Hackers in 2017 and I'm almost ready to quit my job and focus on…

I read that case study - really cool stuff!

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

#104

Post by krn »

spv wrote: post #93
lemming wrote: post #60

I develop and sell Cursive ( https://cursive-ide.com ), which has paid my bills nicely for a couple of years now. Currently I make more than I made in my last job at Google. I never thought I'd be able to make a living selling developer tools, much less into a niche market, but I'm constantly amazed by how well Cursive does. The work is a mix of fun and boring slog, like most jobs I guess. A lot of my time is spent o…

I cannot believe that you make more from such a niche dev tool than your job at Google. I always thought people who use clojure/scheme would be using their custom setup in emacs or vim. I'm interested to learn more details, how things were when you first started out selling the app and the trend.

> I cannot believe that you make more from such a niche dev tool than your job at Google.

It's important to note, that there are markets where Google pays 70-90k / year[1].

[1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Berlin-Salaries-EI_I...

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

#106

Post by temp_throw »

I have a UK based e-business, I've turned over between £750,000 and now £950,000 over the past four years (ex VAT). (~76% net profit margin)

Its just me, I'm a developer, which meant I could bootstrap the whole thing for zero cost (time not included) but I've always felt I knew I had what it takes to make a small business successful. Its an online service, we have a web site and apps in the app stores. I'd rather not say exactly what we do as this way I can be transparent on numbers. (Also, I am slightly paranoid of copy-cats) We have a paid for service, costs less than £50, its not a subscription, just a one off purchase. As has been said previously, luck plays a big part in success and I'm not going to pretend this is not true for me too.

-The competition are £MM businesses, and this is probably why I am able to be so successful as I can move faster, adapt, and resolve issues. Over time, people notice this. They tend to buy the customer via adwords.

-Word of mouth is a huge part of how the product has grown, people like the product and tell their friends/family, I spend less than £1500 p/m on advertising through the traditional online mediums.

- I always try new ideas out, and find out if people like them. Its low risk, low cost, high reward. Big fan of XP, agile, etc

- I'd recommend - Getting real (Basecamp) - https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real, its got some solid advice

- A mentality of always wanting to make the product better, without bloating it, is key.

- People always worry about support. It's really not a big deal, I've had hundreds of thousands of customers over the years, support contact is low.

Happy to answer any questions if people find it useful.

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

#107

Post by kimi »

spv wrote: post #93
lemming wrote: post #60

I develop and sell Cursive ( https://cursive-ide.com ), which has paid my bills nicely for a couple of years now. Currently I make more than I made in my last job at Google. I never thought I'd be able to make a living selling developer tools, much less into a niche market, but I'm constantly amazed by how well Cursive does. The work is a mix of fun and boring slog, like most jobs I guess. A lot of my time is spent o…

I cannot believe that you make more from such a niche dev tool than your job at Google. I always thought people who use clojure/scheme would be using their custom setup in emacs or vim. I'm interested to learn more details, how things were when you first started out selling the app and the trend.

They (we) used to, but with Cursive.... welcome to the XXI century :)

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

#108

Post by throwaway21212 »

I have a one-person lifestyle business. I like it primarily because it gives me the flexibility to live anywhere in the world. I hated my old desk job and the idea of 2 weeks vacation every year.

I run a SaaS product that integrates with ERPs. I pretend to my customers that I have a team (so much so that I have multiple email addresses to people that don't exist that actually just forward to me). One of our customers thinks they're paying for a team of 6, but it's actually just me.

My monthly billings last month was 73k USD. I am a tax resident of a tax haven although I do live 3-6 months at a time in a different country.

The only advice I'd give anyone looking to build a lifestyle business is to keep your ambitions and by extension- product feature set in check. I know several other people who operate like me, and the common thread is we have businesses that can easily take VC funds, hire, and expand. But for lifestyle priorities, we chose not to.

A lot of people I've met (particularly in Chiang Mai, Thailand) copy popular, common, and easy online businesses such as drop shipping, social media XYZ, or coding. Unless you live in a really low cost area, it's not a good life. The key is have a very specific niche that can be scaled upwards if you want, but you always have the option not to. Those the ideas and businesses that seems to provide the ideal balance in lifestyle.

EDIT: The product came about at my last job where I built it to make my own job easier. Essentially it did 95% of what job which at the time enabled me to be the "best performer" while not actually working that hard.

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

#110

Post by sagarpatil »

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…

Sounds like a neat idea. How do you acquire customers?
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