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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#311

Post by kohanz »

temp_throw wrote: post #106

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…

As someone running a business with some similar characteristics (solo, not a subscription, B2C branching into B2B), but at a much earlier stage, I would love to learn more from you, if you're willing. Feel free to reach out to me (e-mail in profile).

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

#313

Post by kleinishere »

maxencecornet wrote: post #168

It doesn't exactly qualify as a one-man business, but I'm running a few side projects bringing around $500/month: - https://batgrowth.com : A website monitoring the growth of The Brave browser / Basic Attention Token, in terms of publishers adoption (Fun fact: Wikipedia founder, Larry Sanger, tweeted about the site) - https://ethereum-cours.com : A CMC clone built mainly for fun, bringing some decent referral revenue…

Can you elaborate on how you ended up selling the 2 businesses? Was it via in-bounds or using a marketplace for similar kinds of businesses?

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

#314

Post by ridaj »

josephwegner wrote: post #237

Everytime I see these threads I end up feeling inadequate. For the rest of the folks like me, I will share a small tidbit of wisdom: Starting a business is really hard and it's totally OK to just go work for Salesforce. You do you.

Feelings of inadequacy aren't worth being had. If it's useful, remember that this sample here is extremely biased. I've seen a somewhat more random sample of my friends, all talented, skillful and diligent, roll the dice of going independent; seeing the outcomes range from dream success-story to serial failure, I have a different appreciation for the level of risk that you need to be comfortable with.

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

#315

Post by stevofolife »

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…

Thanks for sharing. How do you price a prototype? I have a bias of thinking people won't initially pay for it. What are your thoughts?

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

#316

Post by mikorym »

thescribbblr wrote: post #282
bekman wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I can’t share the url.

Any specific reason behind it? Though really inspired by your life.

copy cats, unsolicited attention, scrutiny, conversation diversion, business risk

I would think.

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

#317

Post by ticmasta »

collyw wrote: post #174
puranjay wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a smart man. I wish I had done that.

Personally I would say the opposite. You should define yourself by outside interests rather than by what other people pay you to do.

But if you get paid to do what you personally value, isn't that the ultimate win?

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

#318

Post by mrskitch »

cdolan wrote: post #261
mrskitch wrote: post #227

I run a headless browser service called browserless.io. Got started due to lack of a comparable service, and all others seemed more geared for testing. It’s been around two years now, and makes more than any prior engineering job I’ve ever had. You do have a lot of other stresses you might not otherwise have, but you’ll also work a lot less than at a traditional job! I’m working on a few interviews for some sites, wh…

Can this be used for automated complex web scraping (for downloading invoices behind authorized web portals on event or schedule, etc)?

We don't yet do scheduled "jobs", per se, though that's coming soon. You can do pretty much any site out there since it's full-blown Chrome doing the work. As long as you have credentials to log into the portals (and they're not behind some intranet or VPN) then you should be able to do it.

You can just try it out on our live debugger: https://chrome.browserless.io

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

#319

Post by ticmasta »

gowthamgts12 wrote: post #137
jfoster wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your job is less than 10% of your income, why keep it?

Some people stay in jobs not only for money but for other minor stuff. They continue because they don't want to work alone, keep pushing themselves, keeping a routine, etc.

>> but for other minor stuff.

Like it provides deep satisfaction in an area they really value?

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

#320

Post by ryanlol »

ticmasta wrote: post #317
collyw wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I would say the opposite. You should define yourself by outside interests rather than by what other people pay you to do.

But if you get paid to do what you personally value, isn't that the ultimate win?

This might sound harsh, but if the best thing in life is IT administration for some company then you haven’t looked very far.

But hey, who knows, maybe they work for a charity or something?

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