by robsun on 12/29/19, 9:20 PM with 231 comments
My candidate is my friend. He built mobile app that generates revenue around 30 - 50k $ per year.
by csallen on 12/29/19, 10:45 PM
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 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
by stanmancan on 12/29/19, 9:51 PM
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.
by Scott_Sanderson on 12/30/19, 12:43 AM
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.
by quelsolaar on 12/30/19, 12:29 AM
by xs on 12/30/19, 5:53 AM
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.
by iloveitaly on 12/30/19, 12:54 AM
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.
by kesor on 12/30/19, 1:14 AM
by gnicholas on 12/29/19, 10:46 PM
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
by semireg on 12/30/19, 4:56 AM
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.
by aerovistae on 12/29/19, 11:59 PM
by thrw202001 on 12/29/19, 11:54 PM
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.
by throwaway_29575 on 12/30/19, 3:42 AM
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.
by Toss8675309 on 12/30/19, 4:06 AM
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.
by blaisio on 12/29/19, 10:04 PM
by domlebo70 on 12/29/19, 9:53 PM
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?
by sideproject on 12/29/19, 11:30 PM
by stanislavb on 12/29/19, 10:29 PM
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.
by ktaylor on 12/30/19, 2:19 PM
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.
by jonshariat on 12/29/19, 9:51 PM
Also very similar post as this one, some good comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13167156
by majewsky on 12/29/19, 9:47 PM
by ja27 on 12/30/19, 1:40 PM
https://medium.com/@PierreAbel/9-years-on-the-app-stores-b58...
by judlaw on 12/30/19, 9:46 AM
We answer all legal questions in 42 minutes (http://www.helplicit.com), and are now expanding that to other domains (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!
by abinaya_rl on 12/30/19, 5:59 AM
by NicoJuicy on 12/30/19, 11:26 AM
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)
by swyx on 12/30/19, 12:13 AM
8 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19701783
by noodle on 12/29/19, 10:32 PM
Most very successful one person businesses I know of are specialty consulting businesses.
by cyberferret on 12/30/19, 6:03 AM
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.
by mmmuhd on 12/29/19, 10:27 PM
by ingend88 on 12/30/19, 12:09 AM
by Pete-Codes on 12/30/19, 2:03 PM
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-learn...
by lpolovets on 12/30/19, 1:32 AM
https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/114-jeff-meyerson-of-so...
by dmlittle on 12/30/19, 6:01 AM
[1] https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/034-mike-carson-of-park...
by nojvek on 12/30/19, 2:42 AM
by stef25 on 12/30/19, 4:04 PM
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.
by inancgumus on 12/30/19, 10:55 AM
by kraavi on 12/29/19, 10:04 PM
by puranjay on 12/30/19, 6:03 AM
by lukaszkups on 12/30/19, 5:33 PM
by cmod on 12/30/19, 4:30 AM
by eps on 12/29/19, 11:31 PM
That's the person behind Miracle Merchant and Card Crawl games.
by 1hakr on 1/7/20, 11:29 PM
Last month I earned around $7K and my estimate is I will cross $100K this year.
by leerob on 12/29/19, 10:33 PM
by ingend88 on 12/30/19, 12:09 AM
by codesternews on 12/29/19, 11:27 PM
by anonu on 12/30/19, 4:48 AM
by theyoungwolf on 12/29/19, 10:37 PM
by kak9 on 12/30/19, 12:03 AM
But know of 1 person company that generates $500k revenue per year and gets its customers via SEO.