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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?

#221

Post by cambalache »

brabel wrote: post #197
cambalache wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> otherwise everyone could be successful after reading a few discussions like this, or reading millionaire's books about how they became successful.

None of those things are actually copying, arent they? They are just reading.

Do I believe that everybody who actually creates a small SAAS emulating some of the ideas presenting here will be a smashing success? Of course not! Do I believe many will succeed? Of course!

This is like saying, how do I get to the NBA? Well, train hard everyday, eat well, get into a competitive basketball program since HS. None of those things are sufficient, but for sure are a great blueprint.

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

#222

Post by abinaya_rl »

khuknows wrote: post #21

https://pageflows.com has been paying my bills for a couple of years now To give you an idea of revenue, it’s about as much as I’d be getting paid as a junior-mid developer in London and requires a day or two of work a week unless I’m adding a new feature, redesigning etc. https://screenjar.com is also making a small amount of revenue, but nothing meaningful yet.

Thanks for sharing, screenjar looks interesting. I'll try it out in a few days.

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

#223

Post by nlh »

tomcam wrote: post #130
downandout wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds awesome. What is the name of the service?

eSnipe.com

Oh amazing! I haven’t bought stuff on eBay in a while but I’ve absolutely used your service before. I remember using it A LOT back in the early 2000s - it was my secret eBay super power before others knew about it. Thanks again and so glad it’s been life sustaining for you. Cheers.

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

#224

Post by cosmodisk »

xchaotic wrote: post #118

I hope it’s not off topic but it seems to show that one person businesses are probably not the way to go for most people- you will have a much more predictable income in a larger organisation and on average you will be better off financially too. Anyone telling you otherwise is probably a VC trying to make you work for them (or fail competing against them)

Nobody is arguing with it, however if I had to choose between 100K in corporate world and 80K running on my own, I'd go with latter no questions asked.

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

#225

Post by nlh »

soheilpro wrote: post #155

I'm running two businesses: 1: https://postsheet.com for sending personalized emails and text messages using Google Sheets and Airtable 2: https://pikaso.me for taking beautiful clutter-free Twitter screenshots for sharing on Instagram

Nice! Pikaso is something that's super useful (just started a newsletter, and was looking for exactly this). Nicely done.

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

#226

Post by fdw »

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.

Thanks, that's a very kind offer :)

Consider it just some basic help on your journey.

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

#227

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

hermitcrab wrote: post #25

I've run my own one-man[1] software business selling desktop software for Windows and Mac since 2005. Products with launch date: https://www.perfecttableplan.com (2005) https://www.hyperplan.com (2015) https://www.easydatatransform.com (2019) 2020 wasn't a great year due to the effect of COVID on PerfectTablePlan sales. But I've been profitable every year. [1] With a bit of help from my wife on the accounts and freel…

I think I remember you from the BoS forum.

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

#228

Post by akudha »

jklepatch wrote: post #201
vmception wrote: post #53

Yes, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has been very lucrative Basically its great because everything is client side so all you have to is make frontend websites for people to interact with, and even that isn't really necessary. You just need people, with wallets, to be able to interact with your smart contract easily. The smart contract you deploy has to address a pain point for existing users, typically by consolidating…

DeFi is really great for entrepreneurs yes: lots of curious users, lots of money in it, lots of VCs, can build on top of other projects without permissions, and no regulations. And with crypto prices going up we are probably going to see the next DeFi bubble. If you want to build a DeFi app, You need to learn DeFi development and I have a course just on that: https://eattheblocks-pro.teachable.com/p/defi-development-…

For a developer who has no idea about blockchain, how hard/easy is it to get into DeFi?

Also, do you think this can be a long term career?

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

#229

Post by sushpop »

lemming wrote: post #47

I develop Cursive - https://cursive-ide.com , a plugin for Clojure development in IntelliJ. I started working on it seriously in 2014, started selling it in 2015 after about 2 years in beta (during which time I had a daughter) and it has provided all my income since then. The sales are more than my salary + bonus (but less than total comp) at my last job at Google. This year is the first year that sales have dipped s…

Thank you for making. It makes learning and writing Clojure fun !!!

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

#230

Post by makeee »

sawirricardo wrote: post #191
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)

For Divjoy I'm using Stripe and PayPal (one-time payments). In terms of the code I give customers, I'm just doing Stripe subscription billing via the hosted Stripe Checkout page.
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