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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#501

Post by nmfisher »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #445
nmfisher wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interested to hear your experience with Earnest. Can you disclose how much you raised, what percentage earnings they take, and what the cap is?

Unfortunately I'm not able to disclose the exact details of the offer, but it was a fairly close to the default offer that you will find in their examples and spreadsheets. And so far my experience has been great! The money has been a huge help, but it's also been really great to have access to the mentor network and other founders.

Thanks - the whole thing really intrigues me, I'll spend some time digging through the material today.

Can you say what your monthly revenue was when you applied?

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

#502

Post by HatchedLake721 »

huangc10 wrote: post #474
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.

It's not just really hard. I think the hard part most people can get by. It's the luck part that a lot of us are missing. You have to be lucky enough to be that 1 person who catches the train at the right time. Imagine the odds of that. That's what gets me. It's not necessarily how hard you work. It's the window of opportunity that most people miss.

You need luck to become a unicorn startup. You don’t need luck to build a one-person online business, only hard work.

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

#503

Post by tagawa »

aacook wrote: post #460

I'm working on NanaGram ( https://nanagram.co ). The tagline: Text or email your photos and we'll send 4x6 prints to your loved ones. It doesn't provide the majority of my income (yet) but by far and away it provides the majority of my life's meaning. I haven't crossed the mental hurdle of sharing all my numbers publicly yet but let's just say it is turning a profit and there are thousands of happy NanaGrammers. I go…

Very cool. Can I ask what marketing you do? Seems like it would be popular once people know about it, but that first step to building awareness must be tough.

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

#504

Post by Insanity »

ThomPete wrote: post #17

Ghostnote is a contextual notes and todo app. https://www.ghostnoteapp.com It is profitable but not enough to live of when you have a wife and too kids and live in new york. I build it because i needed it myself.

That's a pretty cool idea actually :)

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

#505

Post by blunte »

esquire_900 wrote: post #163
throwaway21212 wrote: post #108

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…

Don't you find that whole pretending part to be unethical? With those kind of revenues it shouldn't be hard to either hire 2 and make factual claims, or just drop the whole we're-a-team claim. I can't imagine that building a foundation on these kind of lies towards your clients is going to be sustainable in the long run?

Pretending to be a bigger company than you are is not fraud, it's perception management. Whether justified or not, many potential customers will choose a seemingly bigger company over a smaller one (especially a one-person company).

Now if they were billing based on number of people working for a client, and they were charging for phantom people, that would be fraud.

This guy just has an optimized workflow that he presents as if it were a team of people. If the customer feels that's unreasonable, they wouldn't pay. There's nothing unethical about that.

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

#506

Post by HatchedLake721 »

adamqureshi wrote: post #207
acoyfellow wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome work. What does your overhead look like roughly?

Rent. Food. Utilities. $3,500-month Server $150-month Facebook $35/month

I had to read your comment 3 times before pressing “reply” asking you how do you spend $3.5k a month on a server, then realising it’s for rent, food and utilities. May the commas be with you

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

#507

Post by sideproject »

I run SideProjectors (https://www.sideprojectors.com) - a market place for indie entrepreneurs to buy and sell their online businesses, projects etc.

I created it in 2014, neglected it for awhile, and it was running on its own. It started to form a little community around it, so I finally got myself motivated to re-design this year.

It never made any money up until quite recently through some affiliate marketing channels, so it's not huge, but it covers the operating cost, which is very small.

For those who are looking to get into running your own little projects, come and have a look around. If you want to sell your projects and move on, then well, I'm happy to host your project for sale! :)

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

#508

Post by MiSeRyDeee »

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #502
huangc10 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just really hard. I think the hard part most people can get by. It's the luck part that a lot of us are missing. You have to be lucky enough to be that 1 person who catches the train at the right time. Imagine the odds of that. That's what gets me. It's not necessarily how hard you work. It's the window of opportunity that most people miss.

You need luck to become a unicorn startup. You don’t need luck to build a one-person online business, only hard work.

Hard work itself means clearly nothing. You need to work hard into right direction. And getting into right direction requires certain amount of luck.

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

#509

Post by MiSeRyDeee »

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #384
adrienjarthon wrote: post #146

I run https://updown.io since 2012, a website monitoring service I created. I'm working about 5-10 hours per week on it. It makes about $6,000 per month and is still growing linearly. I also keep a full-time job alongside for now as an engineering manager. The key for me is to take time, make something useful, delight your clients, and don't try to become uber or airbnb.

Can you explain who you customers are and why they want to know the stats for uptime and would be willing to pay for it?

I'm curious too. Tracking your own website makes sense but there're definitely better ways if that's your own website. Why do people want to track other website regularly?

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

#510

Post by zenlibs »

ezekg wrote: post #391

I've been running https://keygen.sh by myself for a little over 3 years. It currently makes $5.3k MRR. Still a side gig, but it's getting there.

Your IH interview [1] is one of my favorites! Highly recommend any bootstrapper to read it.

Wishing you continued success!

[1]: https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/2fa6c5e1eb

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