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

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

#321

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #178

chrishacken wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working on a deal with a local private school and that was the first question I got. "How can you offer faster speeds and better pricing than Frontier, Verizon, etc?". They were previously paying $2,000/m for 100 Mbps. It's not that hard to compete with that. haha

i've considered the psychology of our position. the difficult part is getting someone to understand that they have been vastly overpaying -- that means they must call into question their own (past) judgment, which for some people is easy, but for most people, is extremely hard (mild cognitive dissonance). i find it especially interesting that the question is coming from a small private school, who's business model is…

> offering a superior alternative to larger, better funded incumbent institutions.

I don't know that that is necessarily an accurate way of describing the role of a private school.

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

#322

Post by ikeboy » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

daveguy wrote: post #308

ikeboy wrote: post #306

I'll refer to my recent comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13267536 It's not quite single person, I have two remote virtual assistants handling various tasks like ordering, sourcing, etc, but you only really need that above a certain scale. Most of the business currently is drop shipping from US retailers to Amazon and eBay. I got started reselling a year ago with a specific stacking deal (discover had 1…

Who do you use for virtual assistants?

Onlinejobs.ph. Costs $50 a month to contact workers.

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

#323

Post by shawnbaden » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 5:54 PM UTC

jdc0589 wrote: post #209

This barely counts, but I started a small premium handmade custom leather goods brand about 6 months ago: http://vulcancrafting.com . cash/card wallets, notebook/journal wallets, belts, etc... I didn't want to spend all my time after work sitting at a computer. I'm not in the positive yet; there's an equipment investment cost, I intentionally don't keep a huge order backlog, and I don't charge as much as I could for…

Great work. Followed your Instagram.

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

#324

Post by enraged_camel » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 5:54 PM UTC

novaleaf wrote: post #168

I run https://PhantomJsCloud.com I started it as a free MVP about 2 years ago while in Thailand, and given that I was attracting a slow but steady stream of users I decided to build out a commercial v1 from it. The freemium SaaS went live in March and it's growing monthly. If I still lived in Thailand I would consider it very successful, but I am in the Seattle area now so it's ramen profitable. The biggest surprise…

I really, really like the "what can you do with it" section on the front page. I'm only vaguely familiar with PhantomJS, so I was getting ready to close the tab, but after reading that section I realized this is something I can actually use.

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

#325

Post by greglindahl » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

laumars wrote: post #39

chebum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for customers but not for business. Competition tends to minimize margins and profits. While main business goal is to make money, competition is against business goals.

Competition can also grow a sector, bringing in many new customers that may have otherwise dismissed an idea or might not have even heard of the idea without the exposure driven by the competition.

If a big chunk of the public moves from "should I buy an electric car?" to "which electric car should I buy?", then all electric car producers win.

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

#326

Post by novaleaf » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 5:59 PM UTC

sh87 wrote: post #252

DanHulton wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a neat idea, and a neat site. Can I offer just a tiny bit of design advice though? You really ought to have more vertical whitespace going on there. It feels very, very crowded, especially with your h1 rubbing up against your logo at the top there. Basically, anywhere there's a large block of stuff, you should double or more the whitespace around it. Though it may not be a winning strategy, good luck anyway!…

In addition to the vertical whitespace, also (I feel) there's too much text there. I would just put "Headless Browser Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) that's free for light use, and cheap for heavy use." in as big a font as I can without it being annoying and move everything else lower, visible when the page is scrolled. Add a diagram if you could that supports the core product offering. Don't add carousels (please.) Lit…

Thanks for the feedback guys, the marketing+ux roles are definitely in my "fake it" category :) I will try improving this.

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

#327

Post by adpoe » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 6:00 PM UTC

umen wrote: post #292

adpoe wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, basically there are software add-ons to Shopify that let you import an AliExpress seller's product into your store. Your customer never sees the original seller's listing, and therefore you can charge any price you want. So, as long as you charge a price that is higher than the raw cost + S&H, you can then collect money from your sale, and use that to purchase the item from the AliExpress vendor (this is automate…

Thanks for the info Question: how do you find the vendor in AliExpress ? do you need to talk with him before ?

You can--but AliExpress has a good reputation system. I mostly use that.

And if a vendor burns me, I remove their products and look elsewhere.

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

#328

Post by AndrewUnmuted » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 6:01 PM UTC

bemmu wrote: post #17

I've been running https://www.candyjapan.com for about five years. It has (just barely) made enough to support my life in Japan. I'm currently writing a "year in review", will probably post it next week.

I bought my girlfriend a subscription to Candy Japan about a year ago as a gift. It's been about a year now and I must say, it's really been a joy. We intend to keep our subscription going. My girlfriend and I are always so psyched when a new box comes in.

Thanks for the great work you do!

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

#329

Post by thetrumanshow » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 6:02 PM UTC

whiplashoo wrote: post #247

I run https://mapchart.net . It is a simple tool that lets you create custom maps of the World, USA, Europe, UK, France and more. I treat is as a side-project, but I am constantly adding new maps or expanding some features. The biggest advantage is that it costs almost nothing to maintain it, as it is completely client-side, so the only cost is the basic hosting plan. I launched it almost 2 years ago and right now it…

I saw your work on Reddit earlier today[1], nice.

I was thinking of building a mobile app to track movement and show this same data. Can't decide if its a passing fancy or not, so, maybe just a free idea for you. :)

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5m5tj9/cou...

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

#330

Post by adpoe » Thu, Jan 05, 2017, 6:03 PM UTC

jblok wrote: post #296

gthtjtkt wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the insane delivery times? Do you tell customers up front that it might be weeks until they receive the product? Most sellers I've seen on AliExpress estimate 15-30+ days for delivery. In the age of ubiquitous 1 and 2-day shipping, I just can't see customers going for that. Seems like there'd be tons of people who change their mind after a week or two and then start demanding a refund or pesterin…

How many sellers have delivery times like that? Do any have 1-3 day shipping? Is it because all products are coming from the far east? I'm looking into making a dropshipping app, but for my niche anything more than 1-3 days would be a non-starter.

I've never seen 1-3 days on AliExpress.

The absolute best (when the vendor has ePacket, which is like the FedEx of China) is 7-12 days.

But even then, you need to expect 2-5 days for the vendor to actually package and ship the item.

So you're much better off quoting customers 3-4 weeks. If 1-3 days is all that works for your niche, you probably need a new product, unfortunately.