Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#61

Post by gnicholas » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #55

gnicholas wrote: post #26

I run BeeLine Reader, [1] which launched on HN years ago. [2] BeeLine makes reading on screen easier and faster. At first, most of the revenue came from B2C mobile apps and browser plugins, but in 2020 it hit a tipping point and most of the revenue now comes from B2B technology licensing. Blackboard recently adopted the BeeLine technology, and there are several other large education platforms that are planning to ado…

What makes licensing possible -- do you have a patent? Reimplementing by a competitor, at least at first blush, seems like it might be feasible?

Yeah, patents. But many licensees are also just happy to have use of our JS, and to be able to use the name. The name has decent recognition in assistive technology circles and is gaining traction in among university students as well.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#62

Post by codesternews » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #20

I feel like the question is wrong. I used to run a profitable one-person online business. And I felt miserable every time I had to get up at night to fix server issues, or when I had to do customer support from my laptop while I was supposed to be on vacation instead. Now that we're a team, I feel so much better about the whole thing, even though profit margins are slightly lower than before.

What is your business can you please elaborate. Its fine. You started with 1 person thats great accomplishment to have team.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#63

Post by bluedevil2k » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:37 PM UTC

I created AuctionGo (https://auction-go.com) about 18 months ago and started getting traction really quickly through Google Ads. It’s white label auction software (like creating a private Ebay of your own). I had envisioned many medium sized businesses in the US would use it to sell commodities or host reverse auctions for suppliers, but all the interest has come from overseas companies selling all kids of things, especially real estate.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#64

Post by codesternews » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:38 PM UTC

makeee wrote: post #42

Divjoy [0] is now profitable and my full-time thing. It did $50k in year one and my goal is to break $100k this year. It all started with a Show HN [1], so thank you HN :) It was rough going at first, but I won the $15k YC Startup School grant [2], which let me jump into it full-time and give it my full focus. I managed to hit ramen profitable before having to go back to freelance. The conventional wisdom is that dev…

Its amazing! thanks for sharing. Can you please tell from where you are getting the users? How you got your first users and what you are doing for marketing?

Thanks a lot.

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#65

Post by LaundroMat » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:38 PM UTC

mg wrote: post #6

I run https://www.gnod.com

Please license gnod to Netflix :)

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#66

Post by dowakin » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

OptDuty [0] is ramen profitable in my place (like $1k per month) after 4 months from launching. Although it's still side project for me.

Everything started from a Show HN post and one comment on HN. Majority of paying clients are from HN too.

I started the project in May, and launched in August. And after 2 months I was thinking it's total failure, because target audience is too specific and my marketing skills sucks.

But by keep talking to a few early users I finally managed to convince them to use the product and than paid for yearly subscription.

[0] https://optduty.com/

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#67

Post by boulos » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

quelsolaar wrote: post #34

I license a fully automated UV unwrapping tool at MinistryOfFlat.com . UV mapping is the task of unwrapping a 3D model to a flat surface in order to put textures on it. Ive been at it for about 3 years, and last year I made 7 figures. I do sell directly to 3D artists. You probably know some VFX companies and game companies that have licensed my tool. I make a good amount from people coming to the web site, but the ma…

Congrats! I’ve meant to ask you/Brent: what do you think holds ptex back in VFX and animation?

(For games, it’s clear that ptex is basically a nonstarter, since GPU texture mapping hardware can’t / won’t deal with it)

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#68

Post by oceanghost » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

makeee wrote: post #42

Divjoy [0] is now profitable and my full-time thing. It did $50k in year one and my goal is to break $100k this year. It all started with a Show HN [1], so thank you HN :) It was rough going at first, but I won the $15k YC Startup School grant [2], which let me jump into it full-time and give it my full focus. I managed to hit ramen profitable before having to go back to freelance. The conventional wisdom is that dev…

I've been looking for something like this for ages. I have a small project I need to do and I'm not really a web developer. Muddling through setting all this stuff up for the first time would be far more work than the actual website.

How hard would it be for me to integrate with Authorize.net?

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#69

Post by abhinav22 » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:55 PM UTC

quelsolaar wrote: post #34

I license a fully automated UV unwrapping tool at MinistryOfFlat.com . UV mapping is the task of unwrapping a 3D model to a flat surface in order to put textures on it. Ive been at it for about 3 years, and last year I made 7 figures. I do sell directly to 3D artists. You probably know some VFX companies and game companies that have licensed my tool. I make a good amount from people coming to the web site, but the ma…

Congrats! Sounds really amazing and great to see commercial success too!

Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses in 2021?

#70

Post by quelsolaar » Sat, Jan 02, 2021, 8:55 PM UTC

boulos wrote: post #67

quelsolaar wrote: post #34

I license a fully automated UV unwrapping tool at MinistryOfFlat.com . UV mapping is the task of unwrapping a 3D model to a flat surface in order to put textures on it. Ive been at it for about 3 years, and last year I made 7 figures. I do sell directly to 3D artists. You probably know some VFX companies and game companies that have licensed my tool. I make a good amount from people coming to the web site, but the ma…

Congrats! I’ve meant to ask you/Brent: what do you think holds ptex back in VFX and animation? (For games, it’s clear that ptex is basically a nonstarter, since GPU texture mapping hardware can’t / won’t deal with it)

Lost of things. Lack of tools is one. Lack of hardware is another. Its incredibly useful to use 2D images as resources since there are so many tools, file formats and pipelines that support it. I have always seen Ptex as "UVs are hard, so lets reinvent everything to avoid solving that problem". Since I have solved the UV problem, there really isn't a need for Ptex.