How many people on hacker news are running successful online businesses on their own? What is your business and how did you get started?
Defining successful as a profitable business which provides the majority of the owners income.
Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
1–10 of 294 posts
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#2I do consulting and software development and am technically a small business.
I'm down to a single client (much easier to manage than multiple clients) so I can pretty much pick my projects, work at my own pace, and get paid fairly decently.
I don't make millions, but I make enough and am happy.
Below isn't really business but was a brilliant idea by someone. It isn't my site but maybe it'll inspire someone to do something similar: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#3I run a small one-man-show publishing house: http://minireference.com. I produce math/physics textbooks for adults. I'm the author, business person, marketing person, and strategic partnerships person. Revenues are not stellar, but they keep me off the streets...
The value I provide is synthesis of a lot of educational material that exists out there into a coherent package (a book). In many ways, my work is similar to what linux distro package managers do: ensuing prerequisites are covered before the main package is installed.
I remember hearing one of the early Internet/www inventors saying the Internet will allow people to "live from the fruits of their intellectual labour." Does anyone know who this was??? With eBooks and print-on-demand this is finally possible now. I would encourage everyone with deep domain knowledge about a subject to start writing about it and publish a small book. I think "information distillation" is of great value for readers. Feel free to email me if you need help/advice with the publishing stuff.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#4I didn't create it, but Pinboard (https://pinboard.in/) is a great example of a successful one person business.
Founder Maciej Cegłowski wrote about it here: https://static.pinboard.in/xoxo_talk_thoreau.htm
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#5I'm doing http://justaddcontent.com solo and self-funded. It turned into a bigger project that I anticipated, especially for my first product.
I started working on it full-time in October. It started as a hobby project about two years ago. It took particularly long because I have a non-technical, military background and had to teach myself to code, design, write copy, marketing, etc. It's been a fun challenge.
I still work on it 12-14hrs a day on average, but I still love it and I love the problem I'm solving. The last few months I started focusing on product again and my customers absolutely love it, which is awesome. Now I'm turning my attention back to marketing.
Like the other guys, I'm not making millions yet, but I'm 100% self-funded and in no danger of running out of money. I continue to put 100% of what I make back in the business after my essentials.
I'm not sure when I'll start hiring, but I have some pretty major plans that I'll need help executing. It's just one of those things where it'll completely change the game, but it'll also change the dynamic of the business.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#6I run a small one-man-show publishing house: http://minireference.com . I produce math/physics textbooks for adults. I'm the author, business person, marketing person, and strategic partnerships person. Revenues are not stellar, but they keep me off the streets... The value I provide is synthesis of a lot of educational material that exists out there into a coherent package (a book). In many ways, my work is similar…
I read the preview to your book and it looks fantastic. Just what has been missing in school. I'm an engineering student and like many other will greatly benefit from this text. Have you considered writing more on math and physics? I would surely buy even more advanced topic like electricity, magnetism, and discrete math (Sets, proofs, induction etc.)
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#7I didn't create this, but http://viralnova.com is known for being run by one person and has been quite successful. Maybe the most successful that I've ever seen. http://www.businessinsider.com/viral-nova-considering-a-sale...
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#8I do consulting and software development and am technically a small business. I'm down to a single client (much easier to manage than multiple clients) so I can pretty much pick my projects, work at my own pace, and get paid fairly decently. I don't make millions, but I make enough and am happy. Below isn't really business but was a brilliant idea by someone. It isn't my site but maybe it'll inspire someone to do som…
I remember that website. In college my friend and I called it the Pet Rock of the internet. Still can't believe that idea made $1 million.
btw - I'm making a club for people to discuss/show their side projects and startups with other devs, check my profile for the link.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#9I'm doing http://justaddcontent.com solo and self-funded. It turned into a bigger project that I anticipated, especially for my first product. I started working on it full-time in October. It started as a hobby project about two years ago. It took particularly long because I have a non-technical, military background and had to teach myself to code, design, write copy, marketing, etc. It's been a fun challenge. I stil…
Well done! I don't need a business website, but I felt a slight urge to give you my money after reading the value proposition. I especially liked the "what we do vs what you do" part.
Re: Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
#10I run a small one-man-show publishing house: http://minireference.com . I produce math/physics textbooks for adults. I'm the author, business person, marketing person, and strategic partnerships person. Revenues are not stellar, but they keep me off the streets... The value I provide is synthesis of a lot of educational material that exists out there into a coherent package (a book). In many ways, my work is similar…
I read the preview to your book and it looks fantastic. Just what has been missing in school. I'm an engineering student and like many other will greatly benefit from this text. Have you considered writing more on math and physics? I would surely buy even more advanced topic like electricity, magnetism, and discrete math (Sets, proofs, induction etc.)
Hi tictac, and thank you for the kind words.
I actually have a draft on E&M which is 70% done, but I've now learned that it takes me about 1 year to get a book into good shape so I won't try to finish it just yet and instead spend the next six months working on the business side of things: scaling distribution and sales.
Two other topics which I feel competent enough to write about are probability and vector calculus so by 2015 I'll get to these topics too. I don't feel I have enough experience teaching more advanced topics to write about them---also there is less need for No Bullshit guides, because advanced math/phys books are quite good and bullshit free. It seems it's the freshman-year books that suck the most.