14 ms·

Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?

752 points by phoenix24 7y ago

Hi HN, Do you know any one man SaaS app that are profitable? I'm asking this because I'm considering starting a SaaS app as a side project, and I'm looking for some inspiration. Thanks! Note: this is was previously on HN here[1], but it's been few years, and I'm sure a lot of one person startups are thriving than before. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11924009

anthony_franco 7y ago
Indie Hackers lists lots of examples you can read about. Just filter on employee count and revenue: https://www.indiehackers.com/interviews/page/1?employeeCount=0 https://www.indiehackers.com/interviews/page/1?employeeCount...
_august 7y ago
Yep! I made https://fitloop.co https://fitloop.co as a solo maker and it’s making about $450 MRR.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
throw03172019 7y ago
I am the only full time cofounder of a healthcare SaaS. My cofounder is the domain expert who kept his job. No employees. ~20k MRR
- pplante 7y ago
  What sector of healthcare? Mind being more specific? My email is in my profile if you're interested in a conversation. I have a side project that's targeting physicians being able to better track their activities.
  - throw03172019 7y ago
    Mainly plastic surgeons who operate their own practices.
- tpkj 7y ago
  Are you able to share any info regarding the type of customer (B2B or B2C), the number of customers, and the method of customer acquisition? Depending on the nature of the product offering, healthcare can be seriously difficult market to enter.
  - throw03172019 7y ago
    It is B2B but their is usually only 1-5 decision makers in one practice (privately owned plastic surgery practice) but they move quite slow. We got a lot of traction going to a few conferences and signed them up at the meeting. We have not done any online marketing.
    - tpkj 7y ago
      Ok, thanks; not as many barriers to entry I suppose compared with larger health institutions.
megadethz 7y ago
PlentyofFish founder.
sergiomattei 7y ago
I'm making https://getmakerlog.com https://getmakerlog.com, which is currently doing $200 MRR.
- jkeuhlen 7y ago
  Just curious, did you go about setting up a formal corporation for the product? I'm thinking about setting up my own SaaS product and I'm not sure if I need to do anything on the legal/business side.
  - anandkulkarni 7y ago
    I wouldn't set up a corporation until you have either a reasonable amount of cash coming in or someone ready to give you a check. After that, I'd start with an LLC in your home state, unless you think there's a chance you'll take outside investment. If you do, conversion to a Delaware C-corp costs around $10K in legal fees.
    - stevenwoo 7y ago
      I thought that an LLC in California required a yearly fee that was close to a $1000 the last time I looked. Is that no longer true or not true at all? Related - isn't it much cheaper in other states?
      - benmanns 7y ago
        Yes, the franchise tax. You can't get out of it by incorporating in another state. CA residents pay CA taxes.
      - trazire 7y ago
        Yea, $850 franchise tax minimum. I personally think it's a bit excess even by Californian standards. Also, you'd need to get an office in Delaware to not mandate a foreign registration in California which still involves the taxes. Getting an office in Delaware is pretty expensive but it's about $400 cheaper than California franchise tax. They assess their own but it still works out lower. Edit: Nevermind, they still tax you on that. I don't condone tax evasion, but Wyoming doesn't track the owners of a corporation.
gortok 7y ago
I am not at liberty to say who it is but I know a one person SaaS (well, now a 4 person SaaS) that does several million a year in revenue. They found a niche and wrote software for that niche. It is the tiniest of niches but is underserved.
- throwaway13000 7y ago
  Atleast giving an idea of the general market would be great. Otherwise, your answer has no meaning
  - sveng 7y ago
    The last two sentences that comment are meaningful to me.
  - edmundsauto 7y ago
    Yes, please let me know an underserved market so I can compete with you!
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Any user with "throwaway" right in the name automatically gets ignored by me.
    - benburleson 7y ago
      I hate that I'm responding here, but have to point out that your comment is obviously not true.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - _bxg1 7y ago
        Yes, yes. My point is that people create throwaways in order to knowingly post low-quality (toxic or otherwise) replies without having the downvotes affect their main accounts. If they thought their comment was going to make a positive contribution, they'd use their main account. So if they disvalue their own post, I'm certainly not going to value it.
vital101 7y ago
I made https://kernl.us https://kernl.us solo and it's making ~$1100 MRR and growing.
davidbanham 7y ago
I run two SaaS products. Both are entirely my work and both are modestly profitable. I split my time about 50/50 between the the SaaS side of my business and consulting. The consulting revenue stream is much larger than the SaaS one but it's growing. https://takehome.io https://takehome.io And https://clubman.app https://clubman.app
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Clubman is so specific. This seems to be a pattern of many small, honest, successful software businesses: instead of trying to make a platform that will eat the world, they find a tiny niche that they understand, and hand-craft a solution that's perfectly tailored to it and meets people's real needs. It's inspiring. When software is too generic it becomes boring (and impossible to compete with as an entrepreneur).
- ackbar03 7y ago
  As one commenter said this is very specific, how do you go about finding and marketing to your clients?
  - davidbanham 7y ago
    First paid client is my own club. I've also had a few enquiries from people googling it and word of mouth. From there it's direct approaches to clubs and advertising through Google and industry associations.
- pplante 7y ago
  I love the takehome product idea. Wish that was around when I was conducting loads of technical interviews a few years ago.
- wayoverthecloud 7y ago
  Which is bringing in more profit? Clubman looks super niche. Unless you know ski clubs really well, looks hard to market.
  - 7y ago
leozeba 7y ago
We're a small team of 3 co-founders at @nazar_io currently doing $50k MRR.
lynnetye 7y ago
Key Values (https://www.keyvalues.com https://www.keyvalues.com) is a one-woman show (oh hi!). I started Key Values as a side project two years ago, but it quickly turned into my full-time passion and business. I'm doing ~$30k/month and it's almost all profit since I don't have an office or any employees. I recently talked to Courtland of Indie Hackers (already mentioned in the comments) about how I got here: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/086-lynne-tye-of-key-values https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/086-lynne-tye-of-key-va... I would never have started Key Values w/o Indie Hackers, so I highly recommend you spend some time there. It's a bottomless treasure chest of inspiration.
- PKop 7y ago
  Great interview on indie hackers podcast. Always motivating to hear from the perspectives of people not trying to grow at all cost, following SV conventional wisdom etc, aiming for more lifestyle type businesses.
- mark-ruwt 7y ago
  God, that's a brilliant name/logo.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - damian2000 7y ago
    Agreed, although I thought it was a key value store as a service at first
    - np_tedious 7y ago
      Same, definitely thought of https://keyvalue.xyz/ https://keyvalue.xyz/ which I haven't used myself, but once recommended (after searching it up) to a client dev for his hackathon project and he was happy with it
- alphagrep12345 7y ago
  Really good website. However, I'm wondering as to why this is a full-time business. Is most of your time taken by marketing and sales?
pawurb 7y ago
I am running https://abot.app https://abot.app currently at $1500 MRR and growing. Still at full-time job apart from that.
- pplante 7y ago
  I understand the context, but that logo doesn't give me a lot of warm feelings. I would likely skip the product just on that regardless of how awesome it might be.
  - wheelerwj 7y ago
    partially agree, the guy fawkes max needs to go, but its a cool concept.
  - hliyan 7y ago
    Agreed. I too would like to try this with the team, but please consider a different logo...
  - pawurb 7y ago
    Can you elaborate on why ?
    - Veen 7y ago
      1) It's associated with hacktivist groups bordering on actually criminal. 2) As a British person, it's associated with Guy Fawkes, who was a terrorist.
simon_weber 7y ago
I run a few projects for ~$400 MRR. Here's my numbers from last year: https://www.simonmweber.com/2019/01/07/side-project-income-2018.html https://www.simonmweber.com/2019/01/07/side-project-income-2... Since there are questions about company formation in the comments, here's my notes on US taxes/legal from when I got started: https://www.simonmweber.com/2016/07/11/launching-a-chrome-extension-part-1-taxes-and-legal.html https://www.simonmweber.com/2016/07/11/launching-a-chrome-ex...
mark-ruwt 7y ago
I founded Are You Watching This?! (https://ruwt.tv https://ruwt.tv) in 2006 and have been profitable since 2013. It's a Sports Excitement Analytics firm, licensing real-time data about the excitement of games by analyzing pitch-by-pitch and shot-by-shot data, to sports properties and cable companies. I'm happy with where I'm at, but there's a lot I would've done differently. Holler if you'd like to chat about it at all: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markphillip/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/markphillip/
- marketgod 7y ago
  Way cool. I remember when this site had scores for games posted and it would show you what channel each game is on depending on your location/provider. Great work!
davej 7y ago
I'm close with ToDesktop (https://www.todesktop.com/ https://www.todesktop.com/), I've launched quite recently so expect to be there in the next month or two.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Nifty! Elegant pricing model too.
- throw03172019 7y ago
  Was really impressed with the flow but I hate being so tied to this. For example, what happens if you go out of business? Now we have 10,000 users on an app we can’t update, etc.
  - davej 7y ago
    That's actually one of the great things about being bootstrapped and profitable. I can grow naturally and I don't need to scale rapidly and hit huge customer numbers to keep VCs happy. I'm in this for the long run. Even if 90% of my customers left me tomorrow then I would keep this going as a side gig. I'm also able to facilitate customers that want to move off the ToDesktop platform to their own (i.e. built in-house) desktop app. Just send me on your binaries and I'll push an auto-update to your customers that gets them onto your new desktop app and your new auto-update platform. I charge $200 once-off for this currently and this feature will never be priced to force people to stay on the platform. The only reason for the charge right now is that it's a manual process so I charge consultancy rates.
    - throw03172019 7y ago
      Thanks for the response. This definitely helps us think deeper!
    - Meph504 7y ago
      Do you have a bus factor plan in place? I. E. If. You are hit by a bus, what happens?
Axsuul 7y ago
I'm building a SaaS app (getting close to ramen profitable): Trunk @ https://www.trunkinventory.com https://www.trunkinventory.com which helps online sellers sync their inventory in real-time across their different sales channels (i.e. Etsy, Faire, Shopify, Amazon, eBay, etc)
srecio 7y ago
I built out Pipefile (https://pipefile.com https://pipefile.com) as a one man operation. Bundle your PGP key into file upload forms to receive end-to-end encrypted files. Embed the upload forms into any html page to receive files without setting up any backend infrastructure. You can try sending me something at https://pipefile.com/steve https://pipefile.com/steve
throwaway13000 7y ago
Tangentially related. If someone wants to sell his side project, please list here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19693520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19693520
colinbartlett 7y ago
StatusGator is the status page monitoring service I built. It’s been profitable since about 2016. Though I very recently took on a partner to try and grow it because I believe it can be more than just “profitable” but perhaps actually a sole income source one day. It’s great to have a “one person” company but I feel it’s even better to have a partner to help inspire and motivate you, especially when it’s a side project and not a full time job.
albydarned 7y ago
I co-founded Pigeon SMS (https://pigeonsms.com https://pigeonsms.com) with my dad just a couple of years ago and we reached profitability just a few months after founding. We provide business texting services to businesses of all sizes. Some of our customers include a city, vet clinic, glass shop, screen printing firm, boutique retailers, and on and on. Really any business can benefit from adding texting to their communications. My advice: Pick something that will keep you interested and motivated to come back to when life gets busy.
- wayoverthecloud 7y ago
  How do you market to local businesses? Aren't they the least technical people? Congratulations though!
  - albydarned 7y ago
    It can be difficult for sure. Trial and error mostly.
    - wayoverthecloud 7y ago
      Can you share some tips that have worked for you?
- bhudman 7y ago
  Congrats on the launch. Would you be able to recommend off-net sms providers that you have had good luck with?
  - albydarned 7y ago
    It really depends on use case. They all have their pros and cons.
- therealdrag0 7y ago
  I have a friend who works for ZipWhip which seems like the same sort of space. And they just raised $51 mil, so I guess there's need for this sort of product!
jivings 7y ago
Two-person but close enough - We're building Leave Me Alone (https://leavemealone.xyz https://leavemealone.xyz), an app that helps you unsubscribe from spammy mailing lists. Currently at ~$500/month (full stats are public here https://leavemealone.xyz/open https://leavemealone.xyz/open)
- ksahin 7y ago
  I used your service 2 months ago, thank you sooooo much!
  - jivings 7y ago
    You're very welcome!
- spekulatius2410 7y ago
  awesome you are actually sharing numbers - love it!
  - dinkydani 7y ago
    Yup we share all of our numbers and we also build in the open and include our users in every step and decision possible :)
idlewords 7y ago
I run Pinboard by myself and make about $250K/year in revenue, with 97K expenses.
- wheelerwj 7y ago
  i love pinboard.
- pw 7y ago
  Do you still also run the bed bug registry site?
  - idlewords 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm working on fixing it right now. The Google maps API pricing change means I have to redo most of it.
    - pw 7y ago
      Oh, cool. Does it still make you money?
- Improvotter 7y ago
  Wow I'm impressed by the revenue for such a site. Congratulations!
- frenchie4111 7y ago
  Where does 97k expenses come from, if you don’t mind me asking
  - wyclif 7y ago
    I expect much of it is co-location, hosting, and dedicated hardware.
  - idlewords 7y ago
    The two biggest expenses year over year are colocation ($25K/year) and PayPal/ Stripe fees ($11K/year). I pulled the $97K figure from the year I bought Delicious, so it includes a lot of one-time hardware purchases.
bentossell 7y ago
This may not qualify as SaaS but I built makerpad.co to show people how to build products/businesses without code. Currently $27k over the last month. One person, not my full time gig. Wtf am I talking about?! I’m basically showing people the power of not needing to code to build something. I built an Airbnb “clone” by linking webflo, Airtable and zapier. Basically trying to show people they can build their first version without the classic “needing a technical cofounder” or “learning to code”. Tools out there right now are insane and can help you get to a place you couldn’t previously. Okay Lynne is a recent friend and been huge in helping me the last couple weeks. I did the normal shit of b2c (and still do) but the power of b2b is huge. I flipped my strategy and went from ~10k one month to now 30k (yes got 3.5k more since my initial comment).
- lynnetye 7y ago
  I didn't realize you already did $27k this month! That is tremendous and you're only just getting started! GO BEN.
  - bentossell 7y ago
    Correct that to 30k haha.
- ed 7y ago
  B2B, meaning the deals section? Are those numbers recurring? Awesome business, if so
  - bentossell 7y ago
    No actually not the deals. Working with companies right now to get the best content hosted on makerpad to show off their platforms and how non technical makers can use those tools to power up their ideas/businesses. Nothing is fully released yet!
    - rosegarden0 7y ago
      Super interesting! What’s the pricing to have content hosted? Do you make the content?
owenwil 7y ago
I run a one-person ‘SaaS’ that delivers morning tech briefings each day for industry insight, without ads, that I wanted to see, called recharged: https://char.gd/recharged https://char.gd/recharged. I both write the newsletters + develop the platform behind the scenes that enables seamless community access involved, and our MRR is approximately $2,500/month for about 18 months. I’ll admit it’s a struggle to properly grow at this point, but I’m trying to figure it out... but it’s been a fun ride so far. Now I’m moving to build the tools I already made for myself that make it easy to build paid content + communities without the developer skills I had to learn to get here... hopefully going into beta soon.
- _justirma 7y ago
  I follow your work! If you need a hand on Recharged I'd love to help and keep it live and up.
  - owenwil 7y ago
    <3 thank you! I'm working out a plan for our next iteration at the moment, but I'll totally let you know if I need help or feedback.
beesmum 7y ago
I've run a music education site for 10 years (https://www.tonictutor.com https://www.tonictutor.com). It's been only a very modest success, but it's provided a small amount of revenue that's been relatively steady. I haven't really marketed it much, but I'm planning on putting some time and resources into that once I've finish converting all of the old Flash versions of the games (which is nearly finished!).
mfrye0 7y ago
BigPicture (https://bigpicture.io https://bigpicture.io) is a solo founder operation. I was the only person for the first couple years before I grew it enough to start hiring. I don't recommend anyone follow this path now having been through it myself. Being a solo founder is absolutely brutal.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
osrec 7y ago
https://usebx.com https://usebx.com was my personal side project for a couple of years. We managed to sell contracts to a few corporates, and now have fairly strong MRR (so much so, that we've made the core product free for small teams). I've recently hired a few contractors in London to help expand the Bx toolset and also finally add some documentation!
ezekg 7y ago
I run Keygen (https://keygen.sh https://keygen.sh), an API for software licensing and distribution. I'm currently making ~$3,500/mo. You can read more about my journey here: https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/2fa6c5e1eb https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/2fa6c5e1eb.
tom-jh 7y ago
I built https://flowcrypt.com https://flowcrypt.com solo for the first two years. I would have preferred a partner, but nobody committed. Today 3+ years later it's a three person team. Maybe in another year I can have reasonable work life balance again. Maybe.
anthonylee 7y ago
https://letterfromyou.com/ https://letterfromyou.com/ Letter from You is a service that allows business owners to connect with their clients through beautifully handwritten letters. It's my first side project and currently talking to some larger recurring companies.
- aerovistae 7y ago
  That is a really clever, original idea for a business, I mean it. Damn.
  - 55555 7y ago
    It's actually not at all original. Maybe he independently came up with the idea, but there are tons of these.
    - gaucheph 7y ago
      Let people be excited about things.
    - anthonylee 7y ago
      You are right, there are few services out there. I think what we makes us different is that we make the letter top quality.
  - anthonylee 7y ago
    Thanks. =)
- onesmalluser 7y ago
  that's cool! what is your mrr?
cperciva 7y ago
Depending on how you define SaaS: I started Tarsnap in 2006 (launched in 2008) and it was a profitable one-person company for many years. (Now it's a profitable two-person company.) Mind you, it isn't a side project -- this has been my full time job for a dozen years. Starting a successful SaaS company as a side project is much harder.
- csomar 7y ago
  It's sad you have dropped Bitcoin support!
- chubot 7y ago
  Congrats on running it sustainably and profitably for so long. I imagine that TarSnap must have done very well since many tiny HN startups used it 10 years ago, and some of them are now huge. When those companies are growing like crazy I'm sure they just pay the bills and don't think about switching!
- AlchemistCamp 7y ago
  Did you ever take patio11's advice about charging more?
voipspear 7y ago
I run VoIP Spear (voipspear.com) by myself. We're doing about $5k/month. VoIP Spear is a service for people who use VoIP. It monitors your Internet connection and alerts when you have a call quality issue.
- kahoon 7y ago
  How does this work? How can you even tell VoIP data from non-VoIP data? I would have guessed that everything is encrypted.
  - voipspear 7y ago
    We’re not monitoring phone calls. We’re monitoring the network conditions. This means we can provide an estimate of call quality even when there’s no calls on the network.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      I'm struggling to understand why this would be useful, so I guess I'm not the target market - can you say something about who this is useful for, why they want to see this info, and what they can do with it?
      - voipspear 7y ago
        It's frustrating for people who experience voice quality issues because the problems are usually intermittent. This means that, by the time they contact their service providers, the problem is not occurring and they just get a lame 'have you tried rebooting your modem/router' response. VoIP Spear monitors 24x7x365 so customers can provide historical data to their service providers to show the issue occurred. Also, service providers use VoIP Spear because they want help troubleshooting. They are also frustrated that the issue is no longer occurring by the time the customer calls for support.
        GordonS 7y ago
coderholic 7y ago
I started https://ipinfo.io https://ipinfo.io as a side project, and then ran it fulltime as a one-person SaaS app for over a year. We're now a team of 8, profitable, and growing quickly. We're still 100% bootstrapped, and I have zero plans to raise any outside funding. We started with a simple IP geolocation API, which now handles over 20 billion API requests per month. We've added new data to that service, such as IP type classification (hosting, isp, or business, and soon education too), IP to company, and carrier detection. And we've also launched some other products, like hosted domain API (all domains hosted on an IP, sometimes called reverse IP), IP ranges belonging to an organization, and an ASN API. We've got a lot in the pipeline too, including some domain related offerings (see https://host.io https://host.io for an early preview). So it's definitely possible :) What sort of SaaS product are you thinking of launching? Would be happy to chat! Shoot me an email at ben@ipinfo.io
- Topgamer7 7y ago
  Ip info is quite convenient with curl :)
- brianwillis 7y ago
  You got my GPS coordinates almost exactly correct. That's incredibly worrying. I mean, it's impressive from a technical standpoint; but still, worrying.
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    City level result here. Do you happen to live close to a center point of something?
    - brianwillis 7y ago
      Yes, that's a reasonable explanation. I'm near enough to the middle of my town for that to be the cause.
      - coderholic 7y ago
nate 7y ago
I continue to run the writing software Draft (https://draftin.com https://draftin.com) all by myself. It can largely run on its own without a ton of interruption to me so I can work on other things.
- wkoszek 7y ago
  Hi Nate. I've looked at Draft when I wanted to build something similar. Is it profitable to the point where you could do it full-time?
Schweigi 7y ago
I run two side projects on my own. The first with is on auto pilot and does $800MRR. My second is called TeamCal (https://www.teamcalapp.com https://www.teamcalapp.com) and I’m actively working on it. Usually 2-3 hours/week. Its doing $1700MRR and growing. TeamCal provides a scheduling view for Google Calendar and is used by cleaning/call center/staffing companies. If your interested about some of the work involved, I documented part of the journey on Indie Hackers: https://www.indiehackers.com/product/teamcal https://www.indiehackers.com/product/teamcal
tyingq 7y ago
Interesting question because answering it is somewhat risky, assuming no secret sauce or years of work to launch.
deforciant 7y ago
I have been running https://webhookrelay.com/ https://webhookrelay.com/ as I side project for the last two years and since last March it's quite profitable. Environment is highly automated, running on GKE, builds and testing on drone.io while deployments are rolled out by keel.sh, some alerting goes through Node-RED so I don't have to interfere. Still doing full-time consulting but hopefully in the next year or two I will transition full-time to it (if it's ever needed). I do plan to hire someone for marketing or sales, maybe on contracting terms and not full-time.
- kahoon 7y ago
  Great idea! How did you market it?
  - deforciant 7y ago
    Hi:) mostly blogging and selling directly to clients that I am doing consulting for :D
- throw03172019 7y ago
  I’ve always wanted this for localhost. Thanks!
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  Hey, this is really cool. Two things: Your headline text is "Webhook Relay lets anyone to..." You should probably make that "Webhook Relay allows anyone to..." Also, I read your name as Web-hooker Lay, which is less feedback, and more just something I thought was funny.
  - deforciant 7y ago
    :D lol! Thanks, will try to adjust :)
- madsohm 7y ago
  I read the pricing as "1500 webhook requests per minute" instead of the (I assume) correct "1500 per month".
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
thakobyan 7y ago
I started https://cronhub.io https://cronhub.io a year ago and it's profitable now. I have written blog posts about my learnings and challenges so far. https://blog.cronhub.io/ https://blog.cronhub.io/
foxhop 7y ago
Remarkbox (https://www.remarkbox.com https://www.remarkbox.com) +$50/mo
- duiker101 7y ago
  Can't load :(
  - justwalt 7y ago
    Add .com to the end
  - foxhop 7y ago
    I typo'd the uri... sorry about that. Please try again.
- swiftcoder 7y ago
  What's the overhead on load times of this?
  - foxhop 7y ago
    Right now load times are linearly related to the amount of comments. I have some ideas in the works to make this better, especially when a page hits like a thousand comments.
- stevoski 7y ago
  That’s just $50 per month? Or is there a K missing: $50K per month?
  - foxhop 7y ago
    Only $50/mo - I'm not the greatest marketer
jbenders 7y ago
Preppr (https://preppr.com https://preppr.com). I built this Instagram scheduling site and iOS app. Currently doing $10,000 MRR over the last month.
marketgod 7y ago
I have an edge in the market and it can work with larger portfolios than mine so I setup a system where my entries/exits are automatically posted for others to follow. Also, my algo generates the plan at night and that gets posted before the market opens so people can get in when I get in and make the same profits. In trading, most services aren't as transparent/don't get into all their recommendations, so this helps me take advantage of a niche. It's not nearly as profitable as I expected, but it will be soon once I create more awareness for it. It's not really a side project because I do trade full-time, but it kind of is a side project as I don't spend too much time marketing/advertising/adding features. Finding a niche is important, in my opinion.
krm01 7y ago
Solo started http://Fairpixels.co/pro http://Fairpixels.co/pro - UX/UI for B2B SaaS companies. a “Service as a Service” powered by custom internal software to work more efficiently. Growing strong and working with small saas companies and Elon Musk cofounded ventures.
ratling 7y ago
No one is going to tell you this idiot. They'll build it themselves and reap the profits. This whole ycombinator post is stupid as hell.
- ratling 7y ago
  HAAHHAHAHA you fucking goobers. Downvote all you want, it won't change the truth.
  - aerovistae 7y ago
    250 upvotes and 135 comments later, I figure you're the type of person who doesn't like to say "I was wrong."
mrskitch 7y ago
Hey! I just did/am doing an AMA on dev.to (located here: https://dev.to/joelgriffith/i-m-the-creator-of-browserless-io-let-s-talk-about-starting-your-own-company-2ej3 https://dev.to/joelgriffith/i-m-the-creator-of-browserless-i...). I run a one-person (me!), bootstrapped business called browserless (https://browserless.io https://browserless.io). I started it after trying to wrangle headless Chrome for a wishlist app, and desperately needing something like it. Obviously it wasn't around, so I pivoted and built it from the ground up. I'd be super happy to answer questions. You can also email me at joel at browserless dot io. Anything and everything is game! EDIT: Forgot to post how it's doing, which you can see on IH here: https://indiehackers.com/product/browserless https://indiehackers.com/product/browserless
- throw03172019 7y ago
  We use the open source version but still pay the subscription monthly. We love your product!
  - mrskitch 7y ago
    Thanks for that! Hope it’s going well!
charliepark 7y ago
I run one, a minimalist personal finance app. It's about 11 years old at this point. I built it up as my full-time gig and ran it initially for about six years. At that point: A) I had hired someone part-time to do customer support; B) the feature set was stable enough that it didn't need constant attention; C) I was missing working with people. So I moved out to SF and started working with a startup as an engineer. Enjoyed that for two years, then moved on to another startup where I was for three years (first as an engineer, then had a chance to move into management [which I also enjoyed, but where I missed making things]). This past October I left that startup to go back to working on my own thing. Revenue coming in to the app dropped significantly while I was doing other things, but since coming back to it I've rebuilt it (well … 90% of it) and am soon going to be shifting focus to improving business operations (in addition to building out some new features). My hope is that within a year or so it'll be back up to its earlier customer levels, but I haven't spent a lot of time forecasting that, and growth could be slow. It'll be a while before it'll support us living in SF, but that's somewhere on the horizon. What worked for me might not work for you (it was a long time ago!), but in case it's helpful, I built a very basic MVP (literally a spreadsheet) to scratch my own itch and then shared it, for free, online. (At the time I wasn't thinking of it as a business, just as a way to help people.) It got a good amount of traction. I was able to build on the attention the free version got (and the feedback people shared) and to develop a web-based, subscription-based version that required less work and gave more value to customers than the free version. I haven't ever taken funding, and am so, so glad I haven't.
- whitehouse3 7y ago
  Do you have a link to your product? A cursory search turned up nothing.
  - charliepark 7y ago
    Sure thing! Thanks for asking. We're closed to new signups now while we wrap up the last bit of feature parity from the old app (and make sure all is working smoothly for our current subscribers), but would love to have you check it out in a little bit: https://pearbudget.com https://pearbudget.com
sjs382 7y ago
Send To My Cloud (https://sendtomycloud.com https://sendtomycloud.com) is a one-person SaaS that I made 4 years ago. Its definitely in maintenance/passive mode but still profitable.
algodaily 7y ago
https://algodaily.com https://algodaily.com is profitable :-) And we're just getting started! Still very much a side project too.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
BrandonM 7y ago
The Overcast podcasting app seems to be built by a single person: https://overcast.fm/skeptics_faq https://overcast.fm/skeptics_faq
- maxmcd 7y ago
  I imagine the history of that single person might not be so relatable to people reading this thread :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Arment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Arment
- wmeredith 7y ago
  It helps that he had a tumblr exit, then founded and exit Instapaper and was a popular well known podcaster/blogger before he launched Overcast.
aacook 7y ago
Go for it! I'm working on NanaGram (https://nanagram.co https://nanagram.co) solo and bootstrapped. Although I'm not making a full-time income yet, it's generating a profit. It's mostly automated. NanaGram is the 3rd greatest generator of happiness and fulfillment in my life (after my wife and my dog). I get a constant stream of good vibes from customers, most recently voicemails from grandmothers! (https://nanagram.co/blog/feedback-by-vm https://nanagram.co/blog/feedback-by-vm) Good luck :)
- derrida 7y ago
  I really like this since everything is changing and who knows what will be profitable or survive next year, but if you look back at what you directed your efforts towards, even if everything fails (which it will, eventually) you have hard times in the future this would be a source of happiness :) I'm looking at this thread for a livelihood myself and I'm not motivated by being a middle-man or selling more consumerist shit that doesn't make people happy, this idea is inspiring, you can do good things ;) I hope this spreads and more people use it :) Products / activity like this really motivate me to promote them or recommend them when you're doing things this wholesome :)
  - aacook 7y ago
    Thank you. :) I originally built it for my 94-year-old grandpa who thought of himself as “the luckiest guy in the world.” We were very close. On one hand, I wanted to make the product as amazing as possible. On the other, he always impressed on me that he was old and his days were numbered. The original product decisions were on a fine line between awesome and fast. The whole goal was just to make him and my grandmother (also 94) smile. I still carry that with me in decisions now. Even if a feature or improvement only helps one or a handful of people, that’s ok in my book.
- mi100hael 7y ago
  Happy customer here :) I recently visited my grandma and found a drawer full of envelopes with every photo we've ever texted.
joshtronic 7y ago
I'm the solo founder of Holiday API - https://holidayapi.com https://holidayapi.com - a DaaS platform for holiday information. The project was originally started in 2013 as an open source side project, while I running a network of niche social networks full-time (also quite profitable for a while), after serving as CTO of a daily deal company, that stemmed from my need for reliable holiday information without the overhead of actually maintaining said data on a regular basis. A shift to a premium model was made in 2016 and the first month into being a premium service, it was profitable (sans my time ;) and has grown to ~$1500 MRR. Ironically I started the project as a way to NOT have to maintain said data and now part of my day to day involves maintaining data accuracy... and sales outreach... and DevOps to improve... my own development efforts... and... and... Recently received my YC rejection email for the upcoming batch (actually interviewed with another project with a partner a while back), but still hustlin'. Flying solo is great, but definitely can't get caught up in the echo chamber. Would highly recommend building a peer group of founders / other hackers & hustlers to meet / chat with regularly.
marinosbern 7y ago
I started Parachute [1] by accident when I won the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2015 Hackathon with its first prototype. I dropped everything else I was doing and launched it right here on HN a few months after that [2]. Today it's a healthy business without having taken a single cent of VC funding. I'm the only one full time on it, and it's made possible by relying heavily on a network of amazing friends who are each responsible for specific subprojects within their areas of expertise. Everyone is geographically distributed and I spend 9 months a year in NYC and the remaining 3 months traveling Cheers to all the amazing engineers here who run ethical, douche-free, sustainable businesses [1] https://parachute.live/app https://parachute.live/app (app), https://parachute.live/platform https://parachute.live/platform (B2B) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9885950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9885950
azhawkes 7y ago
I'm the solo founder of Loadster (https://loadster.app https://loadster.app) which has been profitable for a while and is now making me pretty close to a comfortable living. I really enjoy the freedom and variety that comes with running a SaaS, and while the grass is always greener on the other side, I think I'm pretty much ruined for a regular job at this point. So beware! One piece of unsolicited advice: if I were to start all over again as a solo bootstrapper, I would probably do something less technical. As others here have pointed out, there is a LOT more to running a SaaS than just building software, and it's often hard to find the time or brain space to give all the facets of your business the attention they deserve.
- plasma 7y ago
  Hey azhawkes; I've used loader.io and a few other services to do load tests. For all of them, I wish I had a "pay for credits" model, where I could just pay for each load test I ran, instead of a subscription. Load tests for me were infrequent and feature/ad-hoc/test-case specific, so I wish I had a billing model that fit my use case. Wish you the best!
  - azhawkes 7y ago
    Thanks!! The Loadster Fuel option is just that, where you buy a bunch of "fuel" (credits) and use it whenever you need to run tests. Each unit of fuel is enough to run 1 virtual user for 1 hour and it never expires. Loadster's revenue split is something like 70/30 between MRR and Fuel. As the founder, of course, I love MRR, but many customers are like you and load testing is an occasional activity where it wouldn't make sense to have a recurring commitment. I do always wonder how much friction it causes having two separate pricing models... pricing is hard.
    - nathan_f77 7y ago
      Thanks for sharing your experience! I've been thinking about adding a credit system to my PDF generation product [1], so that people can perform one-time batch jobs, or for companies that have very seasonal workloads. I agree that recurring revenue is the best, but there's also nothing stopping people from suspending their account if they don't need it anymore. I haven't had anyone do that so far, so maybe this would be the wrong direction. [1] https://formapi.io https://formapi.io
jordiee 7y ago
My saas https.appdoctor.io is barely profitable but that is mainly because of how cheap the infrastructure cost is(something I think helps a lot in 1 man/woman projects). I would agree with what others have stated though that I don’t recommend solo founding(looking for a co founder now). They don’t tell you that making an functioning application that is useful is less then half the battle to having a successful saas.
js2 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jasonkester https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jasonkester runs https://www.s3stat.com/ https://www.s3stat.com/
nghiatran_feels 7y ago
I know the solo guy who are running Proxyman https://proxyman.app https://proxyman.app as a side project for a year. He's ambitious to be a better alternative version of Charles Proxy. The best of Proxyman is that it's native app, lightweight and super easy to use for iOS dev newbie
kcdev 7y ago
Surprised Simple Analytics[1] hasn't been mentioned yet. I don't know how profitable it is but this seems like a great example re: the question. [1] https://simpleanalytics.io/ https://simpleanalytics.io/
- jivings 7y ago
  $1127 MRR (https://simpleanalytics.io/open https://simpleanalytics.io/open)
- AdriaanvRossum 7y ago
  As the founder of Simple Analytics I know a bit about the profitably of the company. It is making profit but it’s not enough yet to sustain my lifestyle completely. I do some freelance work on the side. As one hour of freelance work is more or less equal to one customer for a year it’s still way more satisfying to work on Simple Analytics. I try to keep it within 40 hour work weeks but the reality is around 2-10 hours freelance and 30-50 on Simple Analytis. But it’s sooo fun!
StephenCanis 7y ago
Your Audio Tour (https://www.youraudiotour.com https://www.youraudiotour.com) is making about $120 in recurring monthly revenue. I built it using Micheal Hartl's online ruby on rails tutorial which I would HIGHLY recommend.
fullstackjob 7y ago
Full-Stack Job Board (https://fullstackjob.com https://fullstackjob.com) is a one-men show on the way to profit, as costs are very low, just one paid submission is enough for now. But of course far from goal to get something more out of it then a lot of fun, learning's and coffee. Real money is then to come in from the underlying boardengine.io
AlchemistCamp 7y ago
I'm doing screencasts as opposed to a SaaS, so I started another thread for indies doing content businesses over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19704735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19704735
clementmas 7y ago
I launched https://travelmap.net https://travelmap.net as a side project 5 years ago but now I'm working full-time on it. I preferred that than freelancing ;)
- vividcode 7y ago
  this is amazing idea. Happy to share how much monthly users you got, and what tech you used?
jwr 7y ago
Yes, PartsBox is (Electronic parts inventory & production: https://partsbox.io/ https://partsbox.io/). Some key points I would have told my former self: * Do not expect any kind of explosive growth, especially in B2B. Expect linear growth. Search for "slow SaaS ramp of death" for a pretty good description of what to expect. * Marketing is a huge problem. If you look around, you will see lots of marketers talking about marketing. In. Short. Sentences. With. Deep. Meaning. But then you'll notice that they mostly talk about marketing marketing apps for marketers. Unless you are building apps that help marketers market, much of this advice will be useless. And the short sentences are annoying. * Paid ads are a waste of money, though I heard that with 4-5 digit budgets you can make them work. I never could. * It is extremely difficult to get a working SaaS business at price points below $20/month. If you look around, businesses with these price points are VC-sponsored and are burning through investor money. I would not start a sustainable SaaS with price points below $40/month. * When thinking about pricing, remember about support. There is no such thing as "no support", every product needs it, and it costs time and money. * It's hard. Everything is hard. And there is always too much to do. * Anxiety eats at you. No matter how good you are at keeping it at bay (I was pretty good), it will eventually catch up with you. I still don't have a good solution to that. * If you pick a good niche, you can live in a world with nice and smart customers. It's a good world! * When planning, be careful to set goals based on realistic financial assumptions. If this is to be your full-time job, it needs to support your business (including all hardware and office costs), you (your salary, insurance, retirement savings) and your family. People tend to vastly underestimate how much revenue is needed, especially if their past experience is mostly living with parents or surviving on ramen as a college student. * I would not trade this for a "normal" job, ever :-)
- paulstovell 7y ago
  > But then you'll notice that they mostly talk about marketing marketing apps for marketers I loved this point! It’s so true. They go on about how such and such strategy worked so well for HubSpot. Of course it did, HubSpot has an easy audience: marketers! Turns out those strategies work a lot less well for technical or more discerning audiences.
- stevoski 7y ago
stevekemp 7y ago
https://dns-api.com/ https://dns-api.com/ is my toy project. It brings in £250 a month.
lprubin 7y ago
My friend launched EnvKey (https://www.envkey.com/ https://www.envkey.com/) completely solo and grew it slowly over time. He eventually went through YC and took on investment but the first few years were bootstrapped. But he's still solo with a few freelancers.
wiidude32 7y ago
CryptoTrader.Tax (https://www.cryptotrader.tax https://www.cryptotrader.tax) We started this about 15 months ago during the crypto craze and have been able to grow to over 13,000 users!
docsapp_io 7y ago
I am working on SaaS DocsApp (https://www.docsapp.io/ https://www.docsapp.io/) solo and bootstrapped. DocsApp is a platform to manage your product documentation. DocsApp now is profitable and growing. Currently I am focusing on marketing to grow more. DocsApp was born as a result of frustration to building documentation for Product/SaaS. I have been working on DocsApp for 3 years and only now start profitable. The hardest problem I faced was marketing and sales. Development is only 30% of the work.
endriju 7y ago
Running a 1-man SaaS as a side-project has been one of the best things career wise. It helped me gain a different perspective on software (design, devops, sales, support etc.) in general. Being able to bring some of that experience into my day-time jobs was really rewarding. The Saas i'm running is Gridoc (https://gridoc.com https://gridoc.com) - it pays for the car and a few bills. I'm pretty sure it could be doing better but it has been on auto-pilot for a couple years now (started a family).
lazyjones 7y ago
I just stumbled across this: https://forum.bubble.is/t/shoutout-to-bubble-45k-mrr-benchmark/41279 https://forum.bubble.is/t/shoutout-to-bubble-45k-mrr-benchma... while looking at bubble.is (tool for code-free development of web applications).
monokai_nl 7y ago
I'm running https://mybrandnewlogo.com https://mybrandnewlogo.com — an automatic, online logo generator. I'm also running https://monokai.pro https://monokai.pro — a professional color scheme for coders. I've done both on the side of co-running a design agency. Last year I've spent quite some time on the logo design tool. It helps that I enjoy programming, learning and making stuff, but something's always got to give. I've sacrificed a lot of weekends, but luckily the foundation is there now. Both projects are profitable and have quite different mechanics. I've done almost no marketing for the color scheme, whereas the logo machine needs a lot of marketing.
user7878 7y ago
My self developer of few of Saas applications. I worked on starting from ideation to go live. I am developer of those applications working as single person for client to make multiple Saas applications as side projects since few years. P.S. Ideas are not mine I'm just doing development and can't disclose more details here.
sauravt 7y ago
I made https://icohunt.co https://icohunt.co and it's doing $400-$900 MRR
logronoide 7y ago
I started https://apility.io https://apility.io about 16 months ago and it’s profitable since month six. It’s not profitable enough to leave my job and fully dedicate my time to this, and who knows if it ever happens. I started the project just for fun, btw...
alaserm 7y ago
I created excellent product for test automation https://github.com/alaserm/VisualTAF/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/alaserm/VisualTAF/blob/master/README.md maybe someone wants to join for marketing and sales, profit sharing.
- alaserm 7y ago
  write to my email: alaserm@yahoo.com
fiatjaf 7y ago
There's my https://teams.cardsync.xyz/ https://teams.cardsync.xyz/, which I did as toy and forgot about, then months later I realized there were many many users using it for free, then started charging a little and people indeed started to pay! Then many people told me to raise the prices, which I did reluctantly and now I have a nice product that is grossly overpriced, but people pay anyway (not many people, but sufficient to be profitable and perhaps make a very modest living). I recommend first trying out plugins and extensions for established products instead of trying to launch the new Facebook. Stuff like https://www.ragic.com/ https://www.ragic.com/, for example, are niches no one seem to be exploring.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
discobean 7y ago
Solo founder of https://docevent.io https://docevent.io SFTP and FTP/S directly to your Azure Blobs, Google Cloud Storage and S3 buckets. I bootstrapped it myself, but there are now others that help remotely (consultants, contractors) on some features, fixes testing and marketing.
- vyrotek 7y ago
  This is great! I really wished this existed a few years ago at my previous company. We needed this exactly. A straightforward way to get ftp files into blob. Is it possible to cname/whitelabel the domain of the ftp address?
  - discobean 7y ago
    Thanks! You can CNAME, but for FTPS there will be certificate verification errors because the DNS is changed (there is nothing like http2 where we can serve other SSL certs for different destination hosts). But for SFTP, and FTP (insecure, not that you'd want to) CNAME works fine. We do do seperate SSL certs but it is only for bigger customers that we host dedicated instances on their behalf.
reubenswartz 7y ago
I first built Mimiran (https://www.mimiran.com https://www.mimiran.com) because I just wanted to know if and when prospects were reading my proposals. Since then I’ve added features by customer request to the point that it’s a crm, but really designed for consultants and other service-focused people, rather than traditional sales teams. It’s fun (usually) to get to do everything from coding to customer support. The feedback loop is very tight, especially because I’m user #1. If I could be so bold as to pass along advice, I would say: - keep the app itself as simple as possible. “This is so simple, even Steve Jobs would say it’s too simple” simple. This makes creating, testing, describing, and supporting the app as easy as possible. And if people can use it and provide meaningful feedback on what else they need, you can always decide to add it later. - don’t try to reinvent the wheel on marketing. See what has worked for similar products (indie hackers is awesome). - make sure you talk to prospects, customers, friends, and family. Don’t just sit there writing code. Having lifestyle flexibility as a solo founder is awesome, but it’s important to make time to be social. As much as I don’t miss commutes, office politics, etc, we are social creatures, even us introverts, and if you’re just coding or emailing or whatever and not actually talking to people, it’s going to be hard. - try to pick a market where you enjoy talking to your customers. I really like this part of my job. I know some other people who for whatever reason tend to have unpleasant interactions with their customers and it's not nearly as fun. So I’m told. :)
wayoverthecloud 7y ago
Currently building receiveco.com. It helps local businesses to get customer feedback and based on it asks for reviews on Google, Yelp, etc. I am currently searching for a co-founder better if someone who's got experience in marketing. The app is 95% complete. Email me at the email on my profile if you're interested.
perakojotgenije 7y ago
sshreach.me (https://sshreach.me https://sshreach.me) - it's currently only ramen profitable but I'm getting new users every day.
provlem 7y ago
Education SAAS is anytime great product to make money - something like EduClan.com
enoj 7y ago
I run a leave intent fortune wheel popup SaaS called Listagram (https://www.listagram.com https://www.listagram.com) as a solo founder and doing about $6K MRR with about $1K costs (Heroku, AWS CloudFront). Have about 100 paying customers. Yeah everybody hates popups. But I saw a potential for a product and wanted to try doing the SaaS thing after a decade selling software and doing consultancy. It has been a lot of fun, it is thrilling and scary to have my JS loaded on some high traffic sites.
billybrown 7y ago
I just launched https://staticIP.io https://staticIP.io and waiting to be profitable yet :)
billybrown 7y ago
I just launched https://staticIP.io https://staticIP.io so still waiting to make a profit
pk4636 7y ago
http://indiafinearts.co.in http://indiafinearts.co.in
pk4636 7y ago
Prints salutations
seektable 7y ago
I started https://www.seektable.com https://www.seektable.com as a side project 2 years ago - originally this was demo of technology (totally free tool). Last 9 months I'm trying to convert it into profitable SaaS app; have first paid customers however MRR is still low. Depending on your SaaS app niche and your marketing capabilities it might take some time to get stable and good-enough cash flow.
ca98am79 7y ago
I started park.io 5 years ago by myself and it has been profitable since then (and it has been just me the whole time)
nocubicles 7y ago
I'm running https://www.gosourcingwise.com https://www.gosourcingwise.com - its not super profitable but growing. Companies using it find it very simple and useful so that motivating to keep building it better.
jborak 7y ago
Packetriot (https://packetriot.com https://packetriot.com) - around 4 months old and I haven't begun seriously marketing, but it generates $60/month and makes a tiny profit. With it you can create a secure public endpoints (HTTP/TCP) from any network. The client can host static sites, reverse-proxy to other hosts, terminate TLS. It manages Lets-Encrypt for you. The higher-end tiers provides access logs, metrics, firewall rules, and service-health checks. With a public endpoint you can pretty much do anything. I initially built it to reduce my hosting costs to something minuscule (which it did). I found alternatives as I developed it, but I was so interested in the problem I continued and created some features that aren't available in others. I still have more ideas in the pipeline. I've been putting together video tutorials to showcase what you can do with it and how to use it. I'm focusing on people that self-host since most developers/hackers understand the concept. A lot of my registrations and customers have discovered Packetriot through my YouTube channel.
- CloudNetworking 7y ago
  Interested in hearing more about your very low running costs (I understand below $60/month).
  - jborak 7y ago
    I have 4 edge servers that are small VMs at the moment. For the number of users I have more than enough capacity. I also have a separate server that has more resources for the main site and APIs. I use DO, altogether hosting costs are $40/mo for now.
    - CloudNetworking 7y ago
      I guess you are generating a lot of traffic, is DO allowing you unlimited traffic on your droplets?
      - jborak 7y ago
        DO has bandwidth included in the price of the droplet and if you exceed then you pay a fair price for the additional bandwidth. For the cheapest droplet ($5/mo) you are provided 1TB of bandwidth. What they also do is take the all the bandwidth across all droplets you purchase and make that your pool. So if you have 4 droplets, then 4 TB, if one of the droplets experience the most traffic like 3.5 TB, and the rest are zero, you are under your total bandwidth quota for the billing period.
umen 7y ago
so what can we learn from this?
mickel 7y ago
I'm a one-man team developing TAYL, a service that turns websites into podcasts using AI. I built everything in 3 months (while working full-time with other things) and it's been profitable since week 1 of public release https://www.tayl.app https://www.tayl.app
- sharedmocha 7y ago
  Website looks really neat and clean. Did you use any website builder for this ?
  - mickel 7y ago
    Thanks! I used gatsby.js (http://gatsbyjs.org http://gatsbyjs.org) but no CSS framework or such, all very simple custom react components + CSS modules.
- bbayer 7y ago
  It looks very promising. What text-to-speech engine are you using?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mickel 7y ago
    Thanks! GCP and AWS.
lukaszkups 7y ago
https://carrd.co https://carrd.co by aj - a Zapas That enables people build simple websites/landing pages.
osakasaul 7y ago
Pocket. One-man team for at least the first two years.
osakasaul 7y ago
Pocket: one man team for at least the first two years.
markhalonen 7y ago
I created Vora (https://getvora.com/ https://getvora.com/) as a solo developer. I sold it a couple months ago, at time of sale it was making $300-500 in monthly profit
kevinslin 7y ago
Made a no frills transcription services that uses AWS transcribe on the backend: (http://scribe.thence.io http://scribe.thence.io). I run a podcast and use it to generate multi-speaker transcripts. It's fully automated and generates a nice little revenue
mangomania 7y ago
https://hexcolor.co https://hexcolor.co gives information about colors including color models, triadic colors, monochromatic colors and analogous colors calculated in color page. HTML color code is an identifier used to represent a color on the web.
mdbm 7y ago
I've seen a lot of friends publish apps to different ecosystems (e.g. marketplace.atlassian.com, https://apps.shopify.com https://apps.shopify.com, etc.) and make a steady profit. Seems like this is a good way to tap into an existing user base (although you share a portion of the revenue).
ryanckulp 7y ago
Lobiloo (https://www.lobiloo.com https://www.lobiloo.com) is an invoicing tool exclusively for florists. i acquired it from a florist about 1.5 years ago and have been going deep on the industry ever since. my challenge is (obviously) not having domain expertise, but i compensate by listening to customers, getting feedback from the former owner (now a lifetime user), and doing what i do: hack.
rorygibson 7y ago
https://trolley.link https://trolley.link - my payments project. It lets you put a payment button on any website and pop up a cart; single products, donations, deposits, subscription / recurring payments. Customers are using it to power charity donations, self published book sales, physical product sales & shipping, membership fees for clubs and so on. You can integrate it to Mailchimp and use it to put together a paid subscription email newsletter... or use it to make your own Patreon at much much lower cost to you. It uses Stripe as the gateway in the back end. (To use Stripe Checkout you still need a back end to handle token exchange. Trolley handles that for you.)
cx42net 7y ago
I've been working on PDFShift (https://pdfshift.io https://pdfshift.io) for a almost a year now - alone. I'm nearing 100 customers and will soon be able to make salary :)
vamshi4001 7y ago
BearTax (https://bear.tax https://bear.tax) It started as a necessary tool for myself and later turned into a SaaS platform with the help of my friends(co-founders) that can serve users across the world. Lean setup of AWS+Stripe+Bitbucket, answering relevant questions on Reddit and publishing quality content on Medium have played a major role in getting initial users.
iabdulin 7y ago
I've been running https://honeymoney.io https://honeymoney.io since 2011 (Russian version of it only initially). It's profitable.

csallen 7y ago
A common belief on HN is that any SaaS/tech business is constrained by the complexity of its code and product. Famously, the top comment[0] on Dropbox's HN launch was about how it's not a valuable business because the commenter could build it for himself. There were similar comments here about Asana recently, too, and I'm sure many other startups. If I had to guess, this is due to a combination of two factors. First, some kind of "visibility bias," where we all tend to overvalue things that are highly visible. And second, "man with a hammer" syndrome. We're programmers, so we tend to overvalue the importance of code. But the reality is just as you guessed — marketing, sales, partnerships, content, customer service, etc all play a huge role in a business' success. They require a lot of time, too. Not understanding this is one of the reasons many developer-founders make the mistake of taking on overly ambitious product ideas and not allocating enough time to the rest of their business. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
- lynnetye 7y ago
  ^^^ This. Key Values is not valuable because of its code. In fact, it's a simple static site that I could rebuild in a couple of days if I wanted to. I meet a lot of technical founders who love coding and avoid doing everything else. They run the risk of building a lot of fancy features that no one wants or needs.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - chii 7y ago
    > technical founders who love coding and avoid doing everything else. the truth is that these tech co-founders are really looking for a playground to have fun with code/tech, the same way a kid wants to play lego. Building a business is not fun at all. There are tonnes of mundane stuff, and these are fairly important. A technical co-founder is quite likely to have quit their previou job because they want to create an environment where they aren't restricted by the "business people" for doing technical exploration and play. This is why i think finding a business partner who isn't technical is quite important. They can reign you back in.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      I once saw a line that went something like, "to a systems programmer, all users and applications serve merely to provide a test load". There are plenty of people who just want to build stuff, and oh by the way it would be handy if we had some users to test the technology:)
- avinium 7y ago
  I've also noticed that a lot of successful solo projects seem to be network/directory platforms - i.e. building an audience through free content that you then monetize through commercial partnerships. As you said, these require a lot more on the marketing/partnerships side, rather than the technical side (in fact, one of the great things is that MVPs can be built in a couple of days on something like Wordpress).
  - csallen 7y ago
    > I've also noticed that a lot of successful solo projects seem to be network/directory platforms - i.e. building an audience through free content that you then monetize through commercial partnerships. Nailed it! What others have you noticed?
    - avinium 7y ago
      Startup directories like ProductHunt, BetaList, AngelList are all great examples. Now that I think about it, that actually describes a lot of blogs/vlogs/podcasts too (create an audience with great content, monetize via advertising). Not quite SaaS, though, so slightly different from OPs original question. Places like https://designacademy.io/ https://designacademy.io/ sit in the middle - content-first to create the audience, then use that audience to sell online courses in your given niche. The takeaway - which applies to any business really - is that you need an audience and you need to be selling something that someone desperately needs (rather than something that someone "wants"). Recruiters need candidates. Advertisers need eyeballs. Companies need investor networks. Find the need, build the audience.
lynnetye 7y ago
Yes, I spend a good amount of time doing marketing and sales, but I also spend a lot of time working w/ each engineering team, helping them to articulate and express their values. Culture is really hard to pinpoint. Companies (and especially eng teams) struggle to identify and convey what's actually unique about them, and many don't even realize they're different from other companies! People sometimes ask me how I scrape content for each profile, but it's obvious to anyone who actually reads them that they're thoughtfully curated. A lot of time, care, and attention goes into each profile, which is what makes Key Values valuable.
- _Nat_ 7y ago
  If you're making 30 kUSD/month without any employees, it sounds like you could reasonably hire someone to take some of those responsibilities off your shoulders, freeing you up to do more stuff. Have you considered hiring an employee or two to help with some of the basic responsibilities? Or do you feel that there may be some nuance to the work that you're hesitant to trust to someone else? Or, do you simply enjoy it too much to want to do something else?
  - lynnetye 7y ago
    You are spot on, my friend. These are the tough questions I've been asking myself every day for the last few weeks, and I'm still trying to answer them! I've had two people/friends do a bit of contract work for me (a few hours a week), but I'm not sure if hiring someone full-time is the right move. Not only do I genuinely love what I do every day, but I also really want to soak up the freedom I currently have while I still can. Real talk, I'll probably enter mommyhood in 1-2 years, so not being beholden to employers, investors, or employees is something I want to cherish for a bit longer. But who knows! Only time will tell... :P
    - dosy 7y ago
      I guess for the companies you're interacting with you are part of your brand. If someone else was going to take over talking with them, it would probably feel different to them. In a way you're already a mommy of your business. It must be hard to change that status quo for yourself.
PKop 7y ago
Listen to her indie hackers podcast, exactly this discussion is covered extensively.
- lynnetye 7y ago
  (I know this is kind of "not allowed" on HN, but... <3)

tinktank 7y ago

So how are you monetizing it? Is it ads or paid job advertisements or something else?

lynnetye 7y ago
Companies pay a yearly subscription fee for content creation and listing their profile on Key Values. I never charge software engineers and I don't charge companies any placement fees for the engineers they hire through Key Values. Having a contingency model is definitely the more lucrative path, but I'm against it for two reasons: (1) I'm a dev, not a recruiter, and (2) I think placements fees are part of what's broken in recruiting. The incentives are misaligned among recruiters, candidates, and employers when recruiters only want to place someone just long enough to hit the 90-day mark.

nodesocket 7y ago

> I'm doing ~$30k/month and it's almost all profit since I don't have an office or any employees. Awesome job. I am really surprised with that kind of revenue you don't spring for an office or dedicated office space at WeWork. You might as well spend money on your business, either that or you paying taxes to uncle sam (assuming you based out of the US). I try and buy a new MacBook Pro each year, might as well get a high end asset I use daily and the deduction.

Swalden123 7y ago
I’m not sure how the US tax system works, it seems doubtful that if you spend money on an asset you can deduct the full amount from the tax you pay? In Australia you would basically deduct the purchase price of a MacBook Pro off the total profit you calculate tax on so it ends up being around a 30% discount on the MacBook Pro. If it’s similar in the US at all spending profit pointlessly would just be throwing money away?
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  surely that depends on the type of company you have? If you have a personal company then I expect it is like that, if on the other hand you are incorporated the full purchase should be deductible, the reasoning of course is that a product you buy for a personal company is also used for you.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    No matter the type of company, deducting 100% of something does not reduce your tax burden by that amount. Multiply your tax rate times the amount of the deduction to see you tax savings. If you deduct 100% of a laptop and you or your company pays 30% tax rate, then you save about $300 because you were able to deduct. You aren't getting the laptop for free.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      If a company buys a laptop for a 1000 that is an operating expense of that company, if it is a personal company that is to say you are the sole owner and it is not incorporated then you can deduct part of the cost of that laptop which I thought I already indicated. If on the other hand the company is incorporated in some way - and because I am not referring to any particular country I just mean in some way the money spent on that laptop will not be counted in the company's profits and not be taxable. on edit: unless of course this is different in the country under discussion but in the countries I'm familiar with it works that way, also note I have not discussed depreciation which would definitely apply to a laptop.
- lgregg 7y ago
  I have photography equipment that I used while working a media consultant. It was a 100% deductible business expense back then, I get a tax break every year as they continue to "depreciate". It's been a few years, I still do some photography on the side mostly portraits or headshots.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    I don't think deduction means what you think it means. If you deduct 100%, you aren't deducting it from the total tax owed. You are deducting from your total taxable income. So if your tax rate is 30% and you spent $1,000 on a camera, you will save $300 on taxes. So the camera is not free. But you do get it for effectively $700. Additionally, you can't deduct the value of a purchase AND depreciate it every year. You do one or the other. And which one you do is dictated by tax law. Double dipping is tax fraud.
    - jakobegger 7y ago
      > Additionally, you can't deduct the value of a purchase AND depreciate it every year. In Austria we have an "investment bonus" that allows you to do exactly that (with a limit). If you are in the highest tax bracket (50%), this means you can get around 5000€ of equipment effectively for free every year.
- nodesocket 7y ago
  You are right, of course it's not 100% deductible. I am not advocating spending wildly on things you don't need for the business. If you have lots of revenue and not a lot of expenses, it makes sense to splurge on physical assets you can use and then expense and in the future sell. I.E. computers, networking equipment, storage, monitors, etc. Furthermore, it also make sense to spend on things that can help you grow the business like advertising, marketing, office space, employees. Again, better to spend and get the tax deduction, and have the resources that grow the business.
  - uhoh-itsmaciek 7y ago
    What if you feel your business is the right size?
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    If you deduct the expense, and then sell it later, your going to have to claim the sale as income. And pay tax on it.
    - airbreather 7y ago
      Depending on the depreciation schedule, esp for tech, it could well be viewed as close to worthless by the tax office after some years.
      - jjeaff 7y ago
        You don't get to expense the purchase AND depreciate the asset.
- airbreather 7y ago
  Try 50% if you are earning 30k a month, top tax rate kicks in at 180k per year in Oz.
nottorp 7y ago
Umm... if you spend money on tax deductible stuff that you don't need, I don't think you end up with more money than if you pocket the cash and pay taxes on it...