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Ask HN: Which is the most successful one-person business you heard of in 2019?

• majewsky 7y ago
  Drew DeVault's SourceHut (https://sr.ht https://sr.ht). It may not make as much revenue yet, but it provides value to the open-source community by developing a set of developer collaboration tools that actually improve on existing workflows and embody the Unix philosophy.
• stanmancan 7y ago
  I’m a one man show. I made a SaaS targeted towards a specific company. I did all the work up front, got them to trial it, and when they loved it they singed a contract for just over $100k/year. I have a site with ads on it that makes ~$1500–2000/m in ad revenue. I also do some hosting/maintenance for clients. 4 clients and it’s about $1,000/m. All in it’s about $130k/year and it requires about 5 hours a week of my time. It has freed up the rest of my time to keep building similar projects that can both boost and diversify my MRR. I’m very grateful that I’m able to work on projects I enjoy now, but more importantly it’s given me time to spend with my family and be around for my kid.
  • akudha 7y ago
    Can you broadly talk about how you came up with the idea, how you contacted the company?
    • stanmancan 7y ago
      An acquaintance worked for the company and asked for help replacing an existing paper process with an excel document. I helped, but mentioned a web app would work much better. The company trialed the excel version but came back with some concerns. I talked it over with the friend and decided to spend my free time building it out. Once I had a beta ready they trailed it in their location and they loved it. We got it into 2 more locations (all free at this point) and everyone loved it. That raised interest and other stores in the district started asking for it. We launched it across the whole district and finally started to charge. After a year the company decided to launch it nationally. It was a risky move to do the work up front since it could have fizzled out, but it worked out in the end.
      • akudha 7y ago
        Beautiful! one again, "find Excel use case and replace with web app" seems to have worked :) Thank you for responding.
        • stanmancan 7y ago
          Absolutely, I think there’s plenty of money to be made finding problems companies don’t know they have. The hard part is identifying them, and picking one where the value added by a web app is worth paying for.
      • akudha 7y ago
        Asking here, unable to reply to the comment below. The hard part is identifying them, and picking one where the value added by a web app is worth paying for. As someone who doesn't have any contacts with companies (I'd assume this is true for most people here), any pointers on how to go about doing this? I tried the cold email route (even made a friend this way, we still keep in touch after two years, though we haven't met and probably never will), but I didn't succeed. I probably could have, but it made me so uncomfortable writing to total strangers :(
        • adriand 7y ago
          > As someone who doesn't have any contacts with companies (I'd assume this is true for most people here), any pointers on how to go about doing this? You need to develop contacts at companies! There are lots of different ways to build your network, but the bottom line is that to be successful with this line of work, which is essentially consulting (at least in the beginning stages), you need to meet people and earn their trust. If you are introverted this will likely feel awkward and uncomfortable (which is why it’s called getting out of your comfort zone). It takes a fair bit of effort to get someone to the point where they are willing to walk you through their business processes. Showing genuine interest in their operations and asking lots of good questions is key.
          • stanmancan 7y ago
  • 101008 7y ago
    Wow, those number sound so high for a third world country that I can't help thinking that if I were in your situation I would give half of that salary (5k monthly) to my brother and father so they wouldn't have to worry about money again. Congratulations for being in that situation!
    • arkitaip 7y ago
      Parent didn't get where he is today by giving away half (!) of his salary.
      • adele11 7y ago
        He didn't get there by not giving half of his salary.
    • spottybanana 7y ago
      Coming from scandinavian welfare state, it is really difficult for me to understand why someone would give to their relatives some of their income. Especially if you earn it by working, and the reasoning being so that they don't have to worry about money = have less pressure to work. I don't want to judge anyone, just wanted to state that there is clearly quite a big cultural gap here. I don't know anyone around here who would do similar things.
      • newswasboring 7y ago
        Your country has a welfare net. For the third world countries usually children are the welfare net. It's not that hard to understand.
        • nolok 7y ago
          There is factually/intellectually understanding it, and then there is being able to see things through that point of view, which opens up in depth discussions from it. As parent said, he may have the first type, but not the second, so it's hard for him to answer on it without making it sound like a culture clash.
  • zakki 7y ago
    Please write a blog post for us to learn from you.
    • HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
      Don't take this the wrong way. What if you read what he did, do a lot of research on how to get similar results to him and blog about it so others can learn from you? Don't wait for things to happen; go out and make them happen yourself.
  • aerovistae 7y ago
    The "site with ads" is the one that really interests me. Can you give some details on that? What kind of site it is, how you grew traffic, what you use for ads? (Just AdWords?)
    • stanmancan 7y ago
      I made an API for myself in 2011 that I could consume at work. I made a site that lets people query it from a web app and docs on the API. Didn’t think anyone would actually use it though. Tossed an ad on it and forgot about it. The API has been rewritten a few times now, it gets over 300 million requests a month. All organic growth, I can’t take any credit for it because I honestly have done nothing to aid it. Only use Google AdWords and it runs on a $40/m VPS. We introduced paid plans a year ago and had a few sign ups. I think the paid accounts are about $440MRR but I split it with a friend who did all the work around paid accounts. (I didn’t think it would be worthwhile, he did, so he did the work around paid subscriptions)
      • rhlsthrm 7y ago
        What's the API do if you don't mind sharing?
        • stef25 7y ago
          In his submissions on HN there's a link to macvendors.com Pretty cool simple idea.
          • crobertsbmw 7y ago
            I visited the site, and turned off my adblocker, but am not seeing any ads. Are the ads hidden somewhere? What does one have to do to see ads these days? Edit - Nevermind, I thought I had my ad blocker off, but apparently incognito mode didn't turn it off like I expected it would.
      • stef25 7y ago
        Adwords, as in you pay to advertise the site on Google? I found your project since you previously posted it on HN and linked to it in an answer below (hope you don't mind, I'll remove it if you want).
  • rhlsthrm 7y ago
    What type of hosting/maintenance are you doing for clients and how did you find these clients? Interesting you were able to find opportunities for hosting services when there are so many easy PaaS options out there now.
    • stanmancan 7y ago
      Most companies don't know what hosting options they have. They'll take the first recommendation from their "tech person" or whoever developed their site. The problem is, that's a shit experience for your average company. They rarely touch their site since they don't know how. Someone will create an account, they'll write the username and password down for all the various hosting providers they need to know, and things will usually go smoothly until their credit card expires, their domain name expires (which they don't even know is possible) or some other problem that results in a bunch of downtime and panic from everyone involved. I pitch it as a worry free solution. I manage their domains renewals, DNS, hosting, security updates, framework updates, all things they don't know they have to do. Their framework will remain current, so if they want something done in 5 years they'll have the latest version of the framework, not some archaic thing that requires PHP 5.1 and relies on a weird MySQL bug from whatever version their host is using. On top of that, they get a couple hours of maintenance included every month, so if they need a few small changes made to the site it's all included, no extra invoices, no quoting, no needing to get budget approvals or sign offs. They just shoot me an email and I make the changes. (hours don't roll over)
  • Pete-Codes 7y ago
    Awesome numbers! Did you do CS at college?
    • stanmancan 7y ago
      Nope all self taught. Nothing I’ve done is very complex.
  • thepredestrian 7y ago
    What kind of site do you run that generates $1.5k/month in ad revenue? High traffic niche blog?
    • stanmancan 7y ago
      One of many MAC address lookup services, https://macvendors.com https://macvendors.com
• jonshariat 7y ago
  This was posted a while back about their tech stack but lots of good comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20985875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20985875 Also very similar post as this one, some good comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13167156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13167156
• domlebo70 7y ago
  Sorry to hijack slightly, but figured it's related: I am trying to build a "lifestyle" side project into something profitable, as a goal to replace my job. I think I have a good product and niche. What I want is some sort of mentor network. Someone who has already succeeded where I haven't, and that I can pester with questions, check I am on the right track, vent, etc, every now and then. Does such a thing (or something like it) exist?
  • inovica 7y ago
    Drop me a message. I've started and run several ventures, a couple of which became more than lifestyle. Nothing is done alone though - there are always people who help you on your journey; employees, friends, mentors, family. Happy to point you in a direction
    • domlebo70 7y ago
      Great, thank you. PM'ed via LinkedIn.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  • F_J_H 7y ago
    Yes, they exist, but the ones I've seen are typically executive forums (ie a group of CEOs meet together). There also seem to be a lot of startup mentorship groups. However, you might get the most mileage from finding a few people who have been successful where you would like to be, and reach out to them for mentorship. Such connections can make a huge difference.
  • quest88 7y ago
    What is a lifestyle project?
    • domlebo70 7y ago
      I don't know if there's a better term (I've just seen it used online). This is what I meant by it: https://thebusinessprofessor.com/knowledge-base/startup-vs-lifestyle-business/ https://thebusinessprofessor.com/knowledge-base/startup-vs-l...
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• blaisio 7y ago
  Pull Reminders. Launched in 2018, acquired by GitHub in June 2019. A very good product that does one specific task really really well. I assume it was acquired for at least a few hundred thousand, if not a few million.
• kraavi 7y ago
  Pinboard
• mmmuhd 7y ago
  I heard that the site builtwith is still being run by the single founder, maybe he has recruited help by now, but if he still run it all alone then it is most successful one person business I have heard of in 2019.
  • stanislavb 7y ago
    Yes, I've heart it's a one-man army project. His/their office is based on the other side of the bridge where I live. One of my small goals for SaaSHub is to be as successful as BuiltWith :)
• stanislavb 7y ago
  I'm a one-man army, too. I've built SaaSHub https://www.saashub.com https://www.saashub.com & LibHunt. I left my job a few months ago and since then have focussed on developing and growing SaaSHub. It's been growing steadily for the last 2-3 months. My expectations are that it will generate ~$2,500+ in January and $100k+ in 2020 given the current growth. I have a massive list of ideas that I will work on next. Yet, I'd like to be fully sustainable (in an expensive city like Sydney) before jumping to the next project/idea.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • akudha 7y ago
    Saashub looks cool. How do you manage to get people to write reviews?
    • stanislavb 7y ago
      With proper incentives. Every day I'm featuring 4 projects (2 over the weekend) on the SaaS Tribune (homepage). These projects are usually selected 3 weeks in advance. During that period, product owners are reminded that their software will be higher in the list if they have more reviews.
  • stanislavb 7y ago
    p.s. another very successful one-person business should be levels.io. The person behind "Remote OK" & "Nomad List".
  • clktmr 7y ago
    How does SaaSHub generate revenue? I have neither seen any ads nor any payment possibilities.
    • stanislavb 7y ago
      There are some ads on internal pages only. Not too many. Also, companies can pay for a featured listing https://www.saashub.com/featured-products https://www.saashub.com/featured-products
• noodle 7y ago
  Depends a lot on your definition of "successful" and "business". Most very successful one person businesses I know of are specialty consulting businesses.
  • gnzoidberg 7y ago
    This is a very good point. The definition I would use is not selling your time, where my income is not just a multiplier of the hours I put in, even if the multiplier is high.
• leerob 7y ago
  You could try looking up Solo Founders on Indie Hackers. https://www.indiehackers.com https://www.indiehackers.com
• theyoungwolf 7y ago
  i think coinmarketcap was solo or one person
  • johnking 7y ago
    Solo = 1 person
  • wheelerwj 7y ago
    it was, but i dont believe it is any longer.
• csallen 7y ago
  Ben Tossell of Makerpad. He made about $200k in the past year from a site that teaches others how to build interactive sites and apps without writing code. Lynne Tye of Key Values. She made about $400k in 2019 from a site that connects software engineers with companies that that share their intangible values, e.g. diverse team, good for parents, fast or slow-paced, etc. Robert James Gabriel of Helperbird. He struggled a lot with dyslexia growing up, and even had a teacher tell him he should give up and drop out of school. Luckily another teacher encouraged him to learn to code, and he's been quite prolific since. Helperbird is a browser extension that helps others with learning disabilities browse the web easier. Robert recently brought on a co-founder, but he'd grown the app to a "comfortable five figures a month" in revenue. Plenty more on https://www.IndieHackers.com https://www.IndieHackers.com sharing their stories via interviews and on the podcast, and also posting about hitting revenue goals and other milestones here: https://www.indiehackers.com/milestones https://www.indiehackers.com/milestones
  • gnicholas 7y ago
    +1 on Robert of Helperbird. He's done a great job scaling that company up, although as you note he does have a cofounder now. Also a really helpful guy — I reached out to him and he was down for a chat about accessibility and assistive technology.
  • batt4good 7y ago
    I'm still blown away that Key Values (as cool an idea as it is) manages to pull that kind of revenue. One thing I'd be curious to see is if the site actually can maintain revenue past year one?
    • dannyw 7y ago
      Recruiting really, really pays.
      • batt4good 7y ago
        So surely Key Values takes a share of recruiting fees, not just a fee to list on their platform? Idk, it seems like this site wouldn't help cut down on candidates that are completely not qualified to work at a given company, which to me seems like a much more daunting hiring challenge for small companies / startups.
• gnicholas 7y ago
  I run a one-person company [1] whose tech makes reading on screen easier/faster/more accessible. The B2C tools (iOS app and browser plugin) bring in 5 figures, but in 2019 the IP licensing took off. We have large educational clients that are integrating the tech because of its benefit for students (especially those with ADHD and dyslexia). IP licensing is great because it means I don't need to spend time building the integrations myself, and I don't have any costs attached to the licensing deals, so it's pretty much all profit. In 2020 the IP licensing will greatly exceed the B2C revenue, and we may even make the B2C tools free at that point. 1: www.beelinereader.com
  • undefined_user6 7y ago
    That's awesome. Just FYI the link to the Firefox extension at the above URL is a dead end.
    • gnicholas 7y ago
      Ah, yeah thanks I need to fix that, thanks!
  • rodolphoarruda 7y ago
    Do you think it makes sense to sell instructional content under IP licensing for basic education institution? I have produced a lot of basic infosec awareness materials this year I could be revamping to make suitable for teachers and school administration. Payment would be done once a year, more or less aligned with a new pack release which would contain updates/new content.
    • gnicholas 7y ago
      Just to clarify, would you be selling to K12 or higher ed? This could wrap into a "media literacy" package, which is taught in K12. My gut reaction is you would not want to position this as IP licensing if selling to schools. We do IP licensing to edtech/education companies, but our school offerings are all software/SaaS. I think schools would find the notion of IP licensing to be a mismatch, which would create friction even if the offering itself is a good fit.
• codesternews 7y ago
  @robsun what kind of app your friend built?
  • robsun 7y ago
    It's medical app. I don't want to provide more details as he is not aware I mentioned him ;).
• sideproject 7y ago
  I run SideProjectors, which generates some profit. But my reason for posting is for anyone who wants to take-over someone's side project, then have a look at some of the projects posted - https://www.sideprojectors.com https://www.sideprojectors.com - You don't need to start from zero. :)
  • Clex 7y ago
    Signing up to SideProjectors using Twitter requires permissions to follow, unfollow, tweet, update account info, read direct messages, etc. That's extremely scary.
    • sideproject 7y ago
      Apologies - we only need to get user account info (to get the twitter username). Will go and remove those permissions now - we had this Twitter integration set up ~3 years ago and didn't review it - No excuses! :) Sorry for scaring you (and other users of course).
• eps 7y ago
  Not the "most successful", but notable nonetheless - http://www.tinytouchtales.com/end-of-year-2019/ http://www.tinytouchtales.com/end-of-year-2019/ That's the person behind Miracle Merchant and Card Crawl games.
• thrw202001 7y ago
  I run a small MOOC helping country side municipalities/rural communities in Scandinavia with teaching their youth and young adults about IT, networking and cloud technologies. It started as a pilot project in a small municipality north of the arctic circle and I sold my first license in February. It then quickly gained attraction in similar types of municipalities when the results came in. It was a lot of work in the beginning, but now I usually have a very nice schedule. Every week I spend around 4 hours researching different topics, 8 hours on updating or creating videos for the platform and 4-8 hours in video meetings with customers or regarding new business opportunities. This year I made north of €150k (~$167604) and will double that before Q3. Seeing how things are going, most likely I will not be a one man show by the summer due to a need for account management and/or content creation, but it's doable.
  • lucasverra 7y ago
    Hey there, congrats! How to reach you ? I run a digital product consultancy in Paris and we help SMB’s to increase performance on internal processes
• aerovistae 7y ago
  I have so many ideas and the path to reaching customers just seems impossible. I am constantly saying to myself, who could be persuaded to PAY for this? And yet so many people here have successful products that I NEVER would have thought could work (a color gradient on text?!?!). I do not know how people reach actual revenue on their side projects.
  • smithmayowa 7y ago
    I am the same here, I am so useless at sales that when I see the things some people manage to sell I get angry somewhat.
    • exolymph 7y ago
      Don't hate the player, man. Don't hate the game either. Realize that reaching people, both literally and figuratively, is a prerequisite to improving their lives with your product.
  • buboard 7y ago
    what kind of ideas about what audience? perhaps talk to other makers with overlapping audiences, and help each other. sadly, the main online media have become hostile to boostrapped sites.
  • steve_taylor 7y ago
    I have a lot of ideas and the capability to build them all. I’m sure I’d be able to sell them as well. My problem is that I don’t have time, because I’m the sole income earner for a family of four. I’ve tried to get numerous projects off the ground, but it always required giving up sleep and putting my day job under threat. I don’t have runway because that money is earmarked (not by me) for a deposit on a house in one of the world’s most expensive markets.
    • tmaly 7y ago
      I am in the same situation. I had to stop burning the midnight oil on side projects. I just work on one now but over a much longer time horizon.
• kak9 7y ago
  Can't reveal product without their permission. But know of 1 person company that generates $500k revenue per year and gets its customers via SEO.
  • gnicholas 7y ago
    That's a lot of revenue! What's the cost structure? That can make all the difference in the world.
• ingend88 7y ago
  I run a one person company and made about 50K last year. This year, plan is to bring the courses online and generate about $100K in total.
• ingend88 7y ago
  I built a Product Management Interview training platform and earned about 50K total with 100K in the lifetime. Next step is to transition to online course and expected to make about $200k/year.
• swyx 7y ago
  2 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21332072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21332072 8 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19701783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19701783
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• quelsolaar 7y ago
  I'm running MinistryOfFlat.com and I have made 7 figures this year. No investors or co workers. No marketing beyond my 2k twitter followers and a website. Solve a very specific and hard problem and the right people will find you.
  • spectramax 7y ago
    This has to be one of the most astonishing and remarkable work I've ever seen in recent times. Holyshit. UV mapping is a royal pain in the ass and I can't believe it can just be automated away. Many big studios tried - from Houdini to Maxon to large open source projects like Blender. You deserve huge returns, kudos! All the best! Nit: you need a SSL cert on your website :)
    • quelsolaar 7y ago
      Thank you very much! Its pretty good but its not even close to as good as the version I have in R&D.... SSL is coming, thanks for reminding me.
      • codesternews 7y ago
        Could you tell us more about yourself and project. How would you able to do without any coworkers when many big companies tried.
        • quelsolaar 7y ago
          I kind of did it by accident. It was a side project that people started getting in touch over. I think I'm very suited to solve this problem for a few reasons. I used to be a 3D artist so I know what artists want. I'm a C programmers so I can make complex things go fast, and I have done a lot of procedural 3D stuff so I know a lot of mesh processing tricks. The complexity of this is substantial. its currently around 1.5 megs of source code, not counting UIs loaders and savers or any of that. So I would say many long hours and being very focused is key. You can find more of my work at www.quelsolaar.com and @quelsolaar on twitter
• Scott_Sanderson 7y ago
  If successful means total benefit delivered to shareholders, then I consider my one-man company to be very successful. Used to be a corporate attorney grinding high billable hours at big firm. Quit to start a solo law practice serving clients working with my favorite thing, cryptocurrencies. I made $100k working about 30 hours per week from home. Drop off and pick up kids from local school on cargo bike. Take them to the park after school a few days a week (babysitter gets them other days). Client list is kept short to manage stress and avoid need to hire employees.
  • chapium 7y ago
    I'm happy for your success, that sounds like a dream come true.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• iloveitaly 7y ago
  Sidekiq makes ~1M/year in gross revenue. I believe the only full-time employee is the founder, and it doesn't sound like there are any material recurring expenses: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/016-mike-perham-of-sidekiq https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/016-mike-perham-of-side... It's the most profitable one-man show I know of, although there's many that I've run into that ~500k, albeit with a much higher operational burden.
  • digianarchist 7y ago
    Mike created a quality product that was much better than the alternatives at the time. I remember working in a Rails shop and struggling with Resque.
    • iloveitaly 7y ago
      Agreed. Sidekiq solves a real problem much better than the alternatives. As soon as your app starts to make real money it's worth paying for enterprise for the support + added features. I feel like there's got to be other businesses to be built by creating 'premium' open-source packages for common pain points in application development.
  • stef25 7y ago
    After skimming through the podcast transcript it's still not clear to me how this works. What's the difference with say the job queue system of Laravel / Horizon / Redis ? From what I can tell this has all the same features listen on the Sidekiq page except it's free. What am I missing?
    • pkalinowski 7y ago
      Sidekiq is using Redis behind the scenes. It's a job queue system for Ruby and Ruby on Rails
      • stef25 7y ago
        Seems to have only a few extra features compared to Laravel's Horizon (from looking at screenshots, I could be totally wrong). https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/horizon https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/horizon Horizon is free, crazy something like this could be monetized so successfully.
• kesor 7y ago
  Evan You is making Vue.js financed by Patreon donations. Looks like about 19k/mo, which is 230k/y. Although there are most probably people who help him, he is doing it mostly on his own. And I suspect that Patreon is just one of his income sources. https://www.patreon.com/evanyou https://www.patreon.com/evanyou
• lpolovets 7y ago
  Jeff Meyerson at the SW Engineering Daily podcast. I'm not sure if he has any employees (maybe one part-time?), but the podcast pulls in $60k+/mo. https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/114-jeff-meyerson-of-software-engineering-daily https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/114-jeff-meyerson-of-so...
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• nojvek 7y ago
  Browserless.io - wonderful profitable niche running headless browsers in the cloud. Not sure if still one person anymore.
• throwaway_29575 7y ago
  My wife. She runs her own web/digital marketing company and is the only full-time employee (which includes time for school pick-up/drop-off). She has a few freelancers for graphic design and content writing and I help out as I can while working a full-time corporate job. Her company revenue is over 300k/year.
  • crikli 7y ago
    That is awesome. When did she start the company? What has her growth strategy been and how has she acquired new clients?
    • throwaway_29575 7y ago
      She's been running it for about 12 years, basically not long after the kids started at school. Growth has been organic, probably around 20% year on year at a guess. For a long time new clients were mostly Google Ads/Remarketing, word-of-mouth and customer referrals and a few ongoing relationships with sales executives in traditional media like TV, radio, etc. Over time organic SEO has come into it as her ranking improved. There's been minimal networking which is always a concern if online stops working. There's just not the time to be out at business chambers, BNIs, etc, look after kids and get work done. It's also a long term commitment.
      • bitcoinmoney 7y ago
        What does web/digital marketing do?
      • crikli 7y ago
        I've got a business that my wife and I are launching, as well as a couple of other ventures queued up for 2020. All of them will rely on effective digital marketing. I'd love to visit with your wife, see if there is a fit. My email is chrisrikli at gmail.
  • tonixx 7y ago
    I'm currently working on a solution for Instagram influencers and I'm reaching out to digital marketing companies to partner with on this. We would split the revenue so this would be beneficial for both parties. It would be great if you could put me in touch with your wife. Here's my contact link: https://contact.do/toni https://contact.do/toni Thanks!
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• cmod 7y ago
  Surely Ben Thompson (Stratechery[0]) must be one of the most profitable single person businesses / publishers around. One person, email distribution, multiple millions in revenue per year. [0] https://stratechery.com https://stratechery.com
  • conductr 7y ago
    I’ve always respected his work. But I don’t subscribe to blogs, just see it pop up on HN frequently. I didn’t realize he was monetizing it. I’m surprised he’s doing so well with tbh but good for him.
• Toss8675309 7y ago
  I'm a one man development and consulting shop and have been so for almost 12 years. My 2018 gross revenue was $600K and 2019 gross revenue will be about $780K. I'm an extremely efficient developer, a very good salesperson, and I'm an absolute fanatic about delivering high quality work on time. I don't presume to have any special knowledge but would love to find a way to help other devs/tech people do what I've done.
  • throwaway_29575 7y ago
    Nice year on year growth. What are your sales channels? Is it mostly online (seo, ads, remarketing etc), b2b networking or word-of-mouth referrals?
    • Toss8675309 7y ago
      Hey, thanks! I work in a niche of sorts, so the sales channel is 100% word-of-mouth referrals. My champions are executives that tend to move from one company to another every few years and usually bring me in when they've got a new gig. Also, each new company provides the opportunity to build new relationships with new people who themselves move on to new companies, and the cycle continues. :)
      • throwaway_29575 7y ago
        In the digital marketing space it's the ambitious marketing managers who move from company to company (and like to work with someone they know). My wife makes a point of keeping them happy. The issue is that in a competitive market it works both ways as every incoming manager will often have "a friend", so they have to be won over quickly to keep the account.
        • Toss8675309 7y ago
          Man, been there. You have to act fast and aggressively to demonstrate that value that you've been providing to the incoming manager. And even then, you don't always win. At the same time, once you reach a certain point, you can become choosy about who you work with. I maintain the client relationships I do because I like the people I work with. If someone new comes in, they're not value focused, they just want to bring in their guy no matter what, well, bummer, but attrition can't be completely avoided.
• anonu 7y ago
  The guy from builtwith.com
• semireg 7y ago
  I’d imagine that many users don’t comment because they feel their salary mix is too sensitive. I’m a mobile app dev consultant that also maintains a few node/docker appliances for industrial IOT clients. I make enough to dedicate 10 hours a week (sometimes nights and weekends) to build and maintain an electron app that I sell for $50 a license. My software is beginning to compete with other software that costs $500 a license. I have a lot of room to grow, and it’s super unsexy: label printers. I basically created the label design app I wish I had. You can check it out at https://label.live https://label.live.
  • stef25 7y ago
    Wish I'd discovered this back when I needed it, all label printing software is garbage but this looks perfect. Just one issue - can't easily find the price of your app.
• xs 7y ago
  First that comes to mind is Joe Rogan. He started a podcast in 2009. His SocialBlade profile says he makes between $16,500 - $264,000 a month from his youtube videos alone. But the bulk of his downloads are going to be from his rss feed, where he has between 2m-20 million downloads per episode with about 4 ads baked into each episode. If he charged a (low) standard of $20 per 1,000 downloads for those ads, this means he makes at least $160,000 per episode. He does like 20 episodes a month. Some believe Joe may be the first podcaster to make a billion dollars. If he hasn't earned that already he will in the next few years. Let me reiterate. Joe started his podcast himself. By himself. Like as in, he set up his Libsyn account, bought his own mic. Booked his own guests. Then published it all himself. Now he has very minimal help, like 1 or 2 people to help him. It's so insane. Now you might say "that's not a one-person business". But in this gig economy, not many people are. There's always someone hiring a lawyer, or graphic designer, or podcast producer, to work freelancing gig by gig. So the single person business is usually getting help from others. But there are other podcasters who have also done it all themselves, and are raking it in too.
  • gremlinsinc 7y ago
    Pretty sure he was a celebrity before though, that kinda makes things easier than for the avg joe blow.
    • Fordec 7y ago
      While true, not sure it's a material point in a discussion about who's the biggest outlier you can think of. Outliers get to be outliers because of non-standard factors.
  • stef25 7y ago
    Heard Sam Harris mention once that every Joe Rogan podcast has the same audience size as the Game of Thrones final. Too lazy to look up the numbers but it's very impressive if true. I like his podcasts a lot, he's a great guy and deserves it all. He did mention once that he made "fuck you money" in his Fear Factor days. His income from that and his stand up tours probably contribute massively to his total net worth.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• abinaya_rl 7y ago
  I'm working on https://remoteleaf.com https://remoteleaf.com, at this point it's not a successful business. I'm in the process of appearing and talking about it in the 2020 version of this thread :)
• dmlittle 7y ago
  I'm not sure how it's doing today but back in 2017 park.io was making over $1M/yr [1]. If I had to guess it's probably bigger today. [1] https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/034-mike-carson-of-park-io https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/034-mike-carson-of-park...
  • ca98am79 7y ago
    Hi - I added a partner in 2019 and we are doing even better now, thanks!
• puranjay 7y ago
  I worked with an entrepreneur who runs an affiliate site that pulls in about $100k/month, has zero employees, and no office.
  • tuesday20 7y ago
    What kind of site is it? If it is a review site, does he use the products he reviews?
    • puranjay 7y ago
      It's a software review site and yes, he does use the products he reviews.
• cyberferret 7y ago
  I singlehandedly built a small business HR SaaS - https://www.hrpartner.io https://www.hrpartner.io - over the past few years and grown it to a stage that I can now take a salary from it after 3 years of living on savings. I DO have a co-founder now who joined in May of this year, so strictly speaking I am no longer a one person business, but I created all the 50,000+ lines of code (and 200+ database tables) of my system myself. EDIT: It has actually been a bit of a family project, with my wife helping out with voice overs and my son helping out with video production etc.
  • domlebo70 7y ago
    Awesome. What were the big mistakes you made along the way?
    • cyberferret 7y ago
      Thanks. I guess the biggest mistake in the early days was doing 'scattergun marketing' and not focusing on where our users actually were. Once we narrowed down and marketed to HR managers and business owners via LinkedIn and Capterra etc., we saw great results. Another mistake was probably not sticking to a marketing avenue long enough. We would sometimes change our website completely a couple of times a month, so we never really knew what was working or not as we didn't have enough quantitative data. Nowadays we just rarely make sweeping changes, but instead make small tweaks to our marketing and watch analytics for patterns. I do blog about some of these learnings over at https://devan.codes https://devan.codes
• judlaw 7y ago
  Not a success story, but I've been building my venture for some time now and recently started making revenue. We answer all legal questions in 42 minutes (http://www.helplicit.com http://www.helplicit.com), and are now expanding that to other domains (http://www.fortyq.com http://www.fortyq.com) The reason I'm writing here is because I'm constantly surprised by the relative ease with which one 'lands' a 100k per year contract, or accidentally makes an API that forks its way to glory. I'm fortunate to know some amazing founders, some of whom are raising millions in VC. Been in and out of accelerators myself. Yet no story I know starts or has ever been like that. Imho, it is excruciatingly hard work to provide people value and get them to pay for it. Takes time, constant follow-ups, a strong value proposition..none of which gets built jlt. I wouldn't be fooled by the end result of $ x M ARR. There is a lot going on behind the scenes, which rarely gets spoken of because it sounds just sounds rad to say that I had an idea and somebody just signed me a cheque. No matter the entity at the paying end, people are fundamentally programmed to be uneasy letting go of large sums of money. Takes a lot of convincing to get there. Having said that, building is an addictive hellride and I wouldn't trade it for anything else :) Happy to share more of the limited experience I have, feel free to PM. Cheers to building!
• inancgumus 7y ago
  I know a guy from our local industry who has a free cybercafe software. He's making about $500k/year for the past 20 years or so. It's a one man business. http://handycafe.com http://handycafe.com
  • domlebo70 7y ago
    How does it generate revenue?
• NicoJuicy 7y ago
  All these nummers and still, my dad is a vet and earned 300k € in his best month ( without much sleep). Most of the even more successful ones don't even take that in per year. And yes, he is a one man show, no tech involved. It was very eye opening to me, since my dad can't even boot a PC. Competition is local though, it's 6-9 other local veterinarians. He seems to be the most successful one (= he is the one everyone sees passing by day and night in the car)
  • tempsy 7y ago
    Yes that is impressive but the difference is your dad has to work for that money whereas with software once you achieve success in you do very little work relative for the amount of money you bring in.
    • NicoJuicy 7y ago
      And everyone is forgetting their unpaid hours they did for getting it off the ground. You still need support for all of your users and actual sales. Which is also work. Users can ask for a refund if your cloud goes down. I would also rephrase "once you reach success" to "if you reach success" The statement is also not valid for consultants, only for business owners with SAAS products/licenses. TLDR; you're statement is largely false. Success != Luck
• ja27 7y ago
  Pierre Abel of L’Escapadou - educational iPad apps for pre-K to early elementary. I don't know his 2019 numbers but I suspect he did at least $350k this year, down from $600k+ a couple years ago. (Note that the revenue charts in his post don't included educational bulk sales which he says are 45% of his revenue.) https://medium.com/@PierreAbel/9-years-on-the-app-stores-b58dc858af88 https://medium.com/@PierreAbel/9-years-on-the-app-stores-b58...
• Pete-Codes 7y ago
  I believe Pieter Levels makes about $500k a year from Nomad List and Remote OK combined. As Courtland said, Ben Tossell and Lynne Tye are going great! I recently interviewed Belle who makes Exist app for iOS with her partner Josh. They make 10k a month and are ones to watch: https://www.nocsdegree.com/self-taught-developer-talks-learning-to-code/ https://www.nocsdegree.com/self-taught-developer-talks-learn...
• ktaylor 7y ago
  A friend of mine runs a 1 person business. Well, technically, he does have an assistant who does his office admin and books. My friend has steady gross revenues of $6M a year. When I first met him about 8 years ago he was 26 and living at home with his parents. He once remarked on how much he appreciated his mother still doing his laundry and cooking for him and his father. I forgot to mention, he has extremely high gross margins and EBITDA. He does all the work himself other then that admin I mentioned already. What is his business, you are probably wondering? He owns internet domains. He flips them like real estate. He looks at Google trends, buys undervalued properties, develops their traffic via SEO, generates affiliate sales revenue, and if given the opportunity, then sells them at a much inflated value. He owns 1000s of domains and has built highly automated systems to efficiently manage them.
  • stef25 7y ago
    Money is money but this kind of business really feels dirty. It's kind of like parking cars in every $1 spot you can find and then charging people $500 to take that spot. Also, developing traffic via SEO for 1000s of (parked?) domains most likely involves even dirtier techniques. Kudos to him, he's achieved more than I ever will but if that was me I couldn't look people in the eye when telling them how I made my millions.
  • everybodyknows 7y ago
    What sort of content is supplied by such web sites?
    • ktaylor 7y ago
      My understanding is he looks for phrases people are increasingly searching for such as "BHP Free Sippy Cup" and then buys a domain such as bhp-free-sippy-cups.com. On the site, he just displays affiliate links to various vendor product pages for that product, e.g. Amazon, etc. The trick is understanding the trends and having the SEO skills to efficiently build the traffic. He can't put too much individual time into any one property because it will on average only generate a few hundred dollars a month in revenue. If the trend becomes popular enough someone comes in and buys the domain for their real sippy cup business.
• stef25 7y ago
  Way back when, Markus Frind was the first guy to make 1M / month off Adsense on the plenty of fish dating site. Which looked like absolute garbage but it was about the only free dating site at the time and it had grandpas, teenagers, crack whores and everything in between. Eventually he employed his wife to do customer support and now it's been sold for millions and has hundreds of employees. I used to do maintenance on a fairly popular dating site which was all horrible php spaghetti code, MD5 passwords ... the works. By the time I got to the office at 9AM they'd already received over 1000EUR in payments, every single day. They used really scummy techniques like fake profiles operated by off shore workers.
• lukaszkups 7y ago
  https://carrd.co/ https://carrd.co/ by https://twitter.com/ajlkn https://twitter.com/ajlkn - great for building small/simple websites/landing pages - seems still growing since its premiere.
• 1hakr 7y ago
  I'm a one-man army and my latest microstartup is https://visalist.io https://visalist.io Last month I earned around $7K and my estimate is I will cross $100K this year.