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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#411

Post by wakatime »

MrDresden wrote: post #362
ratsimihah wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does top 1 code for 13 hours per day? o_o

I've used Wakatime now for a few years (I highly recommend it), and have been going through one of the toughest projects of my life in the last 8 months. At one point I reached ~16 hours per day (for only a couple of days). This kind of output is not sustainable for more than a few days without incurring serious problems from it. I have now gone back down to a more normal 6-9 hours per day.

Tip: Turn up your timeout preference.

https://wakatime.com/blog/37-when-is-time-tracking-too-accur...

The default 15 mins is very accurate, and only represents time typing not time working.

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

#412

Post by wakatime »

bobbonew wrote: post #408
wakatime wrote: post #341

Seven years ago I solo-started an automatic time tracker for programmers called WakaTime [1] and launched here on HN [2]. Partly from listening to developers too much, I waited way too long (almost a year) before adding a paid plan, but now it generates more MRR than an SF developer salary not including stock options. Technically I make more from RSUs and stock from past startups as a regular employee, but if I wasn'…

Do you have a leaderboard of the most popular IDEs? I was really curious to see which IDE is the most popular and how often it is used.

This page shows IDEs by most time logged:

https://wakatime.com/a-look-back-at-2018

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

#413

Post by bobloblaw45 »

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.

lol thanks for this. I felt like I was the only one. Being dirt poor doesn't help in the risk taking dept.

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

#414

Post by wonderwonder »

mittermayr wrote: post #357

My business is in my bio, don't want to link it here. Pays about the same as my previous job at Microsoft did, but with a lot less involvement — I haven't touched the main code in about a year now. I probably spend about two or three hours a week on customer support, that's it, really. No marketing spend, all word-of-mouth and Google. The idea came about when I wanted to post to Instagram, but the API didn't allow it…

What a great, original idea. Congratulations on your success. I love it when simple and obvious after the fact ideas take off.

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

#415

Post by wakatime »

codesternews wrote: post #355
wakatime wrote: post #341

Seven years ago I solo-started an automatic time tracker for programmers called WakaTime [1] and launched here on HN [2]. Partly from listening to developers too much, I waited way too long (almost a year) before adding a paid plan, but now it generates more MRR than an SF developer salary not including stock options. Technically I make more from RSUs and stock from past startups as a regular employee, but if I wasn'…

Thank you for sharing. How much time it took you to build first version and whole product? Any advice for starters?

There were several stages of MVP. First usable version took a month and half to build and public launch with 2 IDEs supported was 2 and half months after starting to build.

May 3 2013 - Started development Flask website & Vim plugin (https://wakatime.com/blog/1-why-i-built-wakatime)

June 25 2013 - Finished Vim plugin and Website (https://github.com/wakatime/vim-wakatime/commit/4346a055e301...)

July 1 2013 - Started Sublime plugin (https://github.com/wakatime/sublime-wakatime/commit/b7fe36f8...)

July 15 2013 - Finished Sublime plugin and public launch (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046227)

Unfortunately I don't have WakaTime data until after finishing the Vim plugin, but everything after that I can see how long the actual coding took by dogfooding.

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

#416

Post by shrimpx »

vfc1 wrote: post #327
tasuki wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps he genuinely enjoys his job? Why should he have to launch another business? He already started one and it's very successful! Let the man enjoy his freedom and have a regular job if he so pleases!

That is highly unlikely, such a mundane job as a sysadmin compared to having your own online business. If he liked it that much, then probably he wouldn't have started a whole side project that must have consumed evenings and weekends for years. If he would have found professional fulfillment in his job, he would not likely have started a side project in the first place. As he mentions in his own reply, he stays beca…

Your reply seems rooted in the fairly widespread assumption that having your own online business that makes solid "mrr" is some kind of supreme achievement and you should relish in it solely.

Some people have higher-dimensional desires and interests in life.

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

#417

Post by noobly »

binarysolo wrote: post #380

My former one-person online biz (2013) is now 10 people - we run Amazon end-to-end ops for a few large brands and manage ~100k SKUs -- basically the work is all operations research + grunt work. We do mid eight digits in revenue. A friend of a friend was the COO of a brand, spent a couple mil to position themselves online strategically, but that team couldn't deliver results. As a grad student in ML I spent a disprop…

>I spent a disproportional time procrastinating on Craigslist and Slickdeals and flipping inventory between those venues Did you do this manually, or did you have some automation to help you out (finding deals, relisting, etc)? If so, what did that look like?

And, out of curiosity, what's the hobbyist niche?

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

#418

Post by ryanhuff »

WA wrote: post #80
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?…

> "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 eve…

How has Ionic and Cordova performed for you? Have you considered moving to another framework?

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

#419

Post by duanem »

I develop Flowx [https://www.flowx.io], an Android weather app. It makes around $2,500 USD/month with about $500/month in costs excluding my time. It covers about 60% of my total costs including my time which is 40+ hours a week. I cover my remaining costs through contract work. This might not seem like a success but the business allowed us to move to the Rarotonga, Cook Islands from Auckland, New Zealand. Lifestyle-wise and building-a-business-wise, I think it's a success.
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