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Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

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Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#361

Post by boraturan »

udkl wrote: post #334
boraturan wrote: post #25

I am running Alvin5.com, automated video marketing app for local merchants on FB,Instagram,Messenger. Pre-revenue. Solo or 2-founder is fun. You can not go bankrupt Looking for a co-founder.

cool, I still have questions. So the user checks out online and presents the QR code to the merchant ? Sorry if that is obvious, I haven't used this flow before, nor do I use an iPhone.

this is one of the options. Customer clicks on a video ad for a local offer on Instagram, purchases the offer (via Stripe/ApplePay web payment), get the QR code(or Apple Pay NFC pass), presents it to the cashier.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#362

Post by toqueteos »

DizzyDoo wrote: post #167
toqueteos wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a cute little game, very nice work on the design! It feels super polished (both gameplay and aesthetically). If only I could be half that skilled with the art side... Have you considered translating it to other languages?

Thanks! I certainly have considered translating it, but at this stage I believe it's too late to be worth it. Not only is there the cost of translators, but in this instance there is an engineering cost as I made the classic mistake of baking the text all over the place, in binary level files, in json files, and hardcoded. Slicing it up and moving all the text into one place would take a while, especially as I'd want…

Thanks for taking the time to answer me and giving back way more than I asked for.

I have another question: how much of a hassle was setting up a company in order to submit something to Steam?

Good luck with your next project!

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#363

Post by alexgrcs »

pieterhg wrote: post #171

I'm a single founder, I'm nearing $400k/y revenue. It started a side project on here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8107222 and then grew over the last 2 years. 2014: ~$50k 2015: ~$200k 2016: ~$400k Also traffic also doubled every year, so revenue is tied pretty closely too that! This also includes about $7k/m from my remote jobs site which is also tied to Nomad List: http://remoteok.io . It's now a cost of li…

Amazing project and very inspiring! I'm curious about how do you scale to start getting revenue. For example, at remoteok.io companies have to pay to post a job. Was it for free at the beginning? How did you do the transition from free/low-fee to 200$? Thanks and keep up the good work!

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#364

Post by pieterhg »

xiaoma wrote: post #320
pieterhg wrote: post #171

I'm a single founder, I'm nearing $400k/y revenue. It started a side project on here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8107222 and then grew over the last 2 years. 2014: ~$50k 2015: ~$200k 2016: ~$400k Also traffic also doubled every year, so revenue is tied pretty closely too that! This also includes about $7k/m from my remote jobs site which is also tied to Nomad List: http://remoteok.io . It's now a cost of li…

> "Also dealing with the hate you get when you charge for an online service requires you to grow a thick skin." Out of curiosity, was the fallout over the lack of security very bad? I was in Chiang Mai last fall and nomads at coworking spaces and meetups were all talking about it. Several downloaded the entire chat logs from Nomad List. I was horrified to be honest but hadn't really chatted about much of anything yet…

What. No, there was never a security breach. We uploaded the logs because people asked for them.

Lots of people asked for the chat logs (of public channels only) to be public and searchable. Like the forum. So I made them. Then lots of people didn't like that and wanted them to be private. It was never a security leak, I uploaded the logs myself. That was the whole point. I've never had any security breaches.

It was never a private chat, it's always been publicly accessible by anyone who paid the entrance fee and then scraped it. And they could (and probably) have already done that since the beginning.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#365

Post by pieterhg »

sherlockian wrote: post #356
pieterhg wrote: post #171

I'm a single founder, I'm nearing $400k/y revenue. It started a side project on here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8107222 and then grew over the last 2 years. 2014: ~$50k 2015: ~$200k 2016: ~$400k Also traffic also doubled every year, so revenue is tied pretty closely too that! This also includes about $7k/m from my remote jobs site which is also tied to Nomad List: http://remoteok.io . It's now a cost of li…

What stack do you use?

Plain HTML, JS and PHP

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#366

Post by pieterhg »

arisAlexis wrote: post #318
pieterhg wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I live in the Netherlands. And if I want to keep living here, I can't just offshore my company to somewhere and run it from here. Especially not since it's a 1-person company. It'll be judged by the Dutch IRS as a Dutch corp. not an Estonian corp. Then I'm double taxed. Depends if you're audited or not for this to happen. It's a myth you can just open a corp anywhere and benefit from low tax, a lot depends on…

You can but I don't want to make a case since you already feel strongly about not doing it.

I'd love to be debunked :)

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#367

Post by pieterhg »

alexgrcs wrote: post #363
pieterhg wrote: post #171

I'm a single founder, I'm nearing $400k/y revenue. It started a side project on here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8107222 and then grew over the last 2 years. 2014: ~$50k 2015: ~$200k 2016: ~$400k Also traffic also doubled every year, so revenue is tied pretty closely too that! This also includes about $7k/m from my remote jobs site which is also tied to Nomad List: http://remoteok.io . It's now a cost of li…

Amazing project and very inspiring! I'm curious about how do you scale to start getting revenue. For example, at remoteok.io companies have to pay to post a job. Was it for free at the beginning? How did you do the transition from free/low-fee to 200$? Thanks and keep up the good work!

I usually start with a low price and then slowly raise it until I see a big drop off. Not scientific in any way but it works for me.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#368

Post by rajacombinator »

sixQuarks wrote: post #164
20years wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes 1000x. Marketing & sales are way harder than coding and I feel it is not focused on enough in discussions about starting a business.

I don't usually toot my own horn, but I'm really good at marketing and wish I could just find a good local designer/developer combo to do a startup with. I'm really tired of working with remote freelancers that don't do exceptional work, or they start off doing good work, then drift off into mediocre work. Admittedly, I'm not good at managing people, I just want to find people that work well on their own.

I'd be interested in having a chat. Recently decided to pause / shut down my startup where I did a pretty good job with the developing/designing, but marketing was definitely a weakness. So we could be a good combo. Email me at hnusername[0:4] at uchicago dot edu, or let me know how to get in touch with you.

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#369

Post by xiaoma »

pieterhg wrote: post #364
xiaoma wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Also dealing with the hate you get when you charge for an online service requires you to grow a thick skin." Out of curiosity, was the fallout over the lack of security very bad? I was in Chiang Mai last fall and nomads at coworking spaces and meetups were all talking about it. Several downloaded the entire chat logs from Nomad List. I was horrified to be honest but hadn't really chatted about much of anything yet…

What. No, there was never a security breach. We uploaded the logs because people asked for them. Lots of people asked for the chat logs (of public channels only) to be public and searchable. Like the forum. So I made them. Then lots of people didn't like that and wanted them to be private. It was never a security leak, I uploaded the logs myself. That was the whole point. I've never had any security breaches. It was…

Woah... everyone was saying there was. I hadn't been engaged enough on the site after arriving to realize. Thanks for clearing that up!

(I guess misunderstandings are also difficult to catch as a solo team, too)

Re: Ask HN: Single Person startup/company?

#370

Post by frankacter »

braindead_in wrote: post #104

I have been running https://scribie.com for over 8 years now. We have more than 11,000 freelancers and are closing in on 1.5 Million minutes of transcription. Growth has been fluctuating from 25% to 100% depending on the year. We never did much marketing except regularly updating the blog and some AdWords.

Hey Rajiv, I just ran a 4 hour set of interviews through Scribie and have nothing but great things to say about the platform, the staff and most importantly the results. Great job and continued success.
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