Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?

1

Pinboard

#Bookmarks #Bookmark Manager #Favorites 67 social mentions

2

Next Episode

I run https://next-episode.net for about 18 years now. It's a website + mobile apps that help users track what they're watching (TV shows and movies). I wouldn't say trends over the years affected the business much, but I'm playing with the ChatGPT API currently to try and improve some aspects of the functionality and maybe add some new cool AI powered features - so there's that.

#Movie Reviews #Tool #Movie Ratings 33 social mentions

3

Better Sheets

For the past 3 years I've been running https://bettersheets.co/ Originally as a side project while I tried to start and run SaaS. But people kept buying memberships (lifetime deals) and I just kept adding content to it. In the past year I've hired a ruby on rails developer to help me scale, on a part-time basis. And I've been making products within the Better Sheets umbrella myself in sheets. The developer is helping to add features to the site, but if/when they leave I can continue running completely solo. It's been my full time income for the past 1 year, and I expect to continue running it for a decade or more, at this rate. I'm continually learning more ruby on rails to keep building tools baked into the site. And will ultimately combine Google Sheet integrated tools into Better Sheets instead of keeping them separate as it is now. Better Sheets started as a purely content site. I started with with a carrd page and gumroad payment. Now it's all types of contents, courses, blogs, and tools. As well as a library of tutorials. The recent trend of AI has made my extremely excited to keep building. I built a Google Sheets AI assistant: https://asa.bettersheets.co/ and will continue to work on it until Google releases their own and probably keep working on my even with a Google Sheets AI from Google. As I imagine I can take it in a iterated/pivoted direction once I see what they do release.

#API Tools #No Code #Spreadsheets 3 social mentions

4

Simple Scraper

I run Simplescraper (https://simplescraper.io). Started in 2020 and it's now profitable. > Have any recent trends affected your business? Not really. People like data as much as ever. As a one-person biz, the main dilemma remains how to juggle development, marketing and support. Reaching a point where the price of context-switching to customer support is becoming a little too high. But that's easily fixable and it's an ok problem to have. One big trend is the increasing number of products out there - everybody's cloning errbody. The ability to build something, launch it and (hopefully) get paid for it has never been easier. That's a good thing - it's a big internet and there's enough pie for everyone - but makes it more important than ever to establish a footing asap so you can stop worrying about making rent while looking over your shoulder, and instead focus on shipping a better product.

#Web Scraping #API Tools #Scraper 18 social mentions

5

Remote Leaf

I'm building a highly curated remote job board called Remote Leaf[1] for remote job seekers. I've been doing this last few years as a side project, I'm planning to go full-time on this very soon and focus on it fully. [1] - https://remoteleaf.com.

#Remote Jobs #Startup Jobs #Tech Jobs 17 social mentions

6

Traverse.link

I run Traverse ([https://traverse.link/](https://traverse.link/)) - an app which helps students learn faster using mind maps, flashcards and notes. It's been running for over 2 years now and provides steady recurring income - I've prioritized continuity over exponential growth. Have reduced operational work to a minimum now so I can spend most of my time working on marketing strategies to make it big ;).

#Productivity #Language Learning #Education 19 social mentions

7

Keygen

I run https://keygen.sh by myself. I built it about 7 years ago and started running it on the side. I went full-time on it in 2020 when it got too big to run on the side. As for trends -- the market is a bit slower these days due to the current economic environment. I've noticed smaller businesses have had a tougher time buying (and staying on), while enterprises have had an uptick.

#License Management #Threat Detection And Prevention #Monitoring Tools 25 social mentions

8

webtoapp.design

I develop https://webtoapp.design on my own and have a handful of freelancers for translation & some repetitive tasks. Basically I turn websites into hybrid apps (some native components + WebView). I started in December 2019 and I'm now closing in on making a regular european junior developer salary (3.5k/month). I'm experiencing good growth currently, so I can't say recent trends have negatively affected me. I did notice a sharp ~20% reduction in Google traffic about 10 days ago, but that could be related to all kinds of things. It will be interesting to see how the recently improved (push notifications) iOS PWA support will affect my business. On the one hand I'm stressing about it, on the other hand PWAs have existed for 10 years or something and barely any regular consumer has one "installed" on their smartphone. But who knows, maybe the improved iOS support will lead to more usage & customer education by businesses.

#Web App #Mobile Apps #Mac 16 social mentions