
Ask HN: What is an example of a super simple SaaS that is profitable? - justaguyhere
Looking to make 500$ a month - any examples of super simple SaaS that make at least 500 USD per month?
I don&#x27;t know where to start, so looking for inspiration&#x2F;examples etc
======
simon_weber
I run a number of tiny services in this category, such as an autoresponder for
Google Hangouts: [https://gchat.simon.codes/](https://gchat.simon.codes/). I
originally built it for myself - I forward many gmail addresses to one and was
missing chat messages - but these days most of my customers are small business
owners or employees of larger companies.

I recently summarized all my projects and my numbers here, if it's of
interest: [https://www.simonmweber.com/2019/01/07/side-project-
income-2...](https://www.simonmweber.com/2019/01/07/side-project-
income-2018.html)

~~~
zweicoder
I maintain a very similar service to your autoplaylist at
[http://getsongbird.io](http://getsongbird.io)

However I was not really able to monetize in any form (needs permission from
Spotify, and Stripe shut down the account before it got to even do anything).
Did you encounter similar issues and if so how did you circumvent them?

I'm at a loss now and on the verge of shutting it down, but I have a few
hundred users that periodically email me to ask for fixes / new features, and
it pains my heart to just give it up like that, but it's just not making any
sense economically for me now.

~~~
simon_weber
I'm not too familiar with Spotify integrations, but I'm surprised to hear you
need their permission. Is that an api terms thing?

In my case it's been a better-to-ask-for-forgiveness-than-permission
situation. I've had almost no official contact with Google and do my best to
abide by their terms.

Feel free to reach out via email if you'd like to chat! There's a chance I'd
be interested in buying it if you're planning to shut down.

~~~
zweicoder
Thanks for the offer! I'll definitely reach out if I'm planning on shutting
down

I believe Spotify has some API terms that say that explicit permission must be
granted for monetization. I initially also went for the 'ask-for-forgiveness'
route but Stripe didn't allow my account to get started at all as it was
considered high risk.

For now I'm going to fix some issues and try to do more reaching out /
marketing, and then I'll try reaching out to Stripe again - hopefully this
doesn't look that shady / high risk anymore.

------
jwr
I realize that might not be what you want to hear, but my advice would be to
target a different (larger) MRR. $500/month is not a sustainable or even
reasonable business. It's fine to start something "on the side", but I believe
you should immediately set your goals to something that in the long term will
be sustainable, unless it's really supposed to be only a hobby/toy.

If you've never ran a business before, one important bit of advice is that you
should assume revenue targets of 2-3x of what you'd like to actually earn in
post-tax personal income. Most people underestimate the costs of running a
business and forget that they will need to pay for a computer, software,
accounting services, and lots of other things.

Depending on where you live, I'd say target $3k-$10k in MRR.

~~~
gwbas1c
Downvoted for what should be a very obvious observation.

Start with one $500 / month business. Next month do another $500 / month
business.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

After 10 months, it's $5000 / month.

After 36 months it's over $15,000 / month.

~~~
briandear
Now you are running n businesses — tuning just one is tough enough.

“Hey Bob, we have a customer support ticket for business 65”

“What does 65 do again?”

~~~
acct1771
Name your businesses better.

------
AVTizzle
I guess not the simplist once you get under the hood, but I've started two
nice profitable SaaS products and just launched a third:

[https://www.simplecrew.com](https://www.simplecrew.com) \- street team
reporting/tracking tool (2012 - present)
[https://www.crewfire.com](https://www.crewfire.com) \- social media brand
ambassador platform (2014 - present)
[https://www.chainfuel.com](https://www.chainfuel.com) \- telegram
analytics/anti-spam/management dashboard (beta release last week)

~~~
uptownfunk
What's your stack for these?

~~~
AVTizzle
SimpleCrew = NodeJS/React CrewFire & Chainfuel = Go

~~~
ahpearce
Only Go? Like, WebAssembly or something?

~~~
mattnguyen
Just Go and plain old html Go templates/css/js.

------
BilalBudhani
For me, [https://ipdata.co/](https://ipdata.co/) is a perfect example of a
super simple SaaS application.

Jonathan, the founder, also wrote a great piece on how he built it
[https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-a-saas-
with-0-fed2341078...](https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-a-saas-
with-0-fed2341078c8?source=search_post---------0)

If you're interested in learning more about micro saas checkout Tyler Tringas
Micro SaaS series [https://tylertringas.com/micro-saas-
ebook/](https://tylertringas.com/micro-saas-ebook/)

~~~
systematical
I really like the smooth scroll on this site.

------
stevekemp
I essentially resell DNS hosting.

I allow users to store their DNS records in a git repository, then when they
make commits & pushes I initiate an update to the live-zones on Amazon
Route53.

It'll never make me rich. Low-end users use their domain-registrars. High-end
users probably have lots of AWS-based infrastructure, so they can handle DNS
themselves.

But there is a middle-ground, and I've been lucky enough to sell services to a
couple of (European) universities. So different departments can handle
different sub-domains.

Fun anyway, and although I do need to handle user-support the churn-rate is
minimal:

[https://dns-api.com/](https://dns-api.com/)

~~~
potatowriter
How did you learn how to create this app? I work best with tutorials or books
or videos that go through how to build an entire app. Learning individual
components is fine but learning how to integrate them is the tough part.

~~~
stevekemp
It isn't an app, but a website. As for how I learned I guess years of practice
..

~~~
potatowriter
Did you consult books, or courses online, or videos? I'm just asking because
there is so much info out there, what specific paths would be best? Thanks.

------
davidscolgan
I've been pretty impressed with pullreminders.com - it is a Slack bot that
alerts you for unreviewed pull requests. Seems to actually solve a real need
and since the author, Abi Noda, has been pretty open about talking about it,
seems it's been pretty profitable.

More info:

[https://www.indiehackers.com/product/pull-
reminders](https://www.indiehackers.com/product/pull-reminders)

Friendly reminder that the important components of a successful SaaS is
marketing, marketing, marketing, and code, so how to market the app should be
considered just as important as how easy it is to code.

I'd probably recommend you take whatever your idea is and offer it as a
consulting service that you do yourself manually. If people won't buy that,
they won't buy your app, and you can prove the idea without doing any coding
at all. Once you have an audience for the service, you can just sell the
automated version.

~~~
geekjock
Thanks for the shout-out David! If anyone's interested here's the link to the
website: [https://pullreminders.com](https://pullreminders.com)

~~~
dahx4Eev
Is it built with Rails? I'm curious what tech stacks are used in one-person
SaaS.

~~~
geekjock
Yep, Rails

------
chvid
I always thought Patrick McKenzie's Appointment Reminder was a perfect example
of something really simple executed very well:

[https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-i-grew-my-
appoint...](https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-i-grew-my-appointment-
reminder-business-to-12k-mo-2b8720ca25)

And he is an excellent communicator; in particular look up his older podcasts.

But I think today it is getting harder and harder; so simple projects won't
cut it anymore and more effort needs to be put into both product development
and marketing to get any sort of traction.

~~~
onion2k
_But I think today it is getting harder and harder; so simple projects won 't
cut it anymore and more effort needs to be put into both product development
and marketing to get any sort of traction._

I'd be willing to bet people have been saying that for at least 5000 years.

~~~
AznHisoka
It's only easier if you're entering a greenfield industry, with no saturation.
IE. the internet in the late 90's, or the App Store in 2007.

In any new industry, there's always very low-hanging fruit ideas to pursue.
Like restaurant reviews (Yelp) or an app to track your calories
(MyFitnessPal). It was also easier to market it because more people had the
need for those types of products back then, and thus willing to try it. Now?
Nobody will listen to you unless you have a truly compelling, original product
("Oh, that's been done already. I don't want to hear about it")

And SEO and ranking in Google for competitive keywords was _much_ easier in
the 2000's, even as late as 2008. 2010-2011 was when things started to turn,
and became insanely competitive.

~~~
onion2k
_And SEO and ranking in Google for competitive keywords was much easier in the
2000 's, even as late as 2008. 2010-2011 was when things started to turn, and
became insanely competitive._

If your approach to marketing is "Google will send me enough traffic to
succeed" then you've already failed.

~~~
AznHisoka
When did I say that? Search traffic is a major part of marketing (along with
PR, word of mouth, ads) for lots of companies, including public ones
(tripadvisor, yelp, zillow, demand media). And to dismiss it is simply
delusional.

------
novaleaf
I run a saas that is profitable:
[https://PhantomJsCloud.com](https://PhantomJsCloud.com)

It's a pretty simple concept: providing PhantomJs or Chrome Headless as a REST
API.

The thing is, the SaaS itself is only about 1/3 the work. You need a website,
account management, and billing too. Today, there are perhaps other services
you could leverage that can help reduce this initial burden (Kong?) but a few
years ago when I started my SaaS, nothing really met my needs. Hope it's
easier for everyone now!

~~~
klohto
Isn't PhantomJS basically unsupported at this point?

~~~
novaleaf
yeah, bad name choice. right now the default browser I use is Chrome, but
people can still use PhantomJs if they want.

I'll make a more generic domain name sometime in the future (lots of stuff to
do....)

------
vivan
My biggest inspiration is
[https://www.placecard.me/](https://www.placecard.me/) by Cory Zue
([https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=czue](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=czue)).

He has been documenting the whole process very well both on Twitter
([https://twitter.com/czue/status/958993008543830017](https://twitter.com/czue/status/958993008543830017))
and his blog
([http://www.coryzue.com/writing/](http://www.coryzue.com/writing/)).

~~~
czue
Thanks for the shout out Vivan! I even got my very first grumpy hacker news
blog comment out of this!

------
annapurna
Great suggestions here so far and a common thread I noticed is leveraging
platforms such as Slack/Gmail/Trello/Shopify etc. - essentially an B2B
platforms. My friend and I currently run cardsync.xyz on Trello which allows
Trello users to sync their cards and it generates under $1000/month. We spend
about 2-10 hours a week on it.

You will be at the mercy of these platforms when (not if) they decide to
change their rules but until then, it can be a good source of side income.

~~~
jharger
Did you mean to say "just under $1000/month"? It seems kind of strange to
claim that you make under an amount, because technically $0/month is under
$1000, and "actively losing money" also counts. Just curious.

~~~
jpt1
Probably means "close to $1000/month" rather than any value under $1000

~~~
annapurna
Correct, close to $1000/month.

~~~
Axsuul
Congrats! How long did it take you guys to reach that MRR?

~~~
annapurna
Thanks. We had a free trial version for about three months and then started
paid plans based on customer demographics around last summer. So it's been
less than a year. Note that I'm based out of Toronto and my friend in South
America.

------
everdev
Keep in mind that "super simple" usually also means "easily reproduced". The
dream of cranking out a profitable SaaS offering in a weekend is possible,
it's just not sustainable past a year or two unless you also incorporate some
differentiation.

It's usually the differentiation that makes the SaaS more complex than an MVP.

------
raleigh_user
Fomo.com is doing a few million and is owned/operated by 1 individual
(although he has a small team). Believe he acquired it and grew it like crazy.
I’d reckon (if he chose) the company could do a 100k a month in profit.

~~~
ashelmire
This is an example of a product that probably does something cool, but really
doesn't do a good job of explaining what it does or why I would use it on the
front page. But it looks pretty.

~~~
ryanckulp
thanks for the feedback.

this homepage is actually our 3rd and probably most abstract implementation.

1st, 2016:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20161108025452/https://www.usefo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20161108025452/https://www.usefomo.com/)

2nd, 2017/2018:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190107040431/https://fomo.com/](https://web.archive.org/web/20190107040431/https://fomo.com/)

indeed, the numbers speak for themselves. over the last few weeks since
deploying we saw lower signup conversion rates. but, we also have a few
product launches forthcoming.

balancing between "be short and to the point" and sharing a vision is perhaps
more art than science, and that's why we have so much art on our website.

~~~
ashelmire
Second one seems to come closest for me. I prefer something clear like "see
that notification at the bottom left corner of the page? We do that". But I
get it; you're selling why someone should use the product (a bit abstractly,
perhaps). As a tech product though, don't forget to highlight the actual
product(s) and to be specific.

The "Install Fomo in 29 Seconds" section from the first iteration makes me
feel confident, as a developer, that there's a clear path to get your product
working for me and it won't be a pita. A documentation link at the top, rather
than hidden at the bottom, would be nice - see how Facebook presents their
tech offerings (granted, open source) at
[https://reactjs.org/](https://reactjs.org/) etc.

I'm just one guy who makes decisions about what techs to use for myself and
others though, so yada yada grain of salt. Maybe I'm not who you're targeting
as much as salespeople themselves.

------
tracker1
Fill a niche that is difficult to solve for, but easy to scale once you do.
Fix a problem that you've had.

In the end, there are a lot of opportunities for SaaS, imho the DBaaS are the
main reason to consider a cloud provider. Getting setup, failover, backups,
hot recovery etc are middling to difficult even with dedicated resources, but
tend to have solutions that scale well once you do.

Not suggesting that as something to do, the bigger cloud providers are likely
to edge you out eventually.

It could be as simple as a better whois lookup service that is fast and
deployed to multiple regions on the major cloud services. Whois in particular
is difficult because the resolvers for some of the less big TLDs aren't as
responsive, there's inconsistencies in standards and normalization takes work.

Again, it's a matter of figuring out a niche and filling it.

~~~
flowardnut
quite a few SaaS products I've used -- they set out to make application A, ran
into a problem building application A (like "wow looking at these logs is
difficult, let's build a quick tool that solves this problem") and the
solution they built became their real SaaS product.

~~~
tracker1
Absolutely... which is usually my point when I say build something that solves
a problem you have/had. It's often the best opportunities for either an open-
source contribution or a SaaS product.

------
seanwilson
I'm doing well with Checkbot, a Chrome extension that tests websites for SEO,
speed and security problems that has a subscription model:

[https://www.checkbot.io/](https://www.checkbot.io/)

It's simple in terms of day to day running now that it works well but getting
to that stage and the implementation behind it was a ton of work.

I don't think you're going to easily find a project that's easy to implement,
requires little maintenance, has low running costs, markets itself, scales
etc. You'll have to put in effort somewhere.

I think if you look into the projects being posted in the thread, you'll
realise few are simple if you want to make something people will pay for.

~~~
highace
I came across this a few months ago - this is a perfect example of how to
execute, great job. How's your revenue growth?

~~~
seanwilson
Thanks! Growing but slowly. I need to make more progress on the marketing side
now as I don't think much on the coding side will change this.

I think the story is similar with simpler products too. Getting the word out
and optimising your sales funnel takes much longer than you'd think.

------
wibble10
I can’t speak for the simplicity, but by all accounts the backend of this
system is (it was at some point) a single ec2 instance and is a single person
project.

Granted that person is cpercival but whatever :)

[https://www.tarsnap.com](https://www.tarsnap.com)

~~~
ignoramous
A little bit of trivia for people who might not know: cpercival was an
integral part of one of the favourite HN threads of all time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079)

~~~
giarc
That thread was a nice little rabbit hole in the morning, thanks. There's also
an appearance by Drew Houston with early mention of dropbox in there.

------
t0mk
[https://ngrok.com/product](https://ngrok.com/product) It's SSH forwarding as
a service. Not super-simple, but not too hard either I think.

------
bpizzi
I've built a petition system that allow users to publish their own petitions
and download signatures lists. Got a handful of loyal customers acquired threw
relations. MRR is ~500€ since +10 years. Won't give the url here because it's
running on a ultra cheap dedicated server at 5€/m, HN would blow it down in
one minute :)

~~~
kozziollek
> ultra cheap dedicated server at 5€/m Dedicated? How? Where?

~~~
haapanen
Probably from Kimsufi (OVH)
[https://www.kimsufi.com/us/en/servers.xml](https://www.kimsufi.com/us/en/servers.xml)

------
notriv
Probably far from being "super simple", but I made a bot to automate different
tasks in a online game.

Customers can either self-host the software them-self (min $5/month) or pay a
higher price (min $10/month) and use my "cloud" service where I host and
install the software for them.

I use Golang to build everything, caddy for https, Hetzner for hosting, and
docker to deploy cloud instances.

[https://www.ogame.ninja/](https://www.ogame.ninja/)

~~~
devilsbabe
Wait, hold up. Ogame is still popular enough that you have a good userbase for
this?

~~~
notriv
Short answer: yes. It even surprised me :P

------
mrskitch
I'm not sure if I'd call it simple, but the product itself is fairly
straightforward (at least to me :). I run a SaaS product called browserless
([https://browserless.io](https://browserless.io)). Goal here was to make it
really simple to run headless browser work in a production environment,
without worrying about all the provisioning and maintenance.

However, like anything simple on the exterior, there's still layers of
complexity behind it. How do you charge users? Where do you host? How do you
acquire users? How do you interact with customers?

Don't mean to be cynical, but even $500/mo is going to have some cost and time
complexity. Best of luck!

------
takinola
I have a Shopify app that generates a little under $1K a month. I feel like if
I put some dedicated effort into it, I could probably double that. Right now,
I probably spend about 4 hours a week max on support.

I would discount all the people who say it cannot be done. There is a ton of
opportunity out there if you are willing to do your research, take sensible
risks and do the hard work to build and launch stuff. The trick (at least for
me) is transitioning from the side-project to the fully self sustaining stage.
There is a messy middle where the investment required (in terms of time and
money) imposes a much higher risk.

~~~
sharps_xp
how did you conduct your research phase?

~~~
takinola
I went through the Shopify app store to find app categories with lots of
negative reviews. This suggested to me that there was unmet demand. I then
reached out to some shop owners to ask what they needed and used the insights
from those conversations to design a better solution than the competition.

It is a pretty simple straightforward approach but just takes time and
discipline to grind through the process.

------
ortuna
[https://commits.io](https://commits.io)

Pretty simple code poster creator.

------
everdev
For a list of projects + revenues, check out IndieHackers:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/interviews/page/1](https://www.indiehackers.com/interviews/page/1)

It might provide some inspiration of related projects that are in your
wheelhouse.

------
jypepin
Depends of your definition of simple, but I really like
[https://cronhub.io/](https://cronhub.io/). Does 1 thing and does it well.

~~~
rane
I've found [https://healthchecks.io/](https://healthchecks.io/) great for my
use, and it has quite friendly pricing for non-profit hobby projects.

~~~
mherrmann
Just to chime in and also say that I'm a very happy healthchecks user.

------
johnmaguire2013
I don't have anything to do with Toggl besides using it briefly years ago, but
apparently it is (or was) profitable: [http://purde.net/2012/09/keep-it-
simple-talk-to-users-how-to...](http://purde.net/2012/09/keep-it-simple-talk-
to-users-how-toggl-has-gotten-to-20-000-paid-users-and-counting/)

------
deftnerd
There is no single "To Do" application that meets the needs of all of the
users since everyone thinks differently. Find a niche that the others haven't
really addressed yet and build your application in that space.

The same applies for email clients or calendar applications. Basically
anything that orients around organizing information and priorities.

~~~
marcperel
It's funny this thread exists.

I actually created a to-do/note app that works for loads of users, I called it
Thought Train because I kept losing my train of thought as I tabbed through
Slack/Skype/Email all day.

It's not "The answer" but it's helped me daily since I built it.

The trick to creating something like this in a crowded space is not to compete
against the others, but compliment them.

------
TrickyRick
I run [https://awardfares.com](https://awardfares.com) with a friend, it's not
making much money but it's certainly profitable.

~~~
lavezzi
Is there a consolidated list of alliances/carriers that you support? I
couldn't see anything on the site

~~~
TrickyRick
Only Star Alliance so far, however the availability might not necessarily
match for your specific carrier, as they have different rules between each
other. Both me and my friend use SAS Eurobonus and the availability lines up
quite well.

We're working on adding other alliances too though!

EDIT: Actually I see now that my partner added the list if you scroll down on
the first page (Only visible if you're not logged in though).

------
achillesheels
What about a simple wordpress plugin? I instantly thought of a grammar checker
and ran into this:

[https://wordpress.org/plugins/perfect-
tense/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/perfect-tense/)

Marketing wise, I would try initiating an affiliate program. If you tap into a
power blogger network, you might be able to get hundreds of customers over an
18 month stretch.

------
moosecopy
Not a simple SaaS but my brother (personal finance blogger), best friend
(journalist) and I (engineer - P.Eng Ontario, Canada) just started a
copywriting subscription for fintechs in Canada.

Please note that we had worked with a few fintechs for about a year on a
service basis and made a pivot to a subscription service just last week. This
resulted in most of our existing fintech clients coming on board right away
after we emailed them even though the website
([https://moosecopy.com](https://moosecopy.com)) is still under construction
i.e. no writing samples on it yet. Our mixed background provides an excellent
value for our clients and we have been fortunate to work with some great
clients as well.

Lastly, as a few people have suggested wisely, it's a good idea to offer a
service initially and then look towards building a product out of it (similar
to Paul Graham's idea of doing things that don't scale during early
development stage).

------
nailer
[https://certsimple.com](https://certsimple.com) \- faster, easier
verification for websites, so they can prove they're run by a specific company
(with an EV SSL cert). It's essentially a UI and a bunch of APIs that connect
to different data sources to pre-check info, then pass that on to a CA.

~~~
sahaskatta
Curious how this is so much cheaper than all the other EV cert companies that
charge thousands!

~~~
nailer
Ha, thankyou, but we’re definitely in the middle of the market. If your main
thing is price you can find cheaper companies, our main thing is reducing
verication time and hassle.

------
faitswulff
There's BuiltWith: [http://www.startupdaily.net/2015/09/builtwith-is-perhaps-
one...](http://www.startupdaily.net/2015/09/builtwith-is-perhaps-one-of-
australias-most-profitable-online-companies-and-has-zero-staff/)

~~~
justaguyhere
This is not simple at all! There are hundreds of corner cases to code for, you
need a swarm of machines to crawl etc.

When he started more than a decade ago, there was zero competition and it was
a novel idea. Now there is stiff competition.

This is far from simple - this is actually a very serious project, not an
example of 500$ stuff!

~~~
faitswulff
The idea is quite simple - crawl websites and figure out what makes them tick.
Of course you're not going to enter the exact same market. No one is obligated
to find a competition-free, low-hanging niche for you to occupy.

~~~
AznHisoka
A lot of billion dollar company ideas are simple too like Facebook, Salesforce
and Yelp. But I doubt 1 person can build those.

Those BuiltWith folks probably have hundreds of regression tests running
daily. Maybe a bunch of freelancers who check for newer versions of software
too every month.

~~~
faitswulff
You are aware that BuiltWith itself was built by one person, right?

------
geekjock
I run [http://pullreminders.com](http://pullreminders.com)

------
grwthckrmstr
One source of ideas is the Indiehackers products listing. They also include
revenue figures. Here's a list of all products with >= $500 in MRR (some are
Stripe-verified, rest are self-reported so take it with a pinch of salt).

LINK =>
[https://www.indiehackers.com/products?minRevenue=500&sorting...](https://www.indiehackers.com/products?minRevenue=500&sorting=lowest-
revenue)

------
systematical
What gets me is the amount of people making money on low budget basic
bootstrap themes here. I like it. I'm just surprised.

------
beadifier
I made [https://www.beadifier.com](https://www.beadifier.com) and the paid
version [https://www.beadifier.pro](https://www.beadifier.pro)

It provides an optimized solution for a very niche type problem (making fuse
bead patterns from images).

~~~
Toadsoup
That's neat. Do you get a lot of people using it and signing up?

------
dsfyu404ed
Not highly complex to set up, profitable without massive scale, not labor
intensive. Pick two.

------
conroy
I run [https://equinox.io](https://equinox.io), a service for distributing and
updating Go applications. I’m not sure if it falls into the “simple” category,
but the product targets a small market.

~~~
potatowriter
How did you learn to make all this? I haven't been taught anything like this
in my CS program. What resources did you use? Books, videos etc. are very
helpful. Thanks!

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calypso
I co-run a SaaS company targeted towards funeral homes. We offer a CMS and
white labeled obituaries that don't look like they were built in 1998. The
subject matter might be a bit mundane but it's very profitable.

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tyingq
Aftership looks like a fairly straightforward SAAS offering that could use a
competitor.

It does deliver value, and I'm sure there's more to it than you might see at
first. But, it does seem a simpler space than many.

~~~
npmn2
ahh.. supporting 400 different providers is a full-time and fairly painful
job. Anyways their space is pretty crowded as well.

~~~
tyingq
Supporting 3 would handle a pretty large market.

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mlx
[http://www.mlreader.com](http://www.mlreader.com) \- MLReader - it extracts
invoice information. It is as simple as there's only one API.

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PhilWright
You could try buying an existing very small SAAS which you know you can grow
and build into something bigger. Then either keep it running or sell it on
again at a higher value.

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todipa
Are there other websites like
[https://indiehackers.com](https://indiehackers.com) that you would recommend?

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nrjames
pinboard.in

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symisc_devel
park.io is making $120K per month using an automated set of scripts that catch
up pendingDelete domains from various registries.

~~~
aerovistae
Honestly this kind of pisses me off. automated domain parking. this should be
illegal.

~~~
jamestanderson
I've used them more than once and am very happy with their service.

Squatters do this kind of thing already, but they demand an exorbitant price
or have some kind of opaque bidding process. Park.io at least introduces some
consistency and trust in this process.

I'd much rather pay a small premium ($99 for the domain vs however much a
particular registrar charges) to avoid that hassle and still get a great name
I would never have gotten otherwise by scanning for pendingDelete domains.

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bdcravens
I think a great place to start is places where there's a marketplace, like
Shopify, BigCommerce, Github, etc.

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zbruhnke
droplr & Cloudapp both come to mind ... essentially branded filesharing/url
shorteners but I'd love to see either of them support adding custom favicons
or otherwise completely removing their branding

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jndsn402
Look into writing apps for Shopify, many are quite simple and charge a fee.

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pragmaticlurker
Check IndieHackers website!

~~~
saluki
[https://www.indiehackers.com/products?businessModel=subscrip...](https://www.indiehackers.com/products?businessModel=subscriptions&maxRevenue=999&minRevenue=500)

------
danieltillett
Plenty of them out there that fit this criteria provided you work full time on
it and don't count your hours.

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danielrhodes
Create a Shopify app.

------
lazyjones
www.doodle.com ...

------
simkus9
segment.com

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baccredited
A simple SaaS that gushes profits is so improbable that you might as well call
it impossible.

If you want passive income, write code for pay and invest some of the surplus.

If you want to do a startup, find a cofounder and apply to YCombinator. Or
find another path to working at a startup.

~~~
codingdave
I disagree - I wrote a simple tool for my family a number of years back, left
it on my personal website in a way that was usable by the general public, and
ignored it. Came back a couple years later, saw it was getting tens of
thousands of uses a month, added some relevant amazon affiliate links, and hit
that $500 a month mark. I let it run for a couple years like that, then sold
it.

So if I can hit the mark accidentally off a weekend project, it certainly is
achievable if you put serious effort in.

~~~
thex10
Care to share what kind of tool it was? This story has quite piqued my
curiosity.

~~~
codingdave
It was an image conversion program that computed designs for various crafts
from uploaded photos.

