Ask HN: Solo startups? What have you built all on your own?
25 comments
I built my company solo for about 1.25 years, got a cofounder for half a year (who then quit for a company who could pay more), so I'm back to being solo again on my company WeddingLovely. http://WeddingLovely.com was built entirely by myself and there are also five other vendor directories (http://WeddingPhotoLove.com and others). There's also a wedding blog at http://WeddingLovely.com/blog/ that I maintain and post 2-3x daily.
Being that I continue to build, market, and grow my company while solo (revenues going up every month), I'd say I both came very far as one person and still have much more to go before I hit the end. Don't let imaginary limits discourage you. :)
Being that I continue to build, market, and grow my company while solo (revenues going up every month), I'd say I both came very far as one person and still have much more to go before I hit the end. Don't let imaginary limits discourage you. :)
It seems to me like you should not offer a free trial (a money back guarantee might be better)..Not too sure a monthly plan makes too much sense for planning a wedding either, since it is a one time event. I would also increase the price. I believe I paid $50 for some crappy seat arrangement software that I ended up never using a few years ago.
Feel free to disregard my advice of course, since you definitely have more data than I do.
All in all, I think you are onto something here
Thanks! All of your suggestions are things I'm testing. ;)
I have to say that site looks pretty good! I didn't really read it or get into it (other than what you've stated here) but at first glance it looks really well designed.
Thanks! I was a designer before I jumped into development. :)
Very nice site! I like your pricing page. As someone who planned his own wedding, I feel like your startup is tackling a great problem for people.
The wedding industry is all about sucking people dry of their $$$, and if you can do a bunch of useful services for a flat $80, that'd make many folks very happy!
The wedding industry is all about sucking people dry of their $$$, and if you can do a bunch of useful services for a flat $80, that'd make many folks very happy!
Not sure if you've seen any of the stuff by patio11 but he's pretty much bootstrapping his companies (Bingo Card Creator & Appointment Reminder), consulting and info products and he seems to be doing pretty well for himself. He's pretty transparent about his numbers on BCC and has plenty tips for microISV's.
He blogs here: http://www.kalzumeus.com/
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I've just started to ramp up on doing a SaaS/blogging about the process. It can be pretty overwhelming if its your first go 'round.
He blogs here: http://www.kalzumeus.com/
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I've just started to ramp up on doing a SaaS/blogging about the process. It can be pretty overwhelming if its your first go 'round.
http://www.improvely.com, http://www.w3counter.com, and two dozen other sites over the years. Revenue in the millions over the past 8 years I've been self-employed, and I'm not taking a pay cut versus what I'd earn in industry if I had gone that route instead.
I've run into many limitations that have prevented me from offering products, service plans and sales strategies that would've been profitable but required more employees. I could hire, but I enjoy what I do, and switching from what I do to hiring and managing sales/support/ops teams is a totally different job I wouldn't enjoy so much.
I've run into many limitations that have prevented me from offering products, service plans and sales strategies that would've been profitable but required more employees. I could hire, but I enjoy what I do, and switching from what I do to hiring and managing sales/support/ops teams is a totally different job I wouldn't enjoy so much.
Not to be all creepy, but I first encountered you on sitepoint probably close to eight years ago and continue to be impressed with your products.
Keep up the good work!
Keep up the good work!
That was the place to be back then :)
haha that does sound a lil creepy!
(Australian here) I built http://www.trackmyride.com.au from scratch by myself. The system took about 10 months to build working on it daily after I saved up the initial capital. It has been tough work but recently with a change of marketing we've been gaining some good traction in both the private and business industries now. All our customers love the software itself so that's a big positive but I think I need to redesign the landing page again. I'll do that after the project below is completed.
Since June 2012 I've been working on a new project, solo again putting in a few hours here and there as I can which should be ready to launch hopefully in another week. That project is still in stealth mode until it's unveiled though. I was hoping it could have been completed much quicker but you know how these things turn out. Though the TMR business' hardware and software can work anywhere in the world the marketing for it has been aimed at Australians so hence all our customers are aussies. The new project will be aimed primarily at Americans so that should be an interesting learning curve.
As for bottlenecks, by far the biggest hurdle with Track My Ride has been the marketing. As a programmer by trade when I first started out I had no idea how to market the system and mostly it's been a case of throw a lot of $ and see what sticks. Having a co-founder with marketing know how would have helped a lot. That being said though revenues and sales are still increasing each month so as a solo venture it's turned out pretty well so far.
Since June 2012 I've been working on a new project, solo again putting in a few hours here and there as I can which should be ready to launch hopefully in another week. That project is still in stealth mode until it's unveiled though. I was hoping it could have been completed much quicker but you know how these things turn out. Though the TMR business' hardware and software can work anywhere in the world the marketing for it has been aimed at Australians so hence all our customers are aussies. The new project will be aimed primarily at Americans so that should be an interesting learning curve.
As for bottlenecks, by far the biggest hurdle with Track My Ride has been the marketing. As a programmer by trade when I first started out I had no idea how to market the system and mostly it's been a case of throw a lot of $ and see what sticks. Having a co-founder with marketing know how would have helped a lot. That being said though revenues and sales are still increasing each month so as a solo venture it's turned out pretty well so far.
I've built several companies as a solo founder- MobiQpons Inc., ZipTrips.in and most recently Plumreef.com
I've usually brought in early employees for large equity, contractors to help me with specific things that I'm not good at.
All my companies have generated revenues and have become operationally cash flow positive. However, my companies haven't scaled for two reasons: a. When the going gets tough- I'm alone and its depressing b. There's not as much cross fertilization/validation/push back on ideas as there should be.
Next t
I've usually brought in early employees for large equity, contractors to help me with specific things that I'm not good at.
All my companies have generated revenues and have become operationally cash flow positive. However, my companies haven't scaled for two reasons: a. When the going gets tough- I'm alone and its depressing b. There's not as much cross fertilization/validation/push back on ideas as there should be.
Next t
I built a company that develops iOS apps. My most successful app so far is http://www.tinypiano.com/ with 6 million (free) downloads (launched Feb 2012). The app is monetizing via ads and in-app purchases.
I do this full time. My goal was to make an app that achieves 10 million downloads. It looks like it should hit that mark sometime this year. Another goal was to make enough money to buy a house. Assuming all goes well, that should be possible in a couple of years.
I do this full time. My goal was to make an app that achieves 10 million downloads. It looks like it should hit that mark sometime this year. Another goal was to make enough money to buy a house. Assuming all goes well, that should be possible in a couple of years.
What catapulted (if anything) you to achieving so much success with tiny piano? Especially with getting to 6 million free downloads?
- Was it something that people naturally search for?
- What types of marketing/advertising did you do?
- Do any of the other apps help supplement income?
- Was it something that people naturally search for?
- What types of marketing/advertising did you do?
- Do any of the other apps help supplement income?
The first big jump I got was in March 2012, when I added iPad support (universal binary) and also translated the app store description to Chinese (钢琴). It turns out that people will search for their native word for piano! ;-)
Then it grew slowly over the next 8 months. I continued to add song packs and improve the app. I did some marketing on FB, https://www.facebook.com/tinypiano including a raffle where I gave away $50 iTunes GCs to generate more "likes."
In November, I also got a big bump due to Apple's iPad mini launch & piano commercial (Heart & Soul).
In December, I actually made about as much money as I made the rest of the year. Download #s were high, and AdMob/iAd eCPMs were also at their peak. It was a good month.
Relative to Tiny Piano, my 5 other apps are failures.... Collectively, they make about $50 a day. And that's probably because people who like Tiny Piano search for & download my other apps.
Here's an old blog post with some numbers: http://blog.squarepoet.com/post/35196629175/tiny-piano-sales... While my daily revenue is now below the $3K I cited in my post... it's still good enough to pay me an engineering salary every month.
Then it grew slowly over the next 8 months. I continued to add song packs and improve the app. I did some marketing on FB, https://www.facebook.com/tinypiano including a raffle where I gave away $50 iTunes GCs to generate more "likes."
In November, I also got a big bump due to Apple's iPad mini launch & piano commercial (Heart & Soul).
In December, I actually made about as much money as I made the rest of the year. Download #s were high, and AdMob/iAd eCPMs were also at their peak. It was a good month.
Relative to Tiny Piano, my 5 other apps are failures.... Collectively, they make about $50 a day. And that's probably because people who like Tiny Piano search for & download my other apps.
Here's an old blog post with some numbers: http://blog.squarepoet.com/post/35196629175/tiny-piano-sales... While my daily revenue is now below the $3K I cited in my post... it's still good enough to pay me an engineering salary every month.
Nice! I am gonna check out the post now. It excites me to hear stories like yours - it installs a little hope in all of us :p.
You mean buy a house in cash? Or afford a mortgage on your own?
Good question. I guess I meant that I'd be able to pay off enough of the mortgage such that my monthly payment would be close to my current rent. :) If it turns out that I do better than expected, then I'll pay for it in cash. If not, then I can work longer. In any case, the app is doing well enough that it's now my full time job.
He most likely means buying it in cash.
Do you feel lonely as a solo?
I built http://pineapple.io all on my own in a matter of months (I also learned rails just so I could build it).
I am definitely seeing the 'end' of the cap where I simply can't put more time into it. So far I have held up really well though, and I implement most of if not all the changes that people want to see (if I feel they are a good fit, that is).
But yes, my traffic is growing every day with more and more users, and adding new features is starting to get somewhat daunting as my code base grows.
As far as marketing, accounting, programming, etc I do it all, with the occasional help from a friend when it is too much.
Highly recommended though :) My site is my baby, and the goal when I made it wasnt to make lots of cash... it was to make a LARGE site that everyone uses. ever since I was a kid I wanted to create a massive site with thousands of users, and so far my dream has become a reality. it is a very good feeling.
I am definitely seeing the 'end' of the cap where I simply can't put more time into it. So far I have held up really well though, and I implement most of if not all the changes that people want to see (if I feel they are a good fit, that is).
But yes, my traffic is growing every day with more and more users, and adding new features is starting to get somewhat daunting as my code base grows.
As far as marketing, accounting, programming, etc I do it all, with the occasional help from a friend when it is too much.
Highly recommended though :) My site is my baby, and the goal when I made it wasnt to make lots of cash... it was to make a LARGE site that everyone uses. ever since I was a kid I wanted to create a massive site with thousands of users, and so far my dream has become a reality. it is a very good feeling.
Can I ask how are you processing website screenshots on that page?
http://feetlot.com - because buying shoes online is hard. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I ordered 2 different pairs of shoes in size 12. One fit like 11.5, the other like 12.5. Ha. That's when I decided to create a place where people can help each other with shoes' sizes.
Rob Walling is a solo entrepreneur that hires Virtual Assistants, coders, designers etc.. in order to create/manage his own products (i.e. http://hittail.com http://www.dotnetinvoice.com/ and others).
You can get more info about how he is doing by reading his blog http://www.softwarebyrob.com or better listening to the podcast http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ he co-host with Mike Tabber (another solo entrepeneur, his site http://www.singlefounder.com/ )
www.IslamicEventFinder.com - For the past few months I've spent my nights and a portion of my weekends to build what I think is a decent website that tries to unify all Islamic events into one central website and make it easy for the Muslims to make use of them. There is a small charge to publish events (there are few features that justifies the price) but it's completely free to use. It' s relatively new so there is nothing much I can tout about revenue. It's getting decent traction but what I've learnt is that the Islamic world is something really hard to reach out to for these online, tech stuff; many of the organizers don't get it. Would appreciate your feedback.
To your question, absolutely there are many bottlenecks and limitations. If you are married and have kids then intensify these 2 factors by a magnitude of 10 maybe, at least in my case, especially if you have a day job that consumes most of your time. Also, you might get stuck some simple stuff that would drain your energy and offset the timelines. Some of the mundane tasks would make you go crazy (imagine coming up with 26 different email templates for the emails that go out...that's mundane). A few ideas where I wasn't 100% sure and felt a cofounder would be someone who would have came in handy on those instances.
On top of all these hurdles, after you launch, you have to do product support along with marketing and getting the word out about your product. Mailchimp campaigns, analyzing Analytic points, testing to make sure things are not broken and a whole lot would keep you on your toes. I feel I can only for that far along but I'm determined to make it to the pole.
I believe the reward is after we sort through all of these hurdles...I can proudly say that "this is me, this is what I've built, all by myself" (Seth Godin's quote except the "all by myself" part).
To your question, absolutely there are many bottlenecks and limitations. If you are married and have kids then intensify these 2 factors by a magnitude of 10 maybe, at least in my case, especially if you have a day job that consumes most of your time. Also, you might get stuck some simple stuff that would drain your energy and offset the timelines. Some of the mundane tasks would make you go crazy (imagine coming up with 26 different email templates for the emails that go out...that's mundane). A few ideas where I wasn't 100% sure and felt a cofounder would be someone who would have came in handy on those instances.
On top of all these hurdles, after you launch, you have to do product support along with marketing and getting the word out about your product. Mailchimp campaigns, analyzing Analytic points, testing to make sure things are not broken and a whole lot would keep you on your toes. I feel I can only for that far along but I'm determined to make it to the pole.
I believe the reward is after we sort through all of these hurdles...I can proudly say that "this is me, this is what I've built, all by myself" (Seth Godin's quote except the "all by myself" part).
A website is not a start-up, and there's vastly more to a start-up than building the software.
I built the software for RunOrg (http://runorg.com) on my own --- private social networks for non-profits as a service --- but my co-founder's business development skills have been invaluable in getting our current 60k members.
As a side-effect, I also built and open-sourced a web framework for OCaml (http://ohm-framework.com).
I'm definitely feeling the stretch on my resources, though : there are so many feature requests and so little time to build everything I'd like to build.
I built the software for RunOrg (http://runorg.com) on my own --- private social networks for non-profits as a service --- but my co-founder's business development skills have been invaluable in getting our current 60k members.
As a side-effect, I also built and open-sourced a web framework for OCaml (http://ohm-framework.com).
I'm definitely feeling the stretch on my resources, though : there are so many feature requests and so little time to build everything I'd like to build.
http://easyendorse.com - solo developed, launched recently. Looking through my commit history, I definitely have a few "quiet" months that would have benefited from someone giving me a kick in the ass.
CNCCookbook is my solo startup:
http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/a-solo-bootstrapp...
http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/a-solo-bootstrapp...
Being a "solo founder" is great for the bootstrapped approach. Of course there are limits as to what you can do, but if you work hard that limit is pretty high.
My own solo project / side business is http://www.edit-room.com/ I've done all the design and development, and the business setup to be able to accept credit cards as well. I've learned so much in the past 2 years, and I wouldn't change doing it for anything.
Even if you can just do a little bit every day, just start doing research or sketching out things on paper.
Only way to do it is to get started.
My own solo project / side business is http://www.edit-room.com/ I've done all the design and development, and the business setup to be able to accept credit cards as well. I've learned so much in the past 2 years, and I wouldn't change doing it for anything.
Even if you can just do a little bit every day, just start doing research or sketching out things on paper.
Only way to do it is to get started.
This is a great thread, but rather than it get buried after a while, I've just set up a quick tumblr where everyone is welcome to showcase their stuff: http://solostartups.tumblr.com/submit
(I won't be sticking ads on it or anything lame like that - just thought it'd be a nice thing to exist).
Note: as of 8pm GMT, it's empty because I didn't want to harvest links from this thread without goodwill - but submissions are open, so please do get stuck in.
(I won't be sticking ads on it or anything lame like that - just thought it'd be a nice thing to exist).
Note: as of 8pm GMT, it's empty because I didn't want to harvest links from this thread without goodwill - but submissions are open, so please do get stuck in.
http://Sweetsoundtrack.com - I often hear music I like in movies and want to add them to my personal collection. This website allows users to look up a movie, and quickly find information about the songs and artists featured in the soundtrack. I started to make a little revenue - enough to cover my hosting costs. I'd love to hear any feedback.
I often search for songs (in google) by some of their lyrics. Maybe you can add that ability.
Also searching for a movie based on actor would help.
When I searched for Scarface, I got 3 hits. Mousing-over I was able to see the year of movie, but maybe a picture next to the hits would help.
Looking at the list: http://sweetsoundtrack.com/Movies/scarface-1983 Maybe you could add a link to lyrics?
And finally, it might be good to have a little song-preview next to each song, so that if user isn't sure by the name, they can listen to a part of it. (not sure if there are legal issues with this)
Also searching for a movie based on actor would help.
When I searched for Scarface, I got 3 hits. Mousing-over I was able to see the year of movie, but maybe a picture next to the hits would help.
Looking at the list: http://sweetsoundtrack.com/Movies/scarface-1983 Maybe you could add a link to lyrics?
And finally, it might be good to have a little song-preview next to each song, so that if user isn't sure by the name, they can listen to a part of it. (not sure if there are legal issues with this)
Thank you for the feedback anywherenotes. Adding the lyrics is a great idea if I can find a public API. I planned to do a song preview using Itunes/Amazon clips on the Movie page but I was having some performance issues. Currently, you can get to #rd party previews via individual "song pages" though I realize this is less convenient.
I started http://www.wcfstorm.com about 3 years ago. Been working on it on weekdays and weeknights and am now up to my 3rd product WcfStorm.Rest (a desktop-based REST test client)
It's been pretty good so far. WCFStorm (the WCF client) is fairly well known and WcfStorm.Rest is now starting to get some sales.
It's been pretty good so far. WCFStorm (the WCF client) is fairly well known and WcfStorm.Rest is now starting to get some sales.
http://athletable.com - I built it myself as a side project and, while it's still early days, things are going pretty well so far. The only real bottleneck for me was redoing the entire UI about 30 times. In the end I just told myself that I could always just change it after launch if people didn't like it.
I've built InstaPDF (http://instapdf.me) on my own. It consists of a web backend, written from scratch in PHP and a mobile client for iOS (native). A mac app is coming soon. Did the design too. I never worked in a team with more than one coder though, it would be great do to experience that sometime too.
Site looks good. Small copy correction: "Amazon's Elastic Cloud 2" should be "Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud".
Applied to YC solo with this:
http://www.solitaireinfosys.com/demo/will_brown/index.php
A social network combining YouTube and Google Earth. I plan to launch within 30 days. So you can get as far as launch.
http://www.solitaireinfosys.com/demo/will_brown/index.php
A social network combining YouTube and Google Earth. I plan to launch within 30 days. So you can get as far as launch.
Breeze - http://letsbreeze.com, it's Basecamp and Trello mashup.
Originally it was developed for a final thesis about agile project management. Launched in September last year, totally bootstrapped and already have paying customers.
Originally it was developed for a final thesis about agile project management. Launched in September last year, totally bootstrapped and already have paying customers.
http://www.meetingshed.com - bootstrapped, some interest and a few users, not enough to start a business. I keep it running because I use the VPS I set up for it for other stuff.
I'm getting warnings on Chrome regarding your SSL cert expiring.
Unfortunately the SSL cert expired and I just couldn't justify renewing it. I know they're not expensive but I have other priorities. It is still secured over https and I mainly keep it running to demo to anyone interested now and then.
Back in 2005 I built a web site for workers who wanted an urgent WIFI/WLAN hotspot in Paris's cafes.
I made it alone for myself. Bang ! People loved it.
www.cafes-wifi.com
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Is there a limit to how far you can go alone?