Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#1

Post by cup » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 4:49 AM UTC

I've been thinking about websites and start ups and the limits or bottlenecks that are associated with them. I'm wondering if there are many people who have worked alone and succesfully built up a website or a company.

Is there a limit to how far you can go alone?

Re: Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#2

Post by limedaring » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 5:04 AM UTC

I built my company solo for about 1.25 years, got a cofounder for half a year (who then quit for a company who could pay more), so I'm back to being solo again on my company WeddingLovely. http://WeddingLovely.com was built entirely by myself and there are also five other vendor directories (http://WeddingPhotoLove.com and others). There's also a wedding blog at http://WeddingLovely.com/blog/ that I maintain and post 2-3x daily.

Being that I continue to build, market, and grow my company while solo (revenues going up every month), I'd say I both came very far as one person and still have much more to go before I hit the end. Don't let imaginary limits discourage you. :)

Re: Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#3

Post by whichdan » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 5:22 AM UTC

http://easyendorse.com - solo developed, launched recently. Looking through my commit history, I definitely have a few "quiet" months that would have benefited from someone giving me a kick in the ass.

Re: Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#4

Post by lscott3 » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 5:41 AM UTC

limedaring wrote: post #2

I built my company solo for about 1.25 years, got a cofounder for half a year (who then quit for a company who could pay more), so I'm back to being solo again on my company WeddingLovely. http://WeddingLovely.com was built entirely by myself and there are also five other vendor directories ( http://WeddingPhotoLove.com and others). There's also a wedding blog at http://WeddingLovely.com/blog/ that I maintain and pos…

I have to say that site looks pretty good! I didn't really read it or get into it (other than what you've stated here) but at first glance it looks really well designed.

Re: Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#5

Post by lscott3 » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 5:45 AM UTC

Not sure if you've seen any of the stuff by patio11 but he's pretty much bootstrapping his companies (Bingo Card Creator & Appointment Reminder), consulting and info products and he seems to be doing pretty well for himself. He's pretty transparent about his numbers on BCC and has plenty tips for microISV's.

He blogs here: http://www.kalzumeus.com/

*

I've just started to ramp up on doing a SaaS/blogging about the process. It can be pretty overwhelming if its your first go 'round.

Re: Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#6

Post by BobWarfield » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 5:53 AM UTC

CNCCookbook is my solo startup:

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/a-solo-bootstrapp...

Re: Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#7

Post by will_brown » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 5:59 AM UTC

Applied to YC solo with this:

http://www.solitaireinfosys.com/demo/will_brown/index.php

A social network combining YouTube and Google Earth. I plan to launch within 30 days. So you can get as far as launch.

Re: Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#8

Post by rex_gsd » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 6:08 AM UTC

(Australian here) I built http://www.trackmyride.com.au from scratch by myself. The system took about 10 months to build working on it daily after I saved up the initial capital. It has been tough work but recently with a change of marketing we've been gaining some good traction in both the private and business industries now. All our customers love the software itself so that's a big positive but I think I need to redesign the landing page again. I'll do that after the project below is completed.

Since June 2012 I've been working on a new project, solo again putting in a few hours here and there as I can which should be ready to launch hopefully in another week. That project is still in stealth mode until it's unveiled though. I was hoping it could have been completed much quicker but you know how these things turn out. Though the TMR business' hardware and software can work anywhere in the world the marketing for it has been aimed at Australians so hence all our customers are aussies. The new project will be aimed primarily at Americans so that should be an interesting learning curve.

As for bottlenecks, by far the biggest hurdle with Track My Ride has been the marketing. As a programmer by trade when I first started out I had no idea how to market the system and mostly it's been a case of throw a lot of $ and see what sticks. Having a co-founder with marketing know how would have helped a lot. That being said though revenues and sales are still increasing each month so as a solo venture it's turned out pretty well so far.

Re: Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#9

Post by nathanhoad » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 6:24 AM UTC

http://athletable.com - I built it myself as a side project and, while it's still early days, things are going pretty well so far. The only real bottleneck for me was redoing the entire UI about 30 times. In the end I just told myself that I could always just change it after launch if people didn't like it.

Re: Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?

#10

Post by namigop » Fri, Jan 11, 2013, 7:09 AM UTC

I started http://www.wcfstorm.com about 3 years ago. Been working on it on weekdays and weeknights and am now up to my 3rd product WcfStorm.Rest (a desktop-based REST test client)

It's been pretty good so far. WCFStorm (the WCF client) is fairly well known and WcfStorm.Rest is now starting to get some sales.