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Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

• hn_news 10y ago
  awesome, thank you!
• gargarplex 10y ago
  Does a consulting business count?
  • fiatjaf 10y ago
    No.
• NicoJuicy 10y ago
  Buildwith.com was a 1 person businesses I guess.
  • rghose 10y ago
    i think that's https://builtwith.com/ https://builtwith.com/
    • jelled 10y ago
      HN discussion from October 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10316060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10316060
• talles 10y ago
  IIRC pinboard.in is an example.
• sairamkunala 10y ago
  https://www.indiehackers.com/ https://www.indiehackers.com/ Here is a good list of 1 or 2 people software SaaS/websites along with interviews
  • chebum 10y ago
    Why people share their revenues? Every product can be copied. If you know revenue, you know what product you should copy.
    • blakes 10y ago
      Because transparency is good. Also competition is good, stop being afraid of competition or people "stealing" ideas.
      • chebum 10y ago
        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.
        • nazgob 10y ago
          Ideas are cheap, execution is everything.
        • mcbetz 10y ago
          Many one-person businesses focus on niches and do one thing great. Often they also offer great (aka personal) support. Also, quite often, they are great in building a community around their service. Additionally, many of the solo entrepreneurs are good teachers and share what they know. All these factors together make their services (and themselves) so valuable that a competitor with a slightly better price will not take away all customers.
          • chebum 10y ago
            You're talking about acquisition channels. Community, blog or webinars are great channels, but there are also organic search, paid search, traditional advertising, native advertising, bundling, paid promotions, upselling. If the copy-cat is better at these, their product will out-sell yours.
• spiderfarmer 10y ago
  I built a network of agricultural communities. Making a decent living from Adsense revenue. There's a substantial secondary revenue stream in the form of paid classified ads in niche marketplaces. I could make more money by going after advertisers myself, but I don't like the sales aspect. I am currently developing a turnkey website platform for companies in my niches, fully integrated with my other platforms, Twitter and Facebook. I will hire a sales person when that's finished. Right now I work from home so that I can take care of the kids when my wife is at her job. Because the revenue stream is mostly passive I still take some consultancy projects, but that's not quite necessary.
  • fiatjaf 10y ago
    Please, share a link.
    • spiderfarmer 10y ago
      There are 45 in total, my biggest communities are Dutch. Hope it's not against HN guidelines to post these links: https://www.tractorfan.nl/ https://www.tractorfan.nl/ (mechanisation) https://www.prikkebord.nl/ https://www.prikkebord.nl/ (dairy farming) https://www.truckfan.nl/ https://www.truckfan.nl/ (transportation) https://www.vastgereden.nl/ https://www.vastgereden.nl/ (bloopers! good for the views) https://www.boeren.nu https://www.boeren.nu (combination of the above) http://quotum.nu/fosfaatrechten/ http://quotum.nu/fosfaatrechten/ (niche market, covers the trade in phosphor quota licenses)
      • appleiigs 10y ago
        With so many websites, would it be better combining them all into one parent website, like Reddit and their sub-reddits? I see you have links to your other sites, but maybe Google rank for a parent site would be more prominent since the one parent address would have a lot of traffic. Maybe have a parent site that lists/links out your 45 (or just the a group of related sites) and maintain the individual addresses. Then have a link back to your parent. I guess this is more of a branding idea. Google Parent Alphabet, with Google Mail, Google Drive. Also, honda.com (You obviously know what you are doing, so take this is just a question, not a suggestion)
• chenster 10y ago
  How do you quantify "success"?
  • swalsh 10y ago
    This is a much better question then it seems on the surface :D Success is defined uniquely for every individual. For some success is finding a way to "earn enough", others success is defined by "having some noticeable change in the world", and then some it is "making a million dollars". Success is accomplishing a long term goal you've defined for yourself.
• UK-AL 10y ago
  I think it's getting harder, now the world is getting more developers and more fully funded startups.
  • devoply 10y ago
    Why do you think it's getting harder? I think it's always been hard and will continue to be hard. There are a few opportunities and it takes lots of time to exploit them if you get to them at the right time.
    • UK-AL 10y ago
      Simply because all the niche's for software are getting filled. Leaving only opportunities with huge hurdles to get over, which is hard for one man companies. In the early days micro isv's were fairly common, and well known. I don't hear much about them anymore.
      • mrweasel 10y ago
        >Simply because all the niche's for software are getting filled There's also a ton of new niches opening up, but you need to be aware of them and they don't happen in a vacuum. You can't just sit in your home office that imagine a new niche, you need to surround yourself with people doing other stuff.
        • devoply 10y ago
          Even if you surround yourself don't expect to actually understand. Lots of niches, probably most of them, require expert knowledge of the domain that's not easily acquired unless you are actually working in the niche and dealing with that stuff hands-on. The alternative is if someone with expert tells you their problems and then actually help you understand their domain, because they are willing to do that for you. But it's often not easy finding people that will actually help you acquire enough domain knowledge to be able to implement the solution to a problem.
      • torgeek 10y ago
• karl11 10y ago
  Stratechery is an example of this. If you get the FEI newsletters, many of the businesses they are brokering for sale are one person efforts.
  • mcbetz 10y ago
    I have not heard of the FEI newsletters yet and cannot find them via Google. Would you mind sharing the link?
    • patio11 10y ago
      http://feinternational.com/ http://feinternational.com/ is a brokerage of Internet-based businesses; presumably the newsletter is something that goes out to folks who've expressed some level of interest in attempting to buy one via the website. (I've sold two businesses through FEI.)
      • mcbetz 10y ago
        Thanks! What was your experience with selling over FEI? Both selling and buying seems to be professional. I wonder how many interested people it brought you and how smoothly the whole deal went and how much effort you had to put into it.
        • patio11 10y ago
          Covered here: https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_software_business https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_s... in a bit of detail and here: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/12/30/kalzumeus-software-year-in-review-2016/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/12/30/kalzumeus-software-year-... in briefer detail under the Appointment Reminder part. Short version: would absolutely use them again; they richly earned their fee both times by de-risking the process and getting me probably a better valuation than I would have gotten if I had just tried to ad hoc find a buyer through my own devices.
• bemmu 10y ago
  I've been running https://www.candyjapan.com 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.
  • mdoliwa 10y ago
    I saw your site in the old thread, how would you compare it 3 years ago to now?
  • xolb 10y ago
    I have just discovered the previous write-ups about your business numbers [0] and it is awesome! So much valuable information. Thanks for taking the time to share! [0] https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes https://www.candyjapan.com/behind-the-scenes
  • pawelwentpawel 10y ago
    I like the - "Try unique sweets even if you are in <country>." headline. Did you test the website with and without it?
    • bemmu 10y ago
      Haven't tested it, as with my level of sales it takes about 6 months to run a proper test.
      • pinum 10y ago
        I will say that it looks a bit awkward if your country would normally be prefaced with "The". >Try unique sweets even if you are in United Kingdom I also don't like the golden text-shadow, but that's just personal taste.
  • xiaoma 10y ago
    Do you think you've saturated your market? I.e., are you looking to put it on the back burner and build something else or are you still focused on scaling candyjapan?
• nicky0 10y ago
  Developer of Mac apps, selling via the Mac App Store. Started several years ago as a "let's see if I can make this work" project.
  • Vinkekatten 10y ago
    Do they sell well? Would you say it's harder or easier to sell on the Mac app store than on the iOs/Android app stores?
    • nicky0 10y ago
      Enough to sustain my modest lifestyle and put some aside for the future. But people with Silicon Valley salaries would probably laugh at my income. I have no boss, no investors, no employees to worry about. Just me and my ideas, on my own schedule. I don't develop for iOS/Android, but from reading about others' experiences with phone apps, I think it's easier to find a small but steady market on the Mac. People will pay for useful Mac apps. And the Mac user market is more passionate and engaged with 3rd party software than phone users are. But conversely, you are never going to strike it rich on the Mac with an "Angry Birds" type megasuccess. Mac app aren't sexy like that. (It's good, because the more developers are attracted to the glitz of iOS, the more they leave the Mac market for people like me...) Numbers-wise, consider that there are are 1.9million apps in the iPhone App Store and 31,000 on the Mac App Store.
  • SyneRyder 10y ago
    Have you also tried selling outside the Mac App Store? (The old Fastspring / Paddle / Stripe route?)
    • nicky0 10y ago
      Yes, that's how I got started. But I prefer the convenience of selling on MAS.
  • jventura 10y ago
    I am always curious about people having succesful businesses with desktop apps. There is even a thread that I started some months ago asking if there's anyone making a living out of desktop apps [0]. Can I ask you what kind of apps are you doing, and what are your prospects about the future of Mac development? I'm asking this mostly because I would really like to get back to desktop application development, but now I'm not really sure that I should target Mac natively, mostly because of all the buzz with Apple's bad decisions, etc.. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11658873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11658873
• casperb 10y ago
  https://nomadlist.com/ https://nomadlist.com/ is doing very well and is built by Pieter Levels He is also mentioned on IndieHackers: https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/nomad-list https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/nomad-list
• Tarlen 10y ago
  I built https://resend.io/ https://resend.io/ over the past 9 months. Launched paid version a couple of weeks ago and it's looking good so far
  • rainboiboi 10y ago
    That's nice, care to share some stats?
  • jeffreyjsatx 10y ago
    Really nice design!
• mihohl 10y ago
  https://parkplatzsuche.at/ https://parkplatzsuche.at/ Local small advert pages for parking spots and garages in the cities of Austria. More or less a online portal for parking, similar to traditional online rental websites.
  • holydude 10y ago
    Translate to english,slovak,hungarian. Profit ?
  • jlis 10y ago
    Nice! Had the same idea for the german market some years ago. Can you lie from this or create any revenue at all?
  • martin_a 10y ago
    Good to see something from the D/A/CH region. Motivates me to keep going. Best wishes from Augsburg!
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• nickjj 10y ago
  In 2016 I took content creation somewhat seriously and the end result was enough income to sustain living in NY. Not sure if it's worth blogging about yet. Are other developers interested to see how to potentially make software engineer-tier salaries without having to work for another company? (Note: I also started with nothing. No mentors, no following, no existing profile, no paid advertising, etc.). Edit: If you're interested, my site is https://nickjanetakis.com https://nickjanetakis.com. If you sign up anywhere on the site, you'll get notified when I release content related to starting your own business / building up your brand as a software developer. I recommend filling out the form at https://nickjanetakis.com/learn-in/2017 https://nickjanetakis.com/learn-in/2017, because you can include what you want to learn most about which helps me figure out what I should start writing about first.
  • cphoover 10y ago
    write an article definitely interested
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • charlieflowers 10y ago
    Of course other developers are interested in that. That's such a leading question that you risk tripping some people's BS meter. But still ... yes, definitely interested.
    • DeanWormer 10y ago
      Yeah my BS meter has tripped. Most of his submissions are links to his own site and his comments here are "would anyone be interested in ____" and "let me tell you a secret" self promotional spam.
      • nickjj 10y ago
        I only post comments like that when it makes sense. If you asked me, "hey I just downloaded Sublime Text, what are some good packages for a Rails developer?". Why wouldn't I link you to a blog post that lays it all out so you can consume it quickly? "Let me tell you a secret" is a line I used twice. As a software developer I like testing things and analyzing the results. So when I reply to people, I tend to make note of the wording and phrases I use, and then see how it does. Nothing wrong with that IMO. You could choose to ignore the link too, but I'll leave you with this. None of my paid training material has anything to do with "selling the dream". It's all tech courses related to web frameworks and how to deploy them to production. In other words, concrete knowledge that has guaranteed results.
• IngoBlechschmid 10y ago
  Tarsnap, online backups for the truly paranoid (mentioned on HN quite often): https://www.tarsnap.com/ https://www.tarsnap.com/
• tajen 10y ago
  I, alone, publish an add-on on the Atlassian Marketplace. I have several add-ons for diversification, but 1-2 of them is 99% of my income. Server sales are one-off (but 80% of my income) and Cloud sales are recurrent (better if you hope to hire). Define successful: I 100% live off it ($50k/yr before taxes). Biggest new add-ons are often agencies who can afford to sponsor their development because it's a customer funnel for them; I'm one of the rare new who built a business from scratch and lives off it. The Atlassian APIs could be difficult[1], but the reward is great: Being a vendor introduces you to the biggest corporates without having to be referenced or pass the Purchase Order process, so you can very easily sell to companies similar to Samsung, HSBC, Defense actors or Ubisoft. My advice: Build a real product with your add-on, not just a tweak to Atlassian's products. Tweaks = SQL reader, theme, formatting of mathematical expressions, ... Products = Balsamiq, Gliffy, time management solutions, architecture/CAD solutions, requirement management, accounting, aeronautical check-lists, etc. Be a bit ambitious and you'll be the reason why people switch to Atlassian and money will pour onto you. [1] Difficult = They're scattered between Server and Cloud apis, and architecture is widely different bw JIRA and BitBucket, but it's still possible to start quite fast with https://connect.atlassian.com https://connect.atlassian.com .
  • logicuce 10y ago
    Just yesterday I looked at Atlassian Marketplace and had similar thoughts (was looking to solve our reporting needs at work). Nice to hear about your success story!
  • LauraAtlas 10y ago
    Hi Tajen! Thanks so much for your input. The Atlassian Ecosystem was built by developers like you who saw the power of extending our platform and have built profitable businesses by selling add-ons on our Marketplace. We now have over 10,000 developers in our community and have paid out over $150M to developers selling on our Marketplace. In fact, 15+ developers have generated more than $1 million in direct sales each! We recently revamped our developer site (developer.atlassian.com) to help folks find the right resources and start building with ease and scale. We're always open to feedback on how we can improve the development process and ways to help developers like you grow their business. Give us a shout on our new service desk and let us know what we can do better (https://ecosystem.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/9 https://ecosystem.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/...) Keep up the great work and a big thanks from our team!
• malux85 10y ago
  I'm running https://SignalBox.ai https://SignalBox.ai alone, I wrote all of the software and am working on partnering and sales right now. Previously I have 2 other startups, one was media monitoring and one was forex. The media monitoring is B2B only. The forex trading is automated and run from my home research cluster. Both are generating enough revenue to live off (media monitoring 120k forex, 60-80k) I guess they fit the definition of solo founder and online, but they have no public facing websites (except SignalBox) EDIT: I also run a slack group for Solo Founders, If you would like an invite, please email me
  • pouta 10y ago
    Add me to slack please! moura (at oko.ai).
    • malux85 10y ago
      invite sent!
  • coolest_head 10y ago
    please send me an invite Velkur (at) gmail
  • hourz 10y ago
    email me : charles.quenum(at gmail.com)
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • apineda 10y ago
    Please add me to the slack :) alex at alexpineda dot ca
  • ColanR 10y ago
    add me? robinson.colan (at) gmail
  • devgutt 10y ago
• neophy7e 10y ago
  Craiglist and plenty of fish stayed a long time a one person online business while being incredibly successfull
• bglusman 10y ago
  Gabe Weinberg started DuckDuckGo solo, as well as his previous businesses... I think it was several years before he brought on anyone else, and while other early stage investors talked about preferring to fund a small team of at least two, he talked about how he was willing to fund individual founders :-)
  • jason_slack 10y ago
    Technically, I think he goes by Gabriel Weinberg. http://ye.gg/ http://ye.gg/ Not to be confused with: http://gabeweinberg.com/ http://gabeweinberg.com/
• jaxn 10y ago
  I am running a niche SaaS for franchisees of several buy/sell/trade retail stores. Http://ResaleAI.com I built the entire thing myself, handled partnerships, support, sales, etc. All while still running three of these stores. While I did all of the development, I do have a full-time executive assistant who helps me with a ton of things (email, scheduling, errands, etc). Now I am building a team because there is no way I would be able to maximize this opportunity by myself.
• switchstance 10y ago
  We're a two person startup that is doing/growing very well. This was no overnight success... we've been at it for years now. https://motionarray.com https://motionarray.com
• cookkkie 10y ago
  Hi, here's mine: http://mee6bot.com http://mee6bot.com :) . You can read a short article I wrote recently about it: https://medium.com/@anis.blk/the-mvp-that-got-to-480k-unique-users-0-dc179c8b4c3d#.sxrsvgm7j https://medium.com/@anis.blk/the-mvp-that-got-to-480k-unique... . Transcript: Last March, in my little darky flat somewhere in the middle of France, I had this idea to launch a little chat bot in a platform called Discord. I was coding all day long to deliver a functional and satisfying version of what I had in mind. These were the most profitable 3 days of my life… Discord is a slack-like application. The main difference between slack and discord is that discord is made for gamers. It’s free, easy to use and has gamers oriented features like a great and reliable voice communication feature. The platform was crowed with a lot of chat bots. But those were very rigide, and kind of complex to setup. They were generally made from a programmer perspective. The user experience was meh… My goal was to make the ultimate bot. I wanted to bundle all the popular functionalities that people use. Instead of using 10 bots in your team, you’ll just have to use mine. But for that to work, I also had to make the bot fully customizable. So that you could enable/disable any feature easily. And the coding started… After 3 days of hard work, It was time for me to find users. The first thing I did to gain some traction was to go to some big Teams and convince the owners to use the bot. I spammed a dozen of big team owners. The kick worked, the engine started and never stopped since.
  • xcubic 10y ago
    Have you thought about launching on other chat platforms?
    • cookkkie 10y ago
      Discord is great and provides a lot of features. So it didn't appeared as a necesity :)
  • chrishacken 10y ago
    I love your site design. Extremely clean and it very clearly shows what the bot is for.
  • snowcrshd 10y ago
• jasonkester 10y ago
  I'm running two of the same ones from that list 3 years ago (http://www.twiddla.com/ http://www.twiddla.com/ and https://www.s3stat.com/ https://www.s3stat.com/), and have just launched another one (https://unwaffle.com/ 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 definitely work, but once you're up and running, it's a lot nicer than having a day job.
  • jayroh 10y ago
    Hey s3stat looks AWESOME! I'm working on a product that's built on the back of S3 as well (https://shubox.io https://shubox.io) so this might come in super handy for me and my customers. Do you have an affiliate program my any chance?
    • polysaturate 10y ago
      This is really cool. I don't have use for it at this very second, but may in a few months to offload some uploads out of my infrastructure.
      • jayroh 10y ago
        Thank you for the compliment :). If you have any questions or want any sort of demo feel free to drop me an email - joel @ my domain above. Would love to hear how I might be able to fulfill your needs!
  • DonnyV 10y ago
    Which one is your most profitable? On average how long did it take to become profitable? Were you able to live off the first sites profits or did it take all 3 to do it? Do you have a family? I ask this because I do and if you do whats your method for time management and is it enough to support one. Great businesses by the way!!
    • 10y ago
• robinwarren 10y ago
  I started work on https://getcorrello.com https://getcorrello.com (a dashboard for Scrum and Kanban teams using Trello) 2 years ago. It has covered household costs since the middle of last year. I am still a solo founder, looking to grow the business to do more than just cover costs and probably make a hire or two this year. I've read these posts for a while on HN, it's nice to be able to reply to one finally :)
  • agotterer 10y ago
    congrats in your success! The project management space is incredibly crowded. I'm curious to hear how you marketed and differentiated yourself?
    • robinwarren 10y ago
      Thanks :) Luckily when I started out the plugins-for-trello space was very uncluttered. It was mostly abandonware and github projects created by developers over a weekend. So since Corrello is exclusively aimed at Trello teams and was one of the only tools being built fulltime just for that I have been able to piggy back on their success without a lot of serious competition. There is some competition and I expect more will come as others realise the Trello platform is a viable place to build a business but I think that can only be a good thing really.
• brooksyd2 10y ago
  I have been running https://www.awesomify.co.uk https://www.awesomify.co.uk by myself for nearly two years, and have only recently taken on a business partner. We are still in early growth, but have been quite successful so far. What we do is aim to provide small local business with enterprise grade software and tools in order to leverage this power to grow their businesses.
• rtfs 10y ago
  We've bootstrapped https://www.klimmzugstangen.de/xt/ https://www.klimmzugstangen.de/xt/ years ago. It's a one person business, but we actually split it among three people, cause no one of us had all the needed abilities to run it alone. Since the very start, it serves a niche market for fitness products and pays an average annual income.
• mox1 10y ago
  I'm the solo founder of http://taveo.net/ http://taveo.net/ (Click Tracking and URL management / analytics). Been running it for the past 2 years now. Recently got more serious about the marketing side of things and it's shown. At the current trajectory I will be able to quit my day job at some point in 2017 here.
  • ciokan 10y ago
    Curious why with bitly and others as main competitors. I looked at your project and doesn't seem to pack anything more than bitly for example and their free plan is somewhat ridiculous.
    • mox1 10y ago
      Sure , 2 main differences. 1. Bit.ly (and goo.gl) make their statistics public by default. Some people want private statistics. Our stats are always private. 2. We allow you to use your domain with our platform. You don't need an exclusive domain, you can use any domain you control. We just require a directory prefix (ex: youdomain.com/x can be a base for all Taveo links). We have other features: conversion tracking, link routing (A/B testing, geoloc, etc.) a good API, ability to download raw data, etc) but 1. and 2. are big selling points. Bit.ly's free plan also only offers basic analytics, we have the full package.
      • ciokan 10y ago
        Oh...never knew they are making the stats public. That's a good point yes.
• dgranda 10y ago
  I run https://www.fortsu.es https://www.fortsu.es (also https://www.fortsu.co.uk https://www.fortsu.co.uk, https://www.fortsu.de https://www.fortsu.de and https://www.fortsu.com https://www.fortsu.com) a price comparison website for running shoes. Original one is focused on spanish market while expanding into interesting ones. It started as side project some years ago when I wanted to buy running shoes online and it has been improved over the time. To-Do list never ends ;)
  • butler14 10y ago
    i'd recommend adding sitewide hreflang across all your ccTLDs to the list ;)
    • dgranda 10y ago
      hreflang attributes are in place, aren't they? It took some time to get them properly in Google Webmaster Tools 0:)
      • butler14 10y ago
        At a glance, I can only see them in place on your respective homepages, where it only has limited value. It should ideally be across all pages of all sites, so as to declare all 'sibling' pages, e.g. https://www.fortsu.co.uk/running-shoes/all/trail https://www.fortsu.co.uk/running-shoes/all/trail https://www.fortsu.de/laufschuhe/alle/trail https://www.fortsu.de/laufschuhe/alle/trail https://www.fortsu.com/running-shoes/all/trail https://www.fortsu.com/running-shoes/all/trail you can also use XML sitemaps to implement it, which tends to be preferable, especially if you don't want the extra bloat in the HTML of your pages.
        • dgranda 10y ago
          I will double check category pages (those you point out) but I am sure hreflang attributes are in place for product pages ;) I will check the XML sitemap stuff, thanks for the tip.
  • 10y ago
• docsapp_io 10y ago
  Two years ago I learnt new language (Scala) and wanted to find real problems to work on. So I built DocsApp[1] as real-world project as well as trying build profitable SaaS. Few months ago I plan to sell off DocsApp, but I got low ball offer because low revenue. Then I decided to refocus DocsApp and continue to build it. I wouldn't say DocsApp very successful, but it is getting successful now. [1]: https://www.docsapp.io/ https://www.docsapp.io/
  • rpeden 10y ago
    Thanks for sharing! Your product looks quite useful, but it looks like perhaps English isn't your first language? The grammar is a bit awkward in several places, and some things are pluralized when they shouldn't be. It doesn't bother me, but it might turn some potential customers away. If it would help, I'd be happy to go through the site and provide some suggestions about slight changes you could make. I'd do it for free, of course - it wouldn't take much of my time, and I'd love to help a fellow HN member be successful.
    • docsapp_io 10y ago
      Thanks for the feedback! English is not my first language and I definitely need improve my English! You can give suggestions and I will update accordingly. You can email hi at docsapp.io to request life time free plan from me :)
      • rpeden 10y ago
        Your English is very understandable! I only mentioned it because potential users will often just assume that a few small errors on your marketing site mean that your app isn't worth trying. I'm busy with work at the moment, but later today or possibly tomorrow, I'll send an e-mail with a few suggestions.
• rsoto 10y ago
  I'm running my invoice reception service (https://www.boxfactura.com/ https://www.boxfactura.com/) officially since July 2015. One year after that it became ramen sustainable and since it has grown at an acceptable pace for the last few months. I don't think I'll ever quit my day job as it is my own marketing agency in CDMX, but I'm quite pleased with it.
  • GordonS 10y ago
    I don't understand what an 'invoice reception service' is - could you explain a bit please?
    • rsoto 10y ago
      Sure thing! Here in Mexico, the tax law requires you to receive and store your digital invoices. These are in XML format. Theoretically you would receive them in your email and you're good to go, right? I thought so to, I was wrong. The XML has information, which as you understand, it can be (and will be) tampered, so you have to go to one government site and literally type the IDs you got from the invoice (I found one video, it's not as clear, but it gives the idea: https://youtu.be/pmafqaTcE5w?t=36 https://youtu.be/pmafqaTcE5w?t=36) to check if it is genuine. If you receive 10 or so each month, you can do it no problem (although it's a repetitive chore), but if you receive 100+ you waste a lot of time. That's where Box Factura shines, it is an email service that validates your invoices automatically, and not only that, stores the information in a database so you can search and filter (something that you can't do with the XML file from an email), and download it in a zip file including an Excel sheet (the accountants love that) so you can file your taxes easily. It's not easy to explain for an outsider—even being from Mexico, it's confusing. And that's a big opportunity for business of all sizes.
• acekings 10y ago
  I started working on http://pcappstore.net http://pcappstore.net, http://techbeasts.com http://techbeasts.com, http://techhammer.net http://techhammer.net, http://apkdna.com http://apkdna.com. http://phoneappsforpc.net http://phoneappsforpc.net, http://onlineappsofrpc.com http://onlineappsofrpc.com, http://appspcfree.com http://appspcfree.com and we are focusing on spanish market while expanding into interesting ones.
• HoboHammocks 10y ago
  I started Hobo Hammocks a year and a half ago (www.hobohammocks.com) I got the idea when a buddy of mine and myself decided to live out of our cars and sleep in hammocks on the backstop of an abandoned softball field. Doing so made me more aware of the homeless and what they are going through, and I wanted to do something to help them. I started the company and donate a meal to the homeless with every hammock I sell. Profits have been amazing, and I've been able to donate over 5500 meals to the homeless. I'm actually working on a new project now. It's part of the same company, but it's a kickstarter campaign launched yesterday for a sleeping bag called the Yak Sak. It's got a couple cool design tweaks which you can read about here: http://kck.st/2iEBiEf http://kck.st/2iEBiEf With every sleeping bag I sell, I donate one to the homeless as well so I can keep giving back. It's kind of like the TOMS business model. I'm still out to make a profit, but I want to do some good along the way. I hope this answers your question without being too spammy of a post!
  • dejawu 10y ago
    Some friends of mine are actually starting a business building hammock structures! They've built one that can hold eight hammocks together. They bring it to festivals and are setting up deals with colleges/state parks. They might be looking for a hammock company to partner with. If you're interested, I can put you in touch with them!
  • snorberhuis 10y ago
    I looked at your kickstarter and you rate your sleeping bag at 20 degrees. 20 degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit? If Celsius I am interested.
    • DamnYuppie 10y ago
      Do you mean Fahrenheit? 20 degrees Celsius (68F) wouldn't even qualify as insulation in a sleeping bag, may as well use a garbage bag and newspapers. 20 degrees Fahrenheit would make for a good 3 season bag though.
      • diminoten 10y ago
• downandout 10y ago
  It can be done. Probably the most interesting story I know of is that of a friend of mine that now makes ~$200k/mo from viral content websites in specific verticals. Back in 2007, before I knew him, he was desperate for money and became a minor cog in what turned out to be a large real estate straw buyer conspiracy. He claims to not have not known it was illegal. Regardless, in 2013, as the statute of limitations on the case began running out and most of the people that actually ran and profited from the scheme were serving federal prison sentences, his name came up, and one of the states involved decided to press charges. He was arrested and posted bail. He was eventually offered a plea agreement for a prison sentence of three years and more than $600,000 in restitution that he had no way of paying. Facing financial and personal ruin, he ran while on bail, hoping to buy some time to make enough money to offer restitution in leiu of prison time. This article [1] about the success of viral content websites inspired him to give the concept a shot himself, figuring he had nothing to lose. He launched a series of websites with viral content for highly specific verticals. He now has a handful of virtual assistants in low-wage countries that rewrite/locate content and post it, but was making more than $100k/mo before he brought in a single other person. The business has generated a Facebook fan page network with more than 10 million likes, monthly income exceeding $200k, and he has turned down multi-million dollar offers to buy his company. He was also able to able to resolve his criminal case by simply handing the court a $700k cashier's check for restitution/fines and a accepting few years of informal probation without spending a day in jail - even though he ran while on bail, which courts frown upon. As Eric Schmidt likes to say, "revenue solves all known problems" [2]. So yes, it is certainly possible to run a highly successful online business by yourself, and you don't even have to be all that technically proficient. I can program circles around my friend, but he makes more than most of the brightest engineers at world class companies do - where he could never get an interview, much less a job. He did all of this starting with nothing more than PHP for Dummies, the inspration from the ViperChill article, and a serious disincentive for failure (prison, in this case). [1] http://www.viperchill.com/100k-one-week/ http://www.viperchill.com/100k-one-week/ [2] https://mobile.twitter.com/ericschmidt/status/507219358246903809 https://mobile.twitter.com/ericschmidt/status/50721935824690...
• chrishacken 10y ago
  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 https://nepafiber.com I still work full-time as a systems engineer, but the business started bringing in more money than my job does around 3 months ago. I'm only still at my job so that I can expand more rapidly; running fiber isn't cheap.
  • Dragonai 10y ago
    I never would've imagined an ISP being run almost entirely by one person. This is super dope - best of luck in the continual expansion of your business! :)
    • disordinary 10y ago
      It depends on your country I guess, it's very common here where most ISPs by capacity on other networks. But also in the rural / wireless broadband space where you actually have to manage infrastructure there are a few examples.
    • jason_slack 10y ago
      I am currently starting a small ISP to bring internet to our lake community. Fiber from Level3 and Ubiquiti wireless gear (and other hardware, routing, packet shaping, firewalling, AV, e-mail, voucher system, etc). About 110 houses around the lake spanning about 1.5 miles long and .40 miles wide. e-mail in profile if you want to chat.
  • dbancajas 10y ago
    Can you expand on this? How do you compete with AT&T/Google? Are you pretty much on business because AT&T/Goog/TWC are not serving in your area? Can you do summary of how you grow the business if it's not too much? Really curious about all the logistics. Best of luck!!
• jayfk 10y ago
  I'm currently running https://pyup.io https://pyup.io I wouldn't call it a success yet, but it is growing :)
• adpoe 10y ago
  I run an ecommerce store from Shopify which fulfills the orders by drop-shipping through AliExpress. This is definitely doable for one person, and it isn't technically challenging for a software developer--but the hardest part (at least for me) is marketing, creating content, advertising, and so on. Actually running a Shopify store and fulfilling by drop-shipping is simple. I would definitely recommend that as a good place to start, one person can do it.
  • pryelluw 10y ago
    Im exploring similar options. Mind if we email? Please check my profile. :)
    • adpoe 10y ago
      Emailed =)
      • pryelluw 10y ago
        Replied. Thank you.
  • xcubic 10y ago
    How do you pick the products to sell? Can you share the store you're working on?
    • adpoe 10y ago
      There are a few good ways, but it really helps if you know the products well. For me, my site sells guitar parts and DIY kits. And I've been playing guitar since I was about 10 years old, so that helps a ton. I had a few other stores before this that didn't sell well at all, and I have to say that's because I just didn't know the products, or what the end users really wanted/needed/cared about. Great ways to pick products: - Terapeak (http://www.terapeak.com/ http://www.terapeak.com/), but this is paid - eBay completed listings - Or most simple (and what I use) -- once you know your products, search AliExpress and sort by "best-selling". That's my go-to. Feel free to check my store for ideas (or if you want to buy something!). URL is: http://modshop.guitars/ http://modshop.guitars/
• saiki 10y ago
  I have built an online whiteboard for software development teams, https://sketchboard.io https://sketchboard.io. It has passed break-even and working only with it.
  • spraak 10y ago
    That's awesome! It looks quite complicated to have made. I really like the colors you chose for the marketing site
• known 10y ago
  A bank in Germany has just one employee http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-a-bank-in-germany-has-just-one-employee/20130215.htm http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-a-ban...
• useruser15 10y ago
  I want to start a self help project. Iam looking for help with $300. I have seen something on demand in my country. Iam a South African man. Please email me: officew@yahoo.com
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• useruser15 10y ago
  I would like to start a self help project that can earn me income and improve my life. I am asking for help with $300. It will enable me start. I will appreciate your genorosity. My email: officew@yahoo.com
• jessegrosjean 10y ago
  I've been doing Hog Bay Software mostly as (just me) since 2004. Tried expanding with 3 others around 2010-2013, but I'm a developer, not manager. Also the whole app marking seemed to be having troubles. Back to just me again last few years. Main focus and income right now is: - https://www.taskpaper.com https://www.taskpaper.com The business is building Mac productivity apps for individual users... i.e. not focused on selling to businesses. I started because this is the kind of software that's always interested me. Tools to help you think and work better. I started part time for a few years while I had another job, then moved to Maine (where living is cheep) in 2004.
  • 0898 10y ago
    I do my best writing in WriteRoom – thanks for making it.
• novaleaf 10y ago
  I run https://PhantomJsCloud.com 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 got was how slow organic growth takes. Every month I gain more users + MRR but discovery seems to be the biggest problem. I tried Google Adwords in June but Google decided to cost me upwards of $5/click for basic keyword targeting so gave that up. I tried Adwords again in November and now google thinks I'm more relevant, so I pay starting at $0.20/click for the same keywords that cost $5/click 6 months previous. I am currently doing experiments to see if the acquisition cost justifies that spend. From a effort perspective, the SaaS api+backend itself was about 50% of the effort. The subscription service + user dashboard was another 50%. From a skills perspective, I think doing a SaaS as a solo founder is only practical if you have extremely broad skillsets: Business management, UX, full-stack webdev, devops, sales, marketing, support. Thankfully I have some experience in all those (except sales) so I was able to either do or fake everything required. If you don't have all those skills, you are going to be increasingly reliant on luck, which isn't a winning strategy.
  • jimbokun 10y ago
    "From a skills perspective, I think doing a SaaS as a solo founder is only practical if you have extremely broad skillsets: Business management, UX, full-stack webdev, devops, sales, marketing." Thanks, that is a very important insight.
    • novaleaf 10y ago
      fyi, I did a small edit: I forgot to mention "support" which is arguably the most important role once you have an actual product. I solicit users to email whenever they have a question/comment/issue and reply to everything. Overall I think I have provided email support to aprox 50% of my paying customers, and maybe half of the support was provided before they decided to pay, so it is very important :)
• MattBearman 10y ago
  I run BugMuncher (https://www.bugmuncher.com https://www.bugmuncher.com), it started as a side-project 5 years ago, then in September 2015 I packed in freelancing to focus on BugMuncher full time. As of November 2016 BugMuncher reached profitability - ie: it's my sole source of income, and covers all of my living expenses.
  • GordonS 10y ago
    My first thought when I read the name was that it only needs the 1st letter changed to take on a whole new meaning as a heterosexist slur. Then I saw you were in the UK too, and wondered if you've also noticed this or it's just me?!
    • nkkollaw 10y ago
      It might be just you... :-/
    • MattBearman 10y ago
      You're not the first to notice that, and it's one of many reasons I'm planning to change the name.
      • GordonS 10y ago
        It's a tricky one that - you don't want to lose the identity you've built up, but recognise the name may have issues. I'm actually in a similar situation; I chose a company name 15 years ago that I now regret because it's difficult to spell and pronounce (and I couldn't get the '.com', which I mistakenly thought wouldn't matter at the time). I've always been too scared to change it!
  • nkkollaw 10y ago
    Your blog is awesome!
    • MattBearman 10y ago
      Thanks! Writing it has been really beneficial, helps me keep on top of the figures.
• dangrossman 10y ago
  I run two SaaS analytics services on my own, https://www.improvely.com https://www.improvely.com and https://www.w3counter.com https://www.w3counter.com. Improvely is 4 years old, W3Counter is 12 years old, and together they earn $45-50K/month.
  • PerfectElement 10y ago
    That's awesome. How much do you make out of affiliates? Was it worth the effort to set it up? I'm thinking about it for my own business, but I'm on the fence.
  • nthState 10y ago
    Please tell me you have a write up of your history/journey somewhere?. You get a +1 from me!
    • chudi 10y ago
      Check his comments history, the story was already told multiple times
• RomanPushkin 10y ago
  Just started http://libretaxi.org http://libretaxi.org - uber alternative for communities and remote regions. Not earning anything at the moment, but got 400+ users.
• useruser15 10y ago
  I am a South African man looking for help with $300 I want to start a self help project that can earn me some money. I am unemployed and going through difficulties. I have a project l want to do that can help me. l am appealing for your kindness. If you can help Please email me: officew@yahoo.com
• christudor 10y ago
  I run an online education website called MASSOLIT (www.massolit.io) by myself. We make short educational videos! Unlike lots of other ed-tech companies (e.g. Khan Academy, edX, etc.) the main focus is on the liberal arts, so there's lots of stuff on literature, history, philosophy, etc. We mainly sell to high schools, who pay a (small) annual fee to access the vids, with teachers using the vids in class as basis for class discussion or setting them as homework as part of a 'flipped classroom' model. Not making a huge amount of money at the moment, but growth is pretty good...
• acoyfellow 10y ago
  I've been running https://OptKit.com https://OptKit.com for about 3 years. Launched it to almost immediate ramen profitability, but haven't focused full time on it yet. Bills get paid through consulting. On schedule to re-launch within 1-2 months with a stricter focus, better defined use-cases, and stronger differentiation from competition.
  • DanHulton 10y ago
    I had to close a fake chat interface and a bottom overlay (with a semi-insulting "no I don't want my website to be amazing" style message) before I could see enough of your site to make sense of it and begin to read it. Then a full-page popover obscured literally the entire site. Not to sound too mean, but you lost me. I can't honestly be bothered to read sites that employ these tricks, and you flooded me with them. I had to fight my way past them just to read your core value proposition. And on reading further, it looks like all those popups... are your core value proposition? Your tech may be wonderful, but I feel like you don't understand its influence on people's browsing behaviour - these tricks drive people away, not towards. (Also, you have a spelling error in your hero section: "Call-To-Action's" does not require the apostrophe, as it is not possessive.)
    • acoyfellow 10y ago
      Thanks for checking it out -- and more importantly the great feedback :) The page is definitely geared towards people who are already interested in this type of tool, so showcasing some of the functionality that they came for has improved conversions for me. It's also not a tool for every business to use. A nearly cold-click (like yours was - you're in a thread about solo founders - not on the hunt for tools to help you improve website conversions) experience is something that can be drastically improved - it's just a matter of matching the expectations to the experience. I've taken off the Drift automated message, which was overlaying and adding to confusion - sorry about that. I'm not sure what call-to-action close button got your goat, but I don't particularly like the snarky tones in popups myself, and they've never tested to improve conversions for me or clients. I'd be glad to work on the messaging if I knew which CTA you were talking about. Seriously, thanks for taking your time to check it out and reply. Means a lot :)
• DizzyDoo 10y ago
  I got started writing video games at University in England, when there was a thriving marketplace for games written in Flash, and websites would buy licenses (sometimes exclusive ones) to have your game on their site, this is back in '09. From a student's perspective some would pay really well, a few thousand dollars for a project that would take a few months. Seven years later I find myself running a business making video games in the more traditional pay-to-download format, like this one, called The Cat Machine - http://store.steampowered.com/app/386900 http://store.steampowered.com/app/386900. I'm sure compared to other online businesses, or even other indie game developers, comprised of one person it's not mind-blowingly successful, but my games have paid my modest (single guy) living costs while I work on my next project. My games are multi-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) and I sell on my website, Steam, Humble Bundle, the Apple Mac Store and a few other places, and they write me cheques every month. Every project has a long tail with regards to revenue, and occasionally there are spikes, like the Steam Holiday sale a few days ago, and just this morning I woke up to The Cat Machine being on the main page of Apple's Mac Store in a 'Popular Puzzlers' section. Each of these bump my budget for my next projects up another month or so. The initial sales spike when a game is released is bit crazy, suddenly having your salary for the next one and a half years dropped into your bank account all in one go. The reason I can do this as a one-man band is that I can program, but I also have some artistic skill, so I can draw and digital paint and animate. To speed up development as much as I can, I write within the Unity engine with C#, which has a great pipeline for art assets, which I create in Photoshop and Spine for 2D characters and textures, and The Foundry's excellent Modo software for 3D assets. The only things I don't do for my games are the music, I have an excellent composer friend who works for TV and Film, and I'd be silly not to contract him to do that. But apart from that, I do all the design, writing, programming, marketing, etc, which is part of the fun, wearing lots of different hats. If you're _really_ interested in how I work, I actually do a series of high-level development videos on my current project: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsg018B0PK60ZoaNqw_inBLedtfktOSeP https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsg018B0PK60ZoaNqw_in... Also happy to answer any questions, within reason, about making a living making games about cats riding around on trains.
  • RUG3Y 10y ago
    Thanks for sharing so much information about your business, your work is very cool and this is a fabulous post. I'm just getting into game development as a hobby. I'm really interested in indie stuff, simpler games that can be made by one person.
• dr_win 10y ago
  Selling macOS apps at https://www.binaryage.com https://www.binaryage.com. TotalFinder.app sales is what allowed me to work on my own projects full time. This is what I personally define as a success. I own 100% of my time and stuff I create. Since introduction of macOS system integrity protection sales have been poor. But luckily I made enough in previous years so I have pretty long runway to build something new. If you are interested how it got started you might want to read my blog posts from 2009 - 2011: https://blog.binaryage.com https://blog.binaryage.com Have been investing heavily into Clojure(Script) tools and libraries over last 2 years: https://github.com/binaryage/dirac https://github.com/binaryage/cljs-devtools https://github.com/binaryage/chromex https://github.com/binaryage/cljs-oops https://github.com/binaryage/env-config https://github.com/darwin/plastic
  • jawn- 10y ago
    totalspaces2 is terrific! thank you for that.
• kd22 10y ago
  I recently built a Yoga Subscription Box service with my girlfriend called https://www.namaslaybox.com/ https://www.namaslaybox.com/ We are both programmers and she always wanted to do something like this so gave it a shot..It's been successful so far and we are starting to see a rise in orders. Like a lot of people here, we started from scratch. No mentors, no prior experience. Worked on it weeknights and weekends.
  • nthState 10y ago
    Hi, do you have any public stats?
    • kd22 10y ago
      What kind of stats are you looking for ?
      • nthState 10y ago
        Hi, Things like, traffic to your site, conversion rate? Thanks!
        • kd22 10y ago
          It's been only 1 month so I don't have much numbers but here goes.. 1. Traffic for the most part is from USA. 2. I am seeing about 200 unique visitors per day.
• maxsavin 10y ago
  I've turned an OS development tool project into a business. It all happened by accident. http://meteor.toys http://meteor.toys
• adrianh 10y ago
  I run https://www.soundslice.com/ https://www.soundslice.com/ with one other full-time person. We're self-funded and make a profit at this point. Soundslice is interactive sheet music synced with audio/video recordings — the Internet's best software for learning pieces of music. We make money by licensing the technology, taking a cut of lessons in a video-lesson marketplace, plus charging $20/month for a "pro" version (Soundslice For Teachers). We're happily bootstrapped and located comfortably far from the La La Land of Silicon Valley. (I moved from Chicago to Amsterdam a year ago, and my partner is in Chicago.) In fact, being able to tell potential customers/partners that we're not a "conventional" startup (one that just wants to sell out to give its investors a return) has been an unexpected benefit. The story resonates with people, and it's good for building trust.
  • knicholes 10y ago
    That and you're a Django/Python legend! I love that your combined passions in life have brought such an incredible tool to the world while also bringing you a profit.
  • accraze 10y ago
    soundslice is awesome!
  • purple-dragon 10y ago
    I was just looking for something modern to keep my sight reading practice interesting... oh, the serendipity; this looks really nice!
  • sideproject 10y ago
    I saw soundslice a few years ago and I thought "My gosh this is a cool awesome application" - great to see that it's going well!
• tylerhall 10y ago
  I started selling macOS (and now iOS) software on my own website back in 2007. https://clickontyler.com https://clickontyler.com My original goal was to earn enough money to refinish the hardwood floors in my house. Since then, however, it's taken on a life of its own and become a suite of three main products. It enables me to live comfortably in the Nashville suburbs. All that said, I've been doing this for ten years now and am burnt out. If anyone would like to buy me out and take over the business, I'm open to offers.
  • stunthamsterio 10y ago
    HostBuddy is the perfect example of an app I didn't realise I needed until I tried it. My hat goes off to you sir.
  • dr_win 10y ago
    Nice job. You've been an inspiration. Best luck looking for someone to take over. We've tried to do a similar thing, I was burnt out and we found another dev to take over: https://blog.binaryage.com/meet-steve-the-new-lead https://blog.binaryage.com/meet-steve-the-new-lead It didn't work out in the end. But at least I got 10 months of "recovery time" out of it. And that seems helped a lot. Maybe you just need a break for 6+ months and then you could return with recharged batteries. The challenge is how to "park" your business in capable hands. Product maintenance/support is a serious burden.
    • jly 10y ago
      I thought I recognized that link...I've been a user of TotalSpaces for years. Great products.
  • shefaliprateek 10y ago
    I'd recommend, you consider FEInternational to help you broker a buyout.
    • tylerhall 10y ago
      I'm not familiar with them. What would they help me with?
• jdc0589 10y ago
  This barely counts, but I started a small premium handmade custom leather goods brand about 6 months ago: http://vulcancrafting.com 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 some stuff. But, it more than pays for the hobby at this point, and I should recoup costs and start turning a profit in a couple months.
  • kerryfalk 10y ago
    A friend of mine has been doing this for many years. I have bought a lot from him, and he's not cheap. I know he could make a lot more if he worked on his marketing a little bit, but I'm not sure he wants to. https://www.instagram.com/madeinzaidasbasement/ https://www.instagram.com/madeinzaidasbasement/ Anyway, I love that there are more people doing this kind of stuff. Good luck!
    • jdc0589 10y ago
      he's got some good looking bags! Still strategizing on if I want to move in to any larger stuff like that.
  • aarondf 10y ago
    Really beautiful work
    • jdc0589 10y ago
      thanks!
  • shawnbaden 10y ago
    Great work. Followed your Instagram.
    • jdc0589 10y ago
• rbur0425 10y ago
  I think theres a bunch that start as one person type businesses and then grow from there Examples: ConvertKit.Com with Nathan Barry, PaperlessPipeline.Com Dane Maxwell, MailParser.Com is only 2 people i believe
• mohoyt 10y ago
  I've been running Bowtiful Ties (http://www.bowtifulties.com http://www.bowtifulties.com) as a side project for the last 4 or so years. Everything is vertically integrated and hand made by myself, from the bow ties, to the packaging, to the website and all processes. Bootstrapped from the start, it's pretty low volume, but nicely profitable.
  • nbrempel 10y ago
    Those look really sharp! I still tried wearing a bow tie. I've always been a necktie kind of guy. Maybe it's time?
    • blacksmith_tb 10y ago
      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/ https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/131743317/
      • nbrempel 10y ago
        Wow, interesting article. Thanks!
  • bravura 10y ago
    Can you please offer Jackson style bowties? These look beautiful in so many settings, but are very hard to find. Diamond are quite nice too. Lastly, consider doing double-sided bowties, with different fabrics on each sides. But, Jackson bowties would be something I'd order in a heartbeat. http://jayaustinbowties.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bow_tie_shapes_f_1_49_1_1_1_1_1_1_1_1_1_2_1_1_1_1_1_1.jpg http://jayaustinbowties.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bow_t... (My email is in my profile, reach out if you do start offering these.)
    • mohoyt 10y ago
      Absolutely - some of the earlier ties are more Jackson style rather than Windsor, but as most ties are made to order, I can made up any tie in a Jackson style should you wish :) Most of the ties available at the moment are double sided, with completely different patterns either side (e.g. https://www.instagram.com/p/72rT_CmzYZ/ https://www.instagram.com/p/72rT_CmzYZ/)
• nateberkopec 10y ago
  I made an almost-full-time income off programming content in 2016 (through my Rails performance course at https://www.railsspeed.com 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 channels are email newsletter and social media. 5. Create an information product (book, course, videos, whatever) and convert newsletter signups into sales.
  • xcubic 10y ago
    Where will you publish it?
  • DanHulton 10y ago
    Interested in that blog post, but you don't have your blog linked in your profile or anywhere.
  • umen 10y ago
    This is great site! i want to do the same concept but with java + spring mvc and angular Question how did you market your site ?
  • cmalpeli 10y ago
    GREAT product from a great guy!
• beeker87 10y ago
  My previous SaaS product, Navilytics, I built from scratch and ran completely on my own (minus a couple of blog posts from a friend). It very well could have been successful, but I made the mistake of thinking the product would sell itself and never did any real promotion leading up to launch. I paid for this as another competitor, who had the same idea I had at the same time and built their own version of the product, starting marketing it before it was even in beta. They're doing > $1 mil per year now in revenue. Previous one before that was an affiliate network I ran with a buddy of mine, so just two people. We did very well with this one (but only mildly when compared to other large affiliate networks at the time). My new project, I'm working with a buddy of mine who's good at the things I'm not so good at. While I think it's 100% possible to be a sole founder and do very well, having a solid team makes the entire process a lot easier. Plus, having people to bounce ideas off of usually leads to making better decisions.
• fbelzile 10y ago
  I started Cold Turkey about 5 years ago and it's just recently started to generate enough income that I can work on it full time. Cold Turkey temporarily blocks websites and applications to help you focus on your work: https://getcoldturkey.com https://getcoldturkey.com
  • devgutt 10y ago
    How do you make money? I didn't find any pricing page or premium plan.
    • fbelzile 10y ago
      There's a link at the top: https://getcoldturkey.com/pricing/ https://getcoldturkey.com/pricing/
      • devgutt 10y ago
        This is what I see on mobile (Android): https://postimg.org/image/hmixjrbop/ https://postimg.org/image/hmixjrbop/
• up_and_up 10y ago
  Indie Hackers has some great solo-founder stories: https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses?numFounders=Solo%20Founder https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses?numFounders=Solo%20F...
• benmorris 10y ago
  I run a network of online vinyl lettering design sites I have written over a period of 5 years. I started with the custom cart platform on asp.net MVC and just one website. It is a multi tenant platform with end to end web to print capability. The designers are built in Knockout in a modular way so bits and pieces can be tweaked depending on the use. The Racing site is written in Durandal so not all of the code has been rewritten. I now have 4 websites on the platform. I also wrote a stand alone cloud based service to handle the image generation (http://ionapi.com http://ionapi.com) and outputting vector files for production. It was originally intended to be open but I have gotten so swamped handling production it hasn't materialized. Most of the nuts and bolts of it are there, but no documentation. I do have it setup behind HAproxy and load balanced on several servers. I farm out most of the production process but handle customer service. I originally got into all of this to be a side income to supplement web consulting. I have since concluded I hate all of the baggage that comes along with dealing with small town local businesses. I have been fortunate enough to be able to move into a bigger facility for production now and intend to do some work in house now along with hiring an employee or two rather than farm out. A few of my sites: Image Generation API - https://ionapi.com https://ionapi.com Boat Decals - https://boatdecals.biz https://boatdecals.biz Race Graphics - https://racegraphics.com https://racegraphics.com
• chrischen 10y ago
  I run https://www.instapainting.com https://www.instapainting.com by myself amd it started as a single page with a stripe checkout form.
  • nthState 10y ago
    Your IndieHackers article was ace! Thanks
• idlewords 10y ago
  I run Pinboard, $257K in gross revenue for 2016. A ton of money for one person, not quite enough for two people.
  • nthState 10y ago
    Hi, I'm guesstimating 25'000 paying users? - Do you have a writeup on your marketing?
    • tomek_zemla 10y ago
      Maciej blogs extensively... This is a good starting point: https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/07/pinboard_turns_seven/ https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/07/pinboard_turns_seven/
    • idlewords 10y ago
      My marketing is, I spend all my time talking smack on Twitter.
• whiplashoo 10y ago
  I run https://mapchart.net 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 is the no.1 search result for queries related to creating maps and gets an occasional boost from Reddit posts or other blogs.
  • thetrumanshow 10y ago
    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/counties_i_have_visited_oc/?st=ixkogg4x&sh=aea13a83 https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5m5tj9/cou...
    • whiplashoo 10y ago
      I don't have any experience with mobile app development, so feel free to try something similar there!
  • koheripbal 10y ago
    I'd love to have a global map with more granularity than just country level. Is that in the works?
    • whiplashoo 10y ago
      Yes, the extremely detailed world map is coming this month! I have spent many hours on it and it depicts all first-level administrative divisions of countries. It needs some more polishing though, so please stay tuned!
  • kubami 10y ago
    Is this profitable? What's the business model, I can only see a donation button.
• jamesash 10y ago
  I run a site that teaches organic chemistry online. Started in 2010. 7 million visits last year. Most content is free, but has some "cheat sheets" and other study guides that are for sale. I have some contractors for various tasks but am the only employee. http://www.masterorganicchemistry.com/blog http://www.masterorganicchemistry.com/blog
  • rokhayakebe 10y ago
    7 million Wow. Very well done.
  • dbancajas 10y ago
    Hi, I am really curious about doing this for a separate space? Like computer science? How did you get your initial customers? Just hanging out in forums? I guess I want to know how you determined that there is a market for it? What's the business model? I see you are basically doing freemium model of free-content then selling study guides for 18$ each. Is that it? Are you worried about piracy? Congrats on the 7Million visits. Also, I see your tech stack as WP? Really really cool.
• csallen 10y ago
  Back in August I launched https://IndieHackers.com https://IndieHackers.com, a site where the founders of profitable online businesses share their stories and revenue transparently. I actually got the idea after reading lots of threads like this one on HN :D Indie Hackers is my full-time job now. Is it "successful"? I think so! I've done over 90 interviews, and they've been read over one million times in the past 5 months, largely by you guys! I also made $2239 in December and hope to grow revenue another 50% in January. (As I do every month, I just blogged about that here: https://IndieHackers.com/blog https://IndieHackers.com/blog) I'm working on a podcast as well that I'm really excited about, as I've found it's a bit easier to get famous founders to agree to that format and to speak transparently about behind the scenes details.
  • countryqt30 10y ago
    IndieHackers is one of my favorite platforms! I've read most stories and do business with some of the founders there successfully after reading about them on your platform. THANK YOU! You are not making only yourself wealthy, but many more so. I really appreciate your site.
    • csallen 10y ago
      Thank you! I love having incentives aligned where me doing my job better helps everyone both myself and everyone else :D
  • kd22 10y ago
    I love what you have done ! It's a great resource for inspiration and to see how people are creating awesome things..Keep it up :)
  • the_wheel 10y ago
    Really excited about an Indie Hackers podcast. Started listening to Side Hustle School the other day.
  • instakill 10y ago
    Loving your drive for this site Courtland. Very inspiring.
• lewsid 10y ago
  I run https://geopeeker.com https://geopeeker.com It's a free/subscription-based tool that views sites from a number of locations from around the world, sending back a screenshot and DNS information. Originally launched in 2013, it's been profitable since 2014 and requires very little care-and-feeding while it serves up around 225,000 queries a month. I'm currently working on an overhaul which will dramatically improve its feature set and will, with any luck, engender even more interest among enterprise-level users.
  • stanley 10y ago
    This is a cool product. The screenshots w/ uptime monitoring is useful on its own, but I esp. like that you provide a way to specify resolutions and locations. After looking at the features and pricing, what's still not clear to me is if this is intended to be used for monitoring only one destination URL, or if it's possible to add multiple ones.
• udev 10y ago
  I run a Canadian price comparison site: http://pricefu.com http://pricefu.com
  • theobon 10y ago
    As a Canadian that hates that all my all my online shopping is dominated by US ads, reviews and prices I really want to like this. It has some great features, especially the price history tracker, but lacks usability. I have no idea what the fu number is. Your FAQ says "which indicates how good is a particular price offer" but what is good, how is it measured? A much harder problem is the issue of the same device given different names at different resellers to avoid price matching. For the few laptops and TVs I tested there were multiple listings on your site for the same model and for all but one the manufacture website had a lower price than the lowest you listed.
    • udev 10y ago
      Thank you for the feedback. Think of the "fu number" as a "DealRank"-type metric. Its full definition is rather complex and unpalatable for the average user, and I doubt that it would add much intuition besides the fact that greater value is better, which is very similar to how users think of PageRank. I agree that the questions of whether the "price-fu" metric is the most relevant possible, or uses the most relevant inputs, or weights them appropriately, etc. are still open, and the current answer is "probably no", but is work in progress. Regarding resellers trying to avoid price matching by using alternative product names/models, I must say that I haven't seen evidence of that yet. I might be naive, but I am more inclined to attribute this to the general low quality of the product data out there. Nevertheless, you are right that the problem of determining whether product A and product B are comparable is hard, especially considering the great diversity in how manufacturers label their products. An additional problem is that many China-made gadgets don't even have a consistent naming scheme, or even a model number, making comparisons even harder. Regarding finding lower prices on manufacturer's site, are you sure you did not compare USD and CAD prices? Many users seem to be confused by this.
• unoti 10y ago
  I created an online game called Mossms (http://mossms.com http://mossms.com). It's a game where you breed critters, you raise the babies, and put them to work building little towns where they learn and work and play. Think The Sims plus Tamagachi. Their AI is fun and mesmerizing to watch, and our secret sauce is in reminding people about things they've forgotten about how wonderful it is to be a kid. It's something pretty much everyone can connect with, even if they have trouble identifying exactly why they're entranced. Our biggest customers are actually micro business owners that run their own farms and auction off their wares. I built tools for creating new content and handed this business off to my partner who still grows and maintains the business today. She doesn't know how to code, but she knows how to build and maintain communities. How I got started: when I started my first game I thought the hardest part was coming up with a good idea. Then I built and launched something amazing, I realized that the real hard part is figuring out how to reach the people that would want to buy it. So when I started the next venture, I started with identifying how I was going to market it, and building relationships with the right communities even as I was starting the code. That product launched successfully, then I learned that I can't wait till the end to figure out a business model that works for myself and the customers both. It took me several different products over several years to get a mix of product, marketing, and business model that worked well. The hardest part is knowing when you're building something that just isn't right yet, vs when you're fooling yourself and failing and just not admitting it yet. I still don't know how to tell the difference.
• coderholic 10y ago
  I launched http://ipinfo.io http://ipinfo.io a few years ago. The API gets over 250 million requests a day, and is profitable. I left my job at CTO of calm.com at the end of last year to focus on it fulltime. There's more of the backstory here: https://getputpost.co/from-side-project-to-250-million-daily-requests-909b9e373d94 https://getputpost.co/from-side-project-to-250-million-daily...
  • thesehands 10y ago
    Excellent, a great site, and quick responses. Thanks for the hard work!
  • YPCrumble 10y ago
    Funny, I signed up for your $10/month plan just yesterday. I found out about you from a StackOverflow answer you posted and thought to tell you that you should answer other questions like "get location from IP address {{ language }}". In particular there was one for Python I didn't see your service listed for, and it took me quite a while to find your service which I'm very pleased with so far.
    • coderholic 10y ago
      Thanks - great to have you as a customer!
  • thecatspaw 10y ago
    if I understand this correctly, ipinfo is basically a lookup in a db? What is the advantage of this over a local lookup, say with maxmind or similar? edit: also, when I press the back button from this page: http://ipinfo.io/AS6830 http://ipinfo.io/AS6830 all I get is a json
    • rudolf0 10y ago
      >edit: also, when I press the back button from this page: http://ipinfo.io/AS6830 http://ipinfo.io/AS6830 all I get is a json Funny you mention that, because I've had the same issue with regular IPs. I use ipinfo.io a lot for my job and have noticed this intermittently.
• scottndecker 10y ago
  I'm launching mine next week. Hope to be a success story on a thread like this a year or two from now!
• deleted 10y ago
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• ikeboy 10y ago
  I'll refer to my recent comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13267536 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 10% cashback on Apple pay purchases for a few months, staples had ipads on sale, I bought around 25k worth, broke even on the ipads, made money on the cashback). Then I started reading everything I could about reselling, followed lots of blogs, tried different things, eventually found some great items and models that worked.
  • daveguy 10y ago
    Who do you use for virtual assistants?
    • ikeboy 10y ago
      Onlinejobs.ph. Costs $50 a month to contact workers.
  • cjmb 10y ago
    If you're drop shipping from US-based retailers, how are you able to make margins on Amazon & eBay? Aren't those retailers also listing on Amazon - with better branding than you - and getting all the sales? (Just spent a few hours reading on this based on another comment in this thread so trying to learn how the "sourcing things below Amazon price" piece works...)
    • ikeboy 10y ago
      No, most retailers aren't selling on Amazon. Some are. And yes, most products won't have any profit to be made. The trick is to find the ones that sell well but are more expensive on Amazon, there are thousands of such products, probably even more. If you're interested in actually doing this, feel free to email me and we can chat.
  • 10y ago
• jdwyah 10y ago
  https://forcerank.it https://forcerank.it has been going for about two years now and is a steady producer of beer-money. (Well wine actually, but I digress) It's been a great project and was unbelievably useful to go through the challenge of really getting how marketing works. It's astonishing how you can build software for companies for years, but making that first $5/month subscription revenue feels so awesome. Almost all my traffic is organic, then viral from the initial person that signs up. SEO is amazing. A slow slow trickle but over time it really works. I would reiterate what everybody else says. I've spent 70% of time on marketing. 30 on coding. The nice thing about organic is that you can ignore it for months though and jump back in anytime with a good blog post.
  • jdwyah 10y ago
    Forgot to add that I am super pumped about my next project here. Feature flags and rate limits. Would love to hear from anybody interested in spending less money on something like MixPanel by clever rate limiting.
  • deleted 10y ago
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• 256cats 10y ago
  I run https://gimmeproxy.com/ https://gimmeproxy.com/ It's rotating proxy api. I built it from scratch to learn something new and was surprised when people started using it. So far it gets me some beer money. All the traffic is organic.
• dvko 10y ago
  I built a plugin to connect WordPress with MailChimp (https://mc4wp.com https://mc4wp.com) while hospitalised in Vietnam a few years ago and it has been selling well enough to support me in my travels & now back home in The Netherlands from day 1 (right after I started offering a paid version, that is).
  • arrmn 10y ago
    I'm also thinking about developing my first product and wanted to start with wordpress, I think a Saas would be too ambitious, how did you start promoting it?
    • dvko 10y ago
      Starting out with WordPress has made a lot of things, especially when it comes to marketing, very easy for me. There's a free version that is used on over 700.000 sites right now and it got there mostly organically. That said, if your plugin does anything visual, be ready for a lot of beginner questions. Some of your non-paying users will be the hardest to please, especially in WordPress land where you as a (real) developer will be severely underappreciated.
      • coreymaass 10y ago
        As stated, make sure you create a free version first and put it in the WordPress plugin directory. Most of your traffic will come from there. Make frequent updates, include good keywords, and if there's a need for it, people will find it. It's also a great way to start testing for premium features.
        • arrmn 10y ago
          What was the initial marketing for the free app, just posting it there and waiting?
          • coreymaass 10y ago
• toisanji 10y ago
  I started http://somatic.io http://somatic.io by myself, it has been growing steadily and now have a small team. I think of it as an image processing research company and it is my passion so I plan to work on it as long as a I can.
• samtho 10y ago
  I have a small Node.js hosting platform that gives you an SQLite DB for free (enough to run a ghost blog on). It's currently in private beta but a company is already paying me for the service and it gets me some beer money. I'm working on polishing it up and eventually releasing it. Built on AWS and autoscales as demand requires, free tier and some paid upsells - Basically, all the standard PaaS stuff.
• samuraicode 10y ago
  Last year I went full time on my side project https://dropevent.com https://dropevent.com, a group photo sharing site. I've doubled revenue but it is still far from matching my previous software developer salary. Growth has all been pretty organic with just a few forays into adwords and facebook marketing. Growth is really the keyword for 2017 and what I will be focusing on.
  • dabernathy89 10y ago
    That's a very cool product! My first thought on the pricing - if I am planning a one-off event like a wedding (which I assume would be a major niche for y'all), I would be scared off by the monthly pricing scheme. I would be more interested in paying $X for a single event to be ad-free for the duration of the event and for a short-time afterward. (I know that's technically how it would work if they signed up for a month and then cancelled, but there's a big difference in upfront perception). It's also a little confusing what 'Upgrade a single event' means on the pricing page. Makes it sound like that plan is only for existing events.
• sagish 10y ago
  I recently quit my (great) job to work on my online business which was once my side project. I'm not solo - I have a partner (@dmtintner). > Our business is a newsletter, blog & podcast called Hacking UI - http://HackingUI.com http://HackingUI.com (for designers, developers and creative entrepreneurs like ourselves) > I wrote ALL about how we started, and also how we scaled it to the point where we could leave our jobs http://hackingui.com/product-hacking/side-projects/ http://hackingui.com/product-hacking/side-projects/ > We were so overwhelmed that we pulled this off that we actually also opened an online course to teach others EVERYTHING we know and all our workflows: https://sideprojectaccelerator.com/ https://sideprojectaccelerator.com/ Actually - my partner David is going to talk about that live in an hour here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/talks-david-tintner https://www.crowdcast.io/e/talks-david-tintner :)
  • wmeredith 10y ago
    So... not a successful one-person online business?
  • AnnaAx 10y ago
    Wow! Thank you for sharing all this information. I love it how people here are so transparent about their process and revenue.
• sagish 10y ago
  I recently quit my (great) job to work on my online business which was once my side project. I'm not solo - I have a partner (@dmtintner). > Our business is a newsletter, blog & podcast called Hacking UI - HackingUI.com (for designers, developers and creative entrepreneurs like ourselves) > I wrote ALL about how we started, and also how we scaled it to the point where we could leave our jobs http://hackingui.com/product-hacking/side-projects/ http://hackingui.com/product-hacking/side-projects/ > We were so overwhelmed that we pulled this off that we actually also opened an online course to teach others EVERYTHING we know and all our workflows: https://sideprojectaccelerator.com/ https://sideprojectaccelerator.com/ Actually - my partner David is going to talk about that live in an hour here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/talks-david-tintner https://www.crowdcast.io/e/talks-david-tintner :)
• deleted 10y ago
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• zinxq 10y ago
  Running http://www.clickrouter.com http://www.clickrouter.com - worked out well because I needed it for my other projects and it was an instant revenue win for those use cases alone. Spruced it up (could use more I know) and opened it to others thereafter. Free money for users. (It's a service that captures outbound clicks from your site - apart from giving fancy graphs about those, it then affiliatizes the links across all your affiliate accounts - skimlinks, viglinks, cj, etc)
• adambedford 10y ago
  I launched JobTrack (https://jobtrack.io https://jobtrack.io), a CRM for job seekers, about three months ago and have been seeing decent growth since then. I've predominantly relied on word of mouth and organic social media marketing but also launched a paid marketing campaign on Facebook a few days ago. The overall premise for the product is that when searching for a job, the job seeker will likely make a spreadsheet or notebook of the jobs they're interested in and applying to, along with some notes and key dates. JobTrack replaces spreadsheets with a straightforward app to track that information, and more, in a structured manner that is also available from mobile (and Chrome extension coming soon). JobTrack also has analytics to show how the job search is progressing. I'm hoping to go full time in 2017 and raise investment. At that point I'll likely try to bring on a co-founder and perhaps an employee or two.
  • vram22 10y ago
    Nice idea, and congrats. I think this can be a category of apps - automating the tracking of info of various kinds that people want to track. Had thought of another one but in a different domain. Not done yet. But when I mentioned it to a friend they said it could be useful.
    • adambedford 10y ago
      Thank you. I agree. JobTrack serves as a CRM for the job search but I think there is definitely space for CRM-like functionality for a lot of aspects of everyday life.
      • vram22 10y ago
        Cool. I signed up for JobTrack. Don't have a need for it right now, but wanted to try it out. Will give you any feedback I may have. So far I've signed up and created two dummy jobs. Looked at the analytics page briefly too.
  • tonteldoos 10y ago
    Awesome! I'm glad someone went and made something for this, since it's harder to do properly than it may seem (jobhunting, I mean). Back in the day I wrote a blogpost on how to use Redmine to do keep formal track of the process, but I suspect the effort/reward ratio for that may be more than most people are willing to put in. Next time I'm hunting, I'll come knocking :)
• drewlarsen 10y ago
  I built and run SugarWOD (https://www.sugarwod.com https://www.sugarwod.com). SugarWOD is a workout solution for CrossFit gyms including apps (iOS/Android), website, plug-ins, and TV support. Was a solo, free service for the first 3 years. Converted to a paid model 1.5 yrs ago, and as of a few months ago have part-time contractors helping with tech/ops, mktg, and support. I agree with novaleaf that a very broad skill set is needed, though I'd add that it might be enough to at least be interested in all the areas mentioned. You can learn a lot along the way, which is a big part of the fun. If you're focussed on making a great Product (capitalized product = the entire customer experience including everything from web copy, onboarding, support, performance, features, etc.) all of it is important. As an aside, I think it is this breadth that allows someone to be a "10x problem solver", which to me is 10x more interesting than being a "10x developer". Code is a means to an end. "Success" is a malleable and personal term, but by typical SaaS metrics SugarWOD is a success. Millions of workouts logged, paying customers, profitable, growing quickly. More importantly, I get huge satisfaction working on something I feel passionate about, and I really love running the entire business from a laptop anywhere in the world (though I'm usually not far from Colorado :)
  • thisisnotanexit 10y ago
    I use SugarWOD every day, it powers the crossfit gym I go to. Gotta say you did a great job, I can't imagine such a community built around the gym without it.The fistbumps are a really great feature!
• dgrigg 10y ago
  I have been running https://pageproofer.com https://pageproofer.com for 3 years. It allows web designers and developers to easily leave feedback and track issues directly on websites (like digital sticky notes). It has been profitable from year 1 and continues to grow month over month. The growth is slow and steady but not at a point where I'm doing it full time. I don't think 'successful' needs to be determined as 'majority of owners income'. For me it's a lucrative side project that requires little attention day to day. It doesn't need to provide the majority of my income since it doesn't take the majority of my time.
  • thepredestrian 10y ago
    I've always wondered - what kind of tech stack is required to run a service like this? Would you classify it as a webapp?
    • dgrigg 10y ago
      I would classify it more as a widget or add-on in that it's use lies in being added to an existing website (much like Google Analytics). The entire admin/dashboard area for managing sites, adding users, integrations etc is like a typical webapp though. The stack is a pretty vanilla LEMP stack on the backend, with some extra bits for handling queues. The trickiest piece is the widget that gets embedded on sites, it needs to be bullet proof across browsers and devices since it's used for feedback and testing. It needs to work on pretty much everything that people visit websites with.
• andr3w321 10y ago
  Not exactly online only but I run a small ATM Business out of Seattle http://effortlessatms.com http://effortlessatms.com It pays all my bills
• gottebp 10y ago
  My grandfather has Parkinson's disease and the hand tremors that go with. This makes using a mouse nearly impossible because the cursor flies all over the place. I created free software called SteadyMouse[1] back in 2005 to remove this tremor while letting normal mouse motion through. It eventually moved up near the top of Google's search results. At the same time, the free version began to show its age with compatibility issues. I spent the last two years on a massive rewrite for a commercial version and formed a single member LLC to carry it back in July 2016. Revenue is not enough to quit my day job writing automotive firmware, however it's still a nice bit of allowance on the side. I enjoy the stories from users mostly as well as trying to automate the repetitive tasks so I can focus on coding. [1] https://www.steadymouse.com https://www.steadymouse.com
  • sjg007 10y ago
    Damn, hope you filed a patent!
  • soneca 10y ago
    Congratulations for the project! It looks great (from the GIF demo) and it is certainly a project that adds value to the world! Do you need any help on the marketing side? I am no biz genius, but I have good experience as a generalist digital marketer and also with customer development. I think I can help you with the content side of SEO and contact with niche media to spread the word about the profile. The 90s look and feel of the site is on purpose? If not, I can help with that too. I can do all of that respecting your goals and principles. Email me (on profile) if you are interested.
    • pryelluw 10y ago
      The design is ok. Its legible and well structured. The only thing I would add is a "buy now" button. It currently lacks that (important) call to action.
  • donmatito 10y ago
    Having family members going through problems like this, I think this is awesome. I hope you can generate enough revenue to be able to focus on this and improve the life of our parents.
• mrcabada 10y ago
  My business still growing and in the beta phase, it's a one-person businesses but haven't launched. Hope it becomes a succesful one-person business anytime soon. Here it is how it looks right now: https://talkbot.io https://talkbot.io Let's see how it looks in a fee months.
• molecule 10y ago
  I think that Ryan McGeary fits this description: > Ryan owns McGeary Consulting Group and is the founder of BusyConf and ChargeStack. http://ryan.mcgeary.org/business/ http://ryan.mcgeary.org/business/
• ethans1992 10y ago
  I am running https://fandemic.co https://fandemic.co for a couple months now. We essentially create beauty kits for social media influencers. It was spawned by the Kylie Jenner Lip Kit popularity and we decided to make a builder for influencers to create their own.
  • nthState 10y ago
    Hi, Have you got any public stats? - Thanks!
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
• soheil 10y ago
  I started https://netin.co https://netin.co about 9 months ago and now we have several customers including a government client. I live in SF so that's to say I need additional sources of income. I have another website which is pretty much an archive of a radio program that has been going for 10 years and that is a pretty good compliment to my income. The growth curve for NetIn is rather smooth, I did the usual marketing for it, including creating a Chrome Ext, posting to LinkedIn, FB, Twitter, etc. I'd say the biggest difference came when I manually submitted a sitemap to Google with near 30 million URLs. Also after getting a lot of angry emails from people decided to remove all public info until a time when I can address the privacy concerns in a better way. It's Stripe with monthly subscriptions, I tried calling prospects but soon realized I'm not a sales person, so now it's fully automated, it's free trial and then you pay if still interested in using it, no sales calls, no sales emails.
  • bbayer 10y ago
    How do you collect information?
• ronreiter 10y ago
  Learnpython.org and other interactive tutorials - passive income that gets me a full high tech salary. Got started when I realized there was a need for an interactive tutorial (before CodeAcademy went live). Wrote it, and that's about it :)
  • mharrison 10y ago
    Cool. What is the monitization strategy? Affiliate from Datacamp?
    • ronreiter 10y ago
      Yes, although this is very new. I always had ad revenue from the websites. I must admit that it is hard to build a "side project" that aims for organic traffic. I think I got very lucky there.
• nnn1234 10y ago
  Indiehackers
• nnn1234 10y ago
  Indiehackers
• rednivs 10y ago
  Unlike the majority here I have zero coding skills. Currently monetizing www.hashtaginvesting.com, a Slack chat for stock traders and investors to discuss in real-time.
  • alinalex 10y ago
    Do you consider learning how to code?
• wessorh 10y ago
  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 simple, I greatly dislike what silicon valley does to entrepreneurs. I don't think many folks understand how VCs destroy lives. So I'm happy with not being rich and having two jobs that keep me engaged in life, technology and politics.
  • BoomBoomRoom 10y ago
    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.
• hahamrfunnyguy 10y ago
  I'll toss this out there. I am a software guy who manufactures a simple electronic device on the side The product cost around $30k to develop plus around eight months of full-time development effort. We currently make about $15k-20k a year in profits. I've been doing this for six years now, and we make small incremental improvements every release that don't cost a lot to do. I mostly focus on overseeing manufacturing, QA and maintaining a dealer network who will sell the product. I am embarrassed to say I haven't spent a lot of time on growing the operation, but on the flipside the return is pretty good for the amount of work that I put in to it.
  • nthState 10y ago
    I've been interested in making a hardware device too, is it a custom PCB? - Did you prototype with Arduino?
    • hahamrfunnyguy 10y ago
      Yes, it's a custom PCB with a machined enclosure. We didn't prototype with Arduino, but we used other development boards. I set a target unit cost, then we selected parts based on cost, performance and availability. Once we had a MCU in mind, we ordered a development kits and built an initial prototype using the dev board. After that, we did all future prototypes using custom PCBs from a contract manufacturer.
• donmatito 10y ago
  I founded Smooz (https://www.smooz.io https://www.smooz.io), a Slack app to connect teams through shared channels. It was initially a small hack "for fun", but when Slack opened their Directory end of 2015 it was an opportunity to turn it into a "real app". After launching in January last year, I saw a relatively significant level of interest from early users (relatively significant = much more than I had in all my previous side projects). 10-20 active early users are very good for the ego when you are usually met with polite indifference. I can't thank them enough. After a bit from traction fro Product Hunt, I started monetize in May. After a few months, I have about 20 customers, for about 300€ /month revenue. I changed pricing in November (cheaper, but without free plan), and I start to see some promising growth. Smooz being a side project, and the first one I take from idea to shipping to scaling issues, and from early users to actual customers, is an incredible success for me in itself, if only for the learning. Success on the financial side will be when I reach 1000€ / month (recurring, passive) with it.
• shutton 10y ago
  I started Gaggle Mail (https://gaggle.email https://gaggle.email) just over a year ago, it's making around $400 per month and growing nicely. I've really enjoyed the experience watching something I have sole responsibility over grow and be appreciated by the people who use it. I set out to build something I could be proud of and other people would find useful - in those terms it has been successful. And with another year or so of growth it could provide the majority of my income.
  • kovacs 10y ago
    You have some dupe text on your about page.... "When starting a new group with a diverse membership you don’t ask for everyones Twitter handle or Snapchat name, you ask for their email addresses. Done.. When starting a new group with a diverse membership you don’t ask for everyones Twitter handle or Snapchat name, you ask for their email addresses. Done."
• kofejnik 10y ago
  I run a small dev shop (python backends and mobile apps), not sure if this counts as an online business though Got started by a post on linkedin
• chris1993 10y ago
  I launched http://gardenate.com http://gardenate.com back in 2007 initially just for Australia/New Zealand and mainly for my own use (Perl with Amazon SES for sending out about 70,000 subscriber emails/month). Since then I've grown it to include UK/USA/CAN/ZA, and I wrote some related mobile apps for iOS (Objective-C) and Android. Brings in several hundred $$ per month in adwords and app sales. It used to bring in a lot more app revenue until a couple of years ago our national broadcaster (ABC) released a competing free app and ate our niche!
  • holic 10y ago
    This is awesome! Would love it if I could punch in my address/zip and get an idea of what to plant (I don't know what my climate qualifies as).
  • arrmn 10y ago
    How did you get the data for your plants, just manually looked it up?
    • chris1993 10y ago
      Lots of research and some algothmic stuff for cross-season planting.
• SN76477 10y ago
  Performance Marketing
• lightedman 10y ago
  I run three businesses - minerals acquisitions, physical network installation, and lighting design. I got started because I got tired of everyone else I worked with not having a clue. So I picked businesses which I could run single-handedly. Almost all of my work/income comes from Craigslist posting, saving me the need to run any sort of online site, all I need is e-mail and phone. Loads of people need experienced network installers, lighting installers/designers, and in SoCal, loads of people like pretty pretty rocks wrapped up in nice copper, silver, or gold wire.
• bluelightspcl 10y ago
  I run a non-tech based business www.texadmissions.com while traveling the world full-time. I help students apply to college specializing in admission to UT-Austin. I am a former admissions counselor for UT. I founded my business in April 2015 and it is my only revenue stream. I work 99% by e-mail, though occasionally I skype or receive calls via international sim card. I am a lead moderator on www.reddit.com/r/applyingtocollege and I produce content through a blog and a popular Youtube channel. My traffic is completely organic - I don't pay for advertising. My only competitor is the university itself. They are notoriously bad about getting information out to the public. I supply that demand and live off consulting fees. In a way, I can reach many hundreds and thousands more people outside of an institution than I could physically visiting high schools in my previous role. My revenues more than allow me to explore the world. In the early days, I could adjust my runway by simply traveling slow and staying longer in less costly places. I don't make enough money right now to live a conventional life in an American city, but I can live comfortably elsewhere. I charge a lot less than my competitors while, I believe, providing a higher quality service. I am currently transitioning into products. I fly to Barbados next week to begin my fourth year abroad.
  • appleiigs 10y ago
    Why do you only focus on UT-Austin? Could you expand to different universities or colleges?
• eappleby 10y ago
  Similar question was asked last year (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12065355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12065355). Here was my answer then, which is about the same now, but the business has continued to grow: I started https://www.pubexchange.com https://www.pubexchange.com in 2013 and have been running it solo ever since. PubExchange is a platform that helps publishers establish traffic exchanges with other sites (similar to a social network) so that they can promote one another via widgets, social, and in-article links. It's been profitable since 2014 and I work with over 600 sites, including HuffPo, Refinery29, and POPSUGAR.
• navalsaini 10y ago
  I am a solo founder for www.halfchess.com - I launched it in 2017, so its not successful as of now. However, I did appreciate if I get a few users and upvotes in the 'show HN! new' post of halfchess. It has Android, iOS and web versions.
• kevinwade11 10y ago
  Now you can download latest android and iOS apps for PC from the the platform that also provide latest MMO strategy games like Mobile Strike for PC . http://downloadforpc.net/download-mobile-strike-for-pc http://downloadforpc.net/download-mobile-strike-for-pc
• kevinwade11 10y ago
  Now you can download latest android and iOS apps for PC from the the platform that also provide latest MMO strategy games like Mobile Strike for PC . http://downloadforpc.net/download-mobile-strike-for-pc http://downloadforpc.net/download-mobile-strike-for-pc
• kevinwade11 10y ago
  look out for most of the celebrities of the world with plastic surgery before and after effects happen to them. http://awfulsurgery.com http://awfulsurgery.com
• ivanpashenko 10y ago
  Just launched http://ineedicons.com http://ineedicons.com –– custom made outline icons. Will see soon if it has legs.
• andegre 10y ago
  I started the website http://www.wrestlestat.com http://www.wrestlestat.com 3 years ago. It is a college wrestling website where the main feature of the website was to be able to view common opponents between 2 wrestlers. There's no other product out there for this, so it's 100% unique. In addition to that, it provides, rosters, schedules, results, statistics, rankings, as well as 2 different fantasy platforms. Now, is this successful? To me, yes. When I started it originally, it was just a "fun" side project, the first website that I developed once I got into web programming (10 years on client server architecture prior to). It's a 100% free site, but I monetize through AdSense. Taking out my hosting costs, it doesn't make very much money, but it IS profitable. No way I'd be able to make a living off of it though. So in my eyes, yes it's successful, in terms of HN folks, probably not so much. But I'm having fun with it!
• wordpressdev 10y ago
  Running a gift ideas site monetized through Amazon affiliate program. http://www.giftideasunder50.com http://www.giftideasunder50.com
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago
    I like it. Simple and to the point!
  • tdburn 10y ago
    Great idea! What kind of traffic does this type of idea create?
• jonathan-kosgei 10y ago
  +1 Please add me to the slack group too jonathan [AT] saharacluster [DOT] com
• realtarget 10y ago
  Well, it's not successful right now but it could be in some months: Two years ago i've started working on an algorithm to find the perfect time for social media posts on facebook & twitter to improve user interactions & engangement. Right now it works so good for me that i've decided to extend the project by building an (invitation-only) SaaS Startup to get a proof of concept: https://realtarget.com https://realtarget.com Because it's just a project beside my main job my girlfriend (project manager) and best friend (senior full stack developer) support me to lighten the workload. If you like, i'll post a note on HN when the alpha version is ready.