

Ask HN: Solo developer successful startups examples? - grigio

Maybe a solo developer can&#x27;t do everything but with a bit good taste, social skills and a small niche, he&#x2F;she can invent a sustanaible project at least to earn enough for himself.. or not?
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SyneRyder
Absolutely. You'll find folks doing that over at the Bootstrapped forums or on
the Chasing Product podcast:

[http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/](http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/)
[http://www.chasingproduct.com/](http://www.chasingproduct.com/)

A better bet is to have multiple products that you sell to the same audience,
not just one product. One product alone may only have small success, but if
you have several small products all bringing in revenue it will add up over
time. And while you're working on building them, it's safest to keep multiple
revenue streams to fund yourself while doing it - be open to doing freelancing
/ consulting, or keep a part-time job. Patio11 worked at his day job for a
long time while doing Bingo Card Creator.

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benologist
Plenty Of Fish: $575 million exit just a couple weeks ago

[http://betakit.com/plentyoffish-acquired-by-match-group-
for-...](http://betakit.com/plentyoffish-acquired-by-match-group-
for-575-million-usd/)

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christinamltn
Rob Walling did this and write/talks a lot about how to do it:
[http://www.softwarebyrob.com](http://www.softwarebyrob.com)

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tabulatouch
I did [http://www.facadesignage.com](http://www.facadesignage.com) ,solo
developer, quite happy :)

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dangrossman
Lots of examples in the recurring threads about passive income and side
projects:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9423592](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9423592)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094402](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7094402)

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camillomiller
If I recall correctly Marco Arment started Instapaper all by himself and kept
working on it all by himself until it was not feasible anymore, and that's
when he sold it.

I think the solo-programmer startups are usually something among these kind of
projects:

\- a webapp for simple or largely automated service

\- smartphone/tablet app

\- smartphone/tablet game

...

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madchops1
I build GoReturnMe.com as a solo developer. It needs an update though. My last
update of the framework caused some issues, now trying to find the time :(

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stephengillie
One popular inspiration is the user @patio11 - his BingoCardCreator site
unexpectedly took off, going from side project to lifestyle to sold product.

~~~
patio11
I worry about describing BCC as "taking off" \-- it was a tomato plant, not a
rocket ship. Put in water; get juicy fruit, turn into canned sauce; sell for
money; repeat.

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louisswiss
Facebook? It's so obvious and I'm not sure if it counts...

I started a simple paid monthly platform for meeting new people a few months
ago - if I would put even a little bit of effort into marketing then I'm
pretty sure it would be a liveable monthly wage on 5h/week within 2-3months...

~~~
vision-chart
Yeah but Facebook wasn't sustainable at the beginning

~~~
louisswiss
true (I'm assuming)...

I guess it depends whether we're talking about start-ups or small
businesses/hobby projects.

I don't think I've heard of any start-ups which were sustainable at the
beginning, whereas many small businesses/hobby projects are.

Drew Houston from Dropbox was also a solo dev at the very beginning of
Dropbox, but I guess the very fact that by definition start-ups are destined
to grow quickly means that new people need to be brought on board at some
point...

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Oatseller
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist)

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purpleparakeet
@levelsio built 12 startups in 12 months as a one-man show AFAIK. Here is his
website: [https://levels.io](https://levels.io)

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S4M
Patio11 seems to be the perfect example of what you describe - he's on HN and
that's his handle.

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bosky101
errorception, by rakesh pai (@rakesh314)

he has a bunch of big name customers as well on the home page
[http://errorception.com](http://errorception.com)

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priitmaxx
How is success defined? Profitable? X dollars in Rev?

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kelukelugames
Minecraft. Braid. Flappy Bird. Rudy Hyunh

