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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

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

#551

Post by spraak »

jasonkester wrote: post #67

I'm running two of the same ones from that list 3 years ago ( http://www.twiddla.com/ and https://www.s3stat.com/ ), and have just launched another one ( https://unwaffle.com/ ). Every year that passes makes it easier to get something like this off the ground, as the infrastructure becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, and the knowledge you need for the business side get better packaged into step-by-step guides. It's…

How do you handle terms of use and privacy policies? Is it something that you need to hire a lawyer for?

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

#552

Post by BoomBoomRoom »

wessorh wrote: post #439

One of my best friends helped me found and run the company (support-intelligence.com) for the first couple of years. I've run it for the last eight years on my organic farm in the East Bay (of the san francisco bay area) I split my time between farming and writing code. Support Intelligence is a boutique cyber security company. We have F100 customers and I really enjoy living in two worlds. The choice for me was simp…

This is fantastic. I admire this lifestyle. I want to be doing something similar in ten years. Living off the land and building digital products.

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

#553

Post by cmalpeli »

nateberkopec wrote: post #231

I made an almost-full-time income off programming content in 2016 (through my Rails performance course at https://www.railsspeed.com ). I'm writing up a big blog about how I did it right now, but the gist is: 1. Treat blog posts like miniature products - opportunities to test, measure, learn. 2. Have a unique voice and viewpoint. 3. Write about a growing or mature field. (early to late majority) 4. Main distribution…

GREAT product from a great guy!

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

#554

Post by dabernathy89 »

spraak wrote: post #551
jasonkester wrote: post #67

I'm running two of the same ones from that list 3 years ago ( http://www.twiddla.com/ and https://www.s3stat.com/ ), and have just launched another one ( https://unwaffle.com/ ). Every year that passes makes it easier to get something like this off the ground, as the infrastructure becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, and the knowledge you need for the business side get better packaged into step-by-step guides. It's…

How do you handle terms of use and privacy policies? Is it something that you need to hire a lawyer for?

Here are some open source ones that you can start with:

https://github.com/Automattic/legalmattic

Of course I'm not a lawyer and it's probably a good idea to get a lawyer to review yours, blah blah blah.

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

#555

Post by nbrempel »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #510
nbrempel wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those look really sharp! I still tried wearing a bow tie. I've always been a necktie kind of guy. Maybe it's time?

I personally like them, but every time the subject comes up I am reminded of the surreal line from the original _Dress for Success_ "In general, I have found that people believe a man in a bow tie will steal."[1] 1: badly OCRed here https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/131743317/

Wow, interesting article. Thanks!

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

#556

Post by dabernathy89 »

jastr wrote: post #431
napoleond wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you promoting your products? I am part marketer and part developer, but I am finding it difficult to market to developers :) I recently launched http://www.smsinbox.net for Twilio devs, and am slowly gaining some users, but finding it very difficult to reach the target audience, and/or get visitor/user feedback.

The landing page looks a bit too sparse (and unprofessional), which would turn me away. [1] Consider filling it out a bit more with: screenshots, pricing, a privacy policy, etc. Take a look at s3stat.com above for a good example, it's much more polished without much more content. [1] I send a few thousand SMS a month via Twilio for thesimplepostcard.com

Agreed, screenshots are the first thing I looked for and should definitely be there.

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

#557

Post by emodendroket »

beachstartup wrote: post #397
emodendroket wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

so how would you describe it?

I'd bet that private schools, on average, have more money per pupil than public ones.

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

#558

Post by emodendroket »

beachstartup wrote: post #398
emodendroket wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean surely the biggest thing is that if my ATT service goes out I can probably get someone on the phone (especially if I'm a business customer).

it's easier to get the small provider on the phone. but i mean, this is simply what you believe to be true. in reality, it doesn't matter if it's true or not, because you believe it. that's what small companies fight against every day of their life.

I'm sure he runs a great business, but unless the man never sleeps or goes on vacation he can't always be available in minutes.

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

#559

Post by itchyouch »

chrishacken wrote: post #109

I'm not sure if this qualifies as an "online business", but I started an ISP in November '15. It's also not entirely "one-person". I am the sole founder, but I do hire part-time help on occasion if I'm swamped. It started off as a WISP and has finally grown to the point where we are beginning to deploy fiber. The site is https://nepafiber.com I still work full-time as a systems engineer, but the business started brin…

Oh man. I hope this works out and it expands. My old company (now defunct) tried to do FTTX back in the early 2000s transitioning from dial-up. Got 15M from investors to run fiber in Hazelton, then Service Electric sued and funding dried out and everything when to crap.

http://articles.mcall.com/2004-03-25/business/3517245_1_fibe...

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

#560

Post by itchyouch »

dsr_ wrote: post #524
Foxhuls wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think starting an ISP is still a possible venture? I've been looking into it for the last few months but everyone around me tells me it isn't possible/worth while. How much capital did you have up front?

It's going to be extremely location-dependent. Your best bet is to fill a niche that nobody else has gone after because it doesn't fit their national standards. Remote location, or otherwise protected against a national moving in? No current competitors, or only low-quality competition? But with enough latent demand? If all three of those are yes, you might be able to make it work. You'll need to think about fiber or…

I have a friend that runs as a WISP on the side in Michigan as there are no other options. He only has a /26 given to him by a single provider, so the 5-10 customers he has are behind a NAT.
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