I run a site that places bids on eBay the last few seconds of the auction. For each of the last 20 years I have taken home several times the average US household income. I own several real estate properties free and clear, have no debt, and continue adding to a trust to take care of my severely handicapped children after I die.
Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
11–20 of 29 posts
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
#12I run a website that helps people settle in Germany [0]. It's monetised through affiliate income, mostly from insurance and banking products. If you move here, you need health insurance and a bank account. It's not a very demanding job, since most of the content is evergreen. The website could run for months without attention, but I enjoy making the website a little better every day. I love being able to provide so m…
I am not in your space or even in your continent, but how do you go about participating in bank affiliate programs?
There are established affiliate networks, so you just apply.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
#13Hate to say it, but if you can identify the right niche, a basic e-commerce store and minimal ad spend is a solid route.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
#14I run a site that places bids on eBay the last few seconds of the auction. For each of the last 20 years I have taken home several times the average US household income. I own several real estate properties free and clear, have no debt, and continue adding to a trust to take care of my severely handicapped children after I die.
How does it make money? Do you charge the user a fee, or get an affiliate commission?
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
#15Still early on (I launched during the pandemic), but my make-at-home dog treat mix business is rapidly heading in the right direction and should hit profitability early next year. That said, that's in large part because it's just me and I'm not paying myself.
I came from enterprise SaaS before this, and on the one hand it's great to be dealing with something tangible. Every time I get the Shopify notification on my phone that I've sold something, it is the greatest feeling that someone has decided to shell out money for something that I created. Of course, the downside is that I have to actually pack and ship something every time that happens... that's the upside of SaaS - build once, sell over and over.
I was already making the treats for my dogs, so I started by getting a designer on 99designs to make the logo and packaging, throwing a Shopify site up and telling people I knew. Thankfully now I'm at the point where I'm starting to manage profitable search ads and I think I'll have profitable Facebook ads soon.
The business is https://coopersdogtreats.com/.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
#16Still early on (I launched during the pandemic), but my make-at-home dog treat mix business is rapidly heading in the right direction and should hit profitability early next year. That said, that's in large part because it's just me and I'm not paying myself. I came from enterprise SaaS before this, and on the one hand it's great to be dealing with something tangible. Every time I get the Shopify notification on my p…
Hey, I remember coming across this before on HN! I don't have a dog, but I liked your site, story, and product. Glad to hear it's going well.
By the way, one significant issue I just noticed: if I visit your site on a phone, the name of the company is not visible anywhere near the top of the page. I see the logo has the company name, but it's tiny and not able to be read.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
#17I run a site that places bids on eBay the last few seconds of the auction. For each of the last 20 years I have taken home several times the average US household income. I own several real estate properties free and clear, have no debt, and continue adding to a trust to take care of my severely handicapped children after I die.
How does it make money? Do you charge the user a fee, or get an affiliate commission?
If you win, we charge 1% of the final value price. If you don't win, we charge nothing. Therefore all of our technical support is from people who didn't pay ;)
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
#18My site Office Snapshots operated as a one-person business for just about 10 years, though I now have several employees.
It is an office design website I started for fun in 2007 to highlight the offices of interesting companies. At that time it was quite common to start a blog with a single and very niche focus. Over time it has grown into (probably) the largest office design site online and it a household name in that industry.
People on HN generally appreciate that we sell and host our own ads (they can only be static graphics).
SaaS sounds interesting to me, but I'm more motivated by organizing content in interesting and innovative ways.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
#19IIRC Plenty of Fish was doing like ~1m/y in ad revenue before the guy started hiring people in 2008. Probably a less viable option now given the ad landscape, but that one always stuck with me as a solo founder success story with a nontraditional path.
The Plenty of Fish story (for those unfamiliar):
https://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and-the-money-comes-ro...
Circa 2009
"Today, according to the research firm Hitwise, his creation is the largest dating website in the U.S. and quite possibly the world. Its traffic is four times that of dating pioneer Match"
"Until 2007, Frind had a staff of exactly zero. Today, he employs just three customer service workers, who check for spam and delete nude images from the Plenty of Fish website while Frind handles everything else."
"Frind has set up his company so that doing everything else amounts to doing almost nothing at all. "I usually accomplish everything in the first hour," he says, before pausing for a moment to think this over. "Actually, in the first 10 or 15 minutes."
"Plenty of Fish is on track to book revenue of $10 million for 2008, with profit margins in excess of 50 percent."
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person non-SaaS online businesses?
#20Ok i understand