
Ask HN: Unsuccessful one-person online businesses? - symplee
On the flip side of yesterday&#x27;s &quot;Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?&quot;<p>&gt; How many people on Hacker News have run an unsuccessful online business on their own? What was your business and what was your analysis as to why it was ultimately unsuccessful?<p>&gt; Were you able to apply the lessons learned to achieve success at a new one-person online business?<p>[0] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21332072
(Shout-out to user trikko, whose comment on yesterday&#x27;s Ask HN inspired this post.)
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WhiteOwlLion
I ran a online ecommerce shop selling electronics. It ultimately failed
because I couldn't scale up. You need buy with cash directly from China and
order at least a container at a time. If you can't do that, then you're
relegated to drop shipping or working with "wholesalers". The margins are too
thin to have middle men.

Got offered a stable job after marriage and reprioritized my marriage over a
failing dream of running my own business. I apply many lessons I learned from
running my own business every day so it is a valuable experience. I encourage
anyone to take a leap when you're young and without commitments.

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dlcmh
Around 2008, I thought I’d make a killing selling wireless flashes for DSLRs.

Then I thought I’d make a killing off Amazon affiliate income.

Had to go back to work end of 2012 doing programming, IT consulting and web
development.

