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

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

#191

Post by sawirricardo »

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…

Hi, I wonder what payment stack did you use? Is it only PayPal or do you use other, too? I'm thinking of integrating with PayPal API, too, but really didn't know the steps needed (not really friendly compared with Stripe)

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

#192

Post by koonsolo »

asicsp wrote: post #185

I sell ebooks [0] and currently they are my only source of income (if you don't count savings interest). I started writing books as a last-ditch effort in late 2018. Had left my job in 2014, was living on savings and the occasional workshops I conducted in colleges. I had plenty of material prepared for workshops, so I started converting them to books. First book didn't sell much but initial sales of the second one g…

Very cool that you are doing this!

May I give you advice as someone who buys a lot of e-books? A book is judged by its cover. Your covers look really cheap, and so everyone will judge the quality of your book in that fraction of time.

It's like a funnel, and a lot of people will already drop off by looking at your covers. Bad graphics, bad fonts, bad colors.

Hire a really good designer and let them make the cover. It doesn't have to be expensive. I'm 99% sure it will make a ton of difference for your sales.

Maybe try it with your best book first and see what it does to your conversion rate.

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

#193

Post by cloogshicer »

lcall wrote: post #134

It's not me personally doing it, but a relative is an effective teacher of 2D game development (godot, gamemaker, pixel art), with good pacing, helpful to customers &c (and pleasant to be around). Some examples of his work, which supports their family: https://www.youtube.com/user/uheartbeast/about https://www.heartgamedev.com/1-bit-godot-course-youtube?r_do...

Super cool! Thanks for sharing.

How does did he initially get customers? How does he keep growing?

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

#194

Post by biot »

node-bayarea wrote: post #115
amaurymartiny wrote: post #101

During the pandemic, I launched [link redacted], an open-source tool to check if an email exists, without sending any email. Not sure what "successful" means here, but I have a couple dozens of customers, which for me is a success.

Very cool! How does this actually check without sending any email?

From the GitHub source, it connects to the mail server for the domain’s MX record and issues a “RCPT TO:” command and looks for a non-rejection. Back when I was managing email servers, this option was typically disabled to prevent address enumeration and I’d be surprised if it still works reliably.

Many mail servers function by answering all “RCPT TO:” commands (for the domains served) with a success message that is effectively “Yeah, sure... give it a try” and, if the mailbox doesn’t exist, will email the sender a bounce message.

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

#195

Post by icefrakker »

kureikain wrote: post #187
fdw wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick heads-up: There are some grammar problems on your landing page (e.g. "it can be send out to multiple email address like mail group." should be "it can be sent out to multiple email addresses like a mail group."), and there's "superful", which I'm not sure I understand ;) Good luck!

Oh. Thanks you so much. I was meant to type `superhelpful`. Thanks so much. If you need an account, please reach out. I can give you a free account for life.

Not to be a nit but would suggest super helpful.

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

#196

Post by hurflmurfl »

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…

Hi, wanted to let you know that when I click on "see pricing" on the banner in the top of the page, nothing happens. There's no way to find pricing at all, since there's no link at the bottom of the page either.

I'm using Firefox 68.11 for Android.

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

#197

Post by brabel »

cambalache wrote: post #169
huhtenberg wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but this renders most of the answers useless. Interesting, entertaining, curious, but useless.

Not at all. That's how people have learned to do stuff for thousand of years, you copy the successful cases.

I think that what OP is saying is that copying the successful case will not make you successful - otherwise everyone could be successful after reading a few discussions like this, or reading millionaire's books about how they became successful.

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

#198

Post by rradish »

nicbou wrote: post #127
0x426577617265 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do I find your service? I am planning on moving soon.

https://allaboutberlin.com - I don't offer any services, only free content. However I do have a small network of trusted people I work with, if you need extra help.

I've used this before! There's a wealth of great information here.

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

#199

Post by asicsp »

koonsolo wrote: post #192
asicsp wrote: post #185

I sell ebooks [0] and currently they are my only source of income (if you don't count savings interest). I started writing books as a last-ditch effort in late 2018. Had left my job in 2014, was living on savings and the occasional workshops I conducted in colleges. I had plenty of material prepared for workshops, so I started converting them to books. First book didn't sell much but initial sales of the second one g…

Very cool that you are doing this! May I give you advice as someone who buys a lot of e-books? A book is judged by its cover. Your covers look really cheap, and so everyone will judge the quality of your book in that fraction of time. It's like a funnel, and a lot of people will already drop off by looking at your covers. Bad graphics, bad fonts, bad colors. Hire a really good designer and let them make the cover. It…

Thanks a lot for the feedback :)

I was going to say no, but you know what, I'll give it a honest try for the 9th book. I can probably afford it now.

I've gotten plenty of similar feedback before too. Grammar issues (English isn't my native and I'm not good at natural languages in general). Bland covers, like you mentioned. Marketing strategies, many which I do not wish to try (for ex: buy a domain for my blog and ebooks). There's just too many things to follow/maintain.

Researching, writing the book, reviewing and editing it, revising for later editions, etc are painful enough. I love the feeling of completing a book and seeing sales coming in, which so far has kept me going.

All I wanted since leaving my job was sustainable income and if I can maintain current sales, I'm more than satisfied. All my ebooks can be read for free online. I get most of my sales when I post about a new book on social media for free download. Both leanpub and gumroad allow paying more than the specified price and readers are willing to do so.

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

#200

Post by pythonbase »

sideproject wrote: post #147
pythonbase wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you got these approved from Adsense? Heard that usually have issues with content aggregators claiming such sites do not have original content.

Some sites have already been approved prior. We generally discourage our users to apply for AdSense initially (most likely it'll get rejected anyway) - so instead we recommend using other ad platforms (there are plenty).

Can you share Adsense alternatives that can actually have steady payouts?
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