HN Explorer

Ask HN: Who started something in 2013/14 which is already profitable?

99 points by bjonathan ↗ HN
I think that can be inspiring and interesting to learn about the early journey of already profitable businesses.

I enjoyed the 2012 edition : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4088538

Impatient to learn about the accomplishments of the community.

117 comments

[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 172 ms ] thread
zrail
I wrote and self-published a book in 2013 that definitely fits some definitions of success[1]. Sales to date total a little over $30,000, plus some consulting gigs.

[1]: https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments

qhoc
I'm also trying to get into the book writing business. Can you tell me what tool you use to write the book? I was using Gitbook.io but it was buggy and not formatting well.
zrail
I wrote all of my own tools. The book itself is written in Markdown, and I use the Redcarpet gem to turn it into HTML. From that, I convert it into PDF and the ebook formats using Docverter.

http://www.docverter.com

abhimir
Our mobile games startup started in Dec 2013 is profitable. Our monthly revenues are 3-4X our monthly expenses (which includes market salary for Co-Founders.) In fact in the last 2-3 months, we have been able to save up almost 18 months worth of runway for our team of 8.

Bear in mind that the team is based in India, so our salary and other expenses cannot be compared to Silicon Valley, but in India we pay market rates.

ashishk
pretty awesome accomplishment. are your users in india as well? how are you monetizing?
abhimir
Most of our users are in US, UK and Europe. We monetize via In App Purchases (IAPs) and Ads. On average we monetize close to industry standards, 2% of people pay for hints, powerups and other IAPs, while ads give a decent $2 eCPM ($2 for 1000 impressions)
umenline
what is the most profitable platform ? iOS?
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abhimir
We have had similar success on all 3 platforms, as it is easier to stand out on Amazon, Google play drives a lot of downloads, and Apple monetizes very well. For us, it is almost 34-33-33 in terms of revenue breakup.
GFischer
Thanks for sharing ! I'm getting started on Android app development, and those are very encouraging numbers (and thanks for sharing your app link to have an idea of what you're building).

I think I'll try my hand at some games targeted for the local audience first (I live in Uruguay, South America, I have some ideas which can be tested for the larger Argentinean and Brazilian markets) and see how it goes :) .

My goal is to make U$ 400/month in recurring revenue by year's end.

dsugarman
very smart to keep a large runway in the mobile game industry
abhimir
The first lesson I had in this industry was to always prepare for a lean patch. In a hit driven business, you can never be sure when the next hit will come, so always good to have as large a runway as possible. Having said that, this has been my largest worry in this startup, and has caused many a sleepless nights.
ivan_ah
I launched product1 of my publishing startup on Jan 1st 2013 on HN[1] and now I'm officially living, frugally, from the sales. It was a side-project, but the interest was so great that I've spent the last 1.5 years building the company. So far so good. More titles and more authors coming soon. Bootstrap funding all the way!

The self-publishing route for authors is a very interesting development. I believe it is going to be one of the more interesting strategies for monetizing content on the web. Take the best of modern web technology (version control, bug reports, quick iterations) and apply it to producing books---meaningful information products that can be sold at 60%--95% margins. What's not to like?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4994367

Shrugs
I made FiveStar [0], which was covered on TechCrunch [1] and it made ~$600 last month. Doesn't cost any money to run, so it just sits there. Not a fabulous success story, and traffic is decreasing, but $10 a day as passive income isn't awful.

[0] http://fivestar.io [1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/03/fivestar-finds-the-best-pro...

denizozger
So how do you make money off your site?
JoshuaRedmond
I'd guess through Amazon affiliate links, which will pay out for every purchase that originated on the site. Very nice idea, and brilliant use of an affiliate scheme.
Shrugs
Yup, affiliate links. I get ~6% from every purchase via FiveStar, increasing with volume per month.
sova
cool site! well done =)

i did a search for sennheiser and got an excellent breakdown of headphones. also i don't mind that a price range can have two different options if they're far enough apart. that's a nice touch.

jaredtking
FiveStar is incredible, nice work. I just bought some stuff with it and had a quick but enjoyable experience.
Shrugs
Awesome, glad you like it!
nilkn
I used this to buy a cheap rice cooker recently. I'm glad it's making you some cash.
ca98am79
I launched http://park.io last week and it is already profitable (around +$500).
Aqueous
That's a really good idea. Well done, sir.
tekknolagi
Brilliant. Love it. So park.io registers the domain for you?
ca98am79
Thanks! Yes, we register it for you - email me if you have any questions (see my hn profile for my email)
mercwear
My wife left corporate law firm life to start her own law practice in March of this year. By not taking on unnecessary expenses she has been profitable every single month.
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hayksaakian
I started a recruiting company in the real estate niche.

We're profitable technically, but I would only say "gross profitable" not "net profitable".

(Couldn't afford to pay minimum wage for someone to do this)

On the up side, its a B2B so there are opportunities to cross sell a better product if we come up with one

jaredtking
I launched Invoiced [1] as a private beta in June of 2013 while in college. In November I took it out of private beta and have since been fortunate enough to be able to focus on it full time.

Invoiced provides simple invoicing for the small business/freelance crowd. It is bootstrapped, profitable, and currently producing 4-figures of MRR. I learn something new every day and get to work with awesome people (customers).

[1] http://invoiced.com

cpher
Cool, good job. I had two issues: 1. The fixed header is an issue when scrolling. Also, the pricing table has the <li> bullet points still showing. (edit: on Chrome current version) 2. Looking at the pricing page, it took me a minute to distinguish between the names of your packages. Maybe have something less "mathy". Otherwise, great job.
jaredtking
Thank you. I fixed the pricing table. I plan to do a refresh of the landing page in the near future and might remove the fixed header at that time. Also, great tip on the packages. I let my passion for math slip through into the pricing.
odonnellryan
Cool! This is something all businesses need, and seems to be something they never get right.
lifeformed
Cool, this is something I had thought about trying to make, but decided on another project instead. It's just big enough of a project to be a primary endeavor, but small enough for a single person (or two) to handle. It also doesn't seem like it would require tons of maintenance once you get everything worked out. There's not many competitors, it's something in high demand, and it's easy to charge for. Good job!
cannikin
What did you do to get the word out to the world? Word of mouth? Ads? Tech blog writeups? I have a pretty polished app I wrote a couple of years ago but it didn't even cover the AWS fees once I dropped off the free year. :( Great app, I just don't know how to get the word out...
jaredtking
Thank you. Actually this all started at as a simple web page [1] where you can plug your invoice into the site and get a PDF of your invoice back with no sign up required. I climbed up the search rankings and eventually was getting tons of requests for more features. That is when I decided to make a premium version. Even today a majority of traffic comes through the Upgrade button on the free tool. The second source of major traffic is referrals from existing customers. To date I have spent $0 on advertising and have had virtually zero coverage on tech blogs. I got lucky that my target customer starts out using free invoicing sites.

What app did you create?

[1] http://invoice-generator.com

umenline
Great service ! Can please share on which hosting to you use , how much many does it cost you monthly? Thanks
jaredtking
Invoiced is hosted on Linode and relies on several other third-party services. I spend ~$110 per month for everything excluding yearly stuff like SSL and domains.
buttsex
How'd you manage to get that domain name? Did you have to buy it off someone else?
jaredtking
I bought it from a seller on Sedo in January '14 using proceeds from the site.
gingerlime
looks neat. And kudos for being profitable.

How does getting paid via stripe / paypal work? Do your customers provide their own stripe / paypal details? or does the payment from your customers' customers go through you? is there any commission involved?

jaredtking
Thank you. Our Stripe integration works through OAuth aka Stripe Connect. Basically, you click the Connect with Stripe button, create an account or sign in, and then confirm that you want to give Invoiced access to your account. We then generate a payment form for your invoices that your customers can pay you with, i.e. https://invoiced.com/username/cust_no/inv_no/payment. The payment goes directly to your Stripe account and we do not add any commission on top of Stripe's fee. This setup is ideal because you can revoke access from our service at any time and we only have access to your account through a unique token that Stripe provides us.

Our PayPal integration is even simpler. Just provide your e-mail address and we generate Pay via PayPal buttons for your invoices. Again, no commission.

gingerlime
Very well executed! Thanks for the info.
johnathanz
Great work. I would love to transition to a model that you've done with invoiced! p.s. Small typo on your 'Features' page, 'inforamtion' instead of 'information'
mtufekyapan
Do you ever think of develop paymill integration?
jaredtking
If I knew there was demand for it then I would build the integration. So far you are the first person that has suggested it. Thanks for putting paymill on my radar.
GotToStartup
This is awesome! What made you build this, I would have thought the market were too saturated? Have you considered blogging about your process? Would love to hear about what marketing you did to achieve where you are at today.
jaredtking
Thank you! Honestly, I built Invoiced because a lot of people using this invoicing website I made [1] kept asking for more features and offering to pay for them. Initially I was hesitant about building a product that already had competitors. Fortunately the target market is huge because we solve problems faced by most businesses. Many of our competitors have built full-stack accounting platforms whereas Invoiced focuses on building and maintaining your revenue stream.

I might take a break at some point to blog about my experience. It's been an incredible journey so far.

[1] http://invoice-generator.com

vipinsahu
well we have started little early but we speed things up at 2013-2014 and cleared the mile store of 1MN$ revenue we are now largest self created open source plugin marketplace https://store.webkul.com/ .
noname123
I started a 401(k) account and put it on S&P500 index fund, it's gone up about 65% in two years. The best part of the business is that I work less than Timothy Ferris, "0-hour work week"; I let the money do the work for me, not the other way around.
joshdance
Interest to put this under starting something profitable, but the tone seems a little snarky.
noname123
Np, I didn't mean to be snarky. I wanted to make a point both the opportunity cost of starting something creative and the pride that entrepreneurs have for their "initiative and originality" yet are beholden and exploited by the investors who invest in them and who'll ultimately reap in their success.

Also that trading can be an creative act (expressing your belief about yourself, in risk-taking in buying a leveraged option call or a conservative index fund with stop loss; your personal conflict resolution and problem solving when the market moves against you) and a simple decision to invest in an index fund is not trivial but can be just as nuanced in making any complex decisions. But in the West, we put so much credence in "hustlin'" that we become penny-wise and pound-foolish.

chaqke
unless creating for the sense of ownership or pure joy, it's certainly valid to compare the time spent against the opportunity cost of a full-time job or contracting.

it was a thread about _profit_, after all.

mafellows
Launched iOS Leads [0] in May. Spent a few months testing the product before launch. Only a handful of monthly software expenses (Mailchimp and Memberful).

Currently at 4 digit MRR, and almost full. The program is capped at 40 customers.

Also went indie dev in 2013, but selling product is way harder than selling service.

[0] http://iosleads.com

jamesgagan
I very recently launched an ecommerce site[1] selling shoe shine kits of all things. We just launched a few weeks ago but are already making money. It was a nice feeling to be able to pay myself yesterday, even if it was only $500!

[1] http://shinekits.com

derptacos
Off-topic, but you should contact massdrop.com these are the kinds of products that may really interest massdrop's customers!
prakster
What is Massdrop? Website doesn't say much.
prakster
Oh, I see. Aggregates consumer demand for a given product and negotiates a discount for it.
svmegatron
Nice! I see you're on Shopify - I started a fraud prevention app that's great for Shopify stores. Would you be willing to try the free trial? I'd love to hear what a fellow HNer thinks of it.

Link is https://www.merchantprotector.net

grakic
What is your current best strategy to acquire customers? Are you doing any social marketing, is it mostly organic search or paid search placements?
jamesgagan
social marketing (twitter, blogging, facebook page etc), adwords, reddit ads. starting to see a trickle of organic search traffic.
tomblomfield
Looks really cool.

Why are your prices defaulting to Canadian dollars? I imagine it's pretty off-putting to the (much larger) US market just south of your border.

jamesgagan
I agree that the CAD pricing may be a deterrent to US customers - still deciding on that one, but will probably change it to USD to see if conversions improve.
tachion
My partner finally decided to give it a try to her idea for her own fashion brand[1] (instead of regular career in journaling), designing and hand crafting clothes in small quantities made of self designed and produced specially for us materials and we're just starting being profitable, even tho we're at the moment not very active when it comes to advertising via any channels. The profit varies heavily so far, having very good months and a bit worse ones, but overall, we're positive.

[1] http://facebook.com/kropeczki

23andwalnut
I launched Duet (http://duetapp.com) in May 2013 and it's been profitable since day 1. I'm going to start focusing on it more so it can hopefully grow into something I can live off of.

*edit: I'm very curious to know, what about this comment is worthy of downvotes.

m3mnoch
i would guess it's the difference between "making revenue since day 1" and "profitable since day 1".

it's hard to imagine that you recouped all of your time/money/expenses not to mention that going forward, you can work on it full time -- all as of day one.

mtufekyapan
Great work. I wonder how many people work for this project to develop? How you reach your user?
23andwalnut
It's just me - one person. I'm still figuring out marketing. It's difficult. I wrote about some of the marketing challenges I've had on the blog http://duetapp.com/blog
anthonylukach
Beautiful app! I love the UI. Is this a single-person project? How long did you develop before release? Is the front-end just jQuery and Foundation (no larger JS framework)?
23andwalnut
Hey. Thanks for the compliment.

Yes, it's a single person project. The initial release took a long time; I was working on it between freelance projects. I'm using a custom jQuery MVC implementation on the front end, some twitter bootstrap, and a couple of 3rd party plugins (i.e. ckeditor, nanoscroller, pdfjs, etc)

jsonne
I started an advertising agency in February with another friend who also used to work in tech. We're Ramen profitable (2 founders make below market, but livable, wages). We were fortunate enough to find some clients in the marijuana industry out here in Colorado who have been largely overlooked by other agencies due to the stigma attached to it. Our strength is solidly in the digital space (particularly social advertising).
coderholic
I launched http://ipinfo.io back in 2013 and when it hit 50M API requests a day early this year I decided to launch the paid plans, and it's been profitable ever since. It's now hosted across 2 providers in 3 different cities, and handles almost 100M requests per day with a p99 of less than 1s and p50 of less than 100ms. Expect more services and features later this year!
stevekemp
That traffic is pretty impressive, I've seen your site before and even though I don't have an obvious need for it I've had it bookmarked for a while.

Congratulations :)

mtufekyapan
Your product is impressive but I think you can do with this product much more valuable things.

For example, I want to specialize my landing page depends on visitors location. For example I want to change if user comes from US H1 and H2 message. Can you build something makes this possible?

coderholic
You can absolutely customize your LP depending on the user's location by using http://ipinfo.io, eg:

  $.get("http://ipinfo.io", function (response) {
      if(response.country == "US") display_us_message();
      else if(response.country == "TR") display_turkey_message();
      else display_generic_message();
  }, "jsonp");
I'll send you a mail to see if you're proposing something else.
reqres
Started a UK postcode and addressing API in the midst of developing another (eventually failed) project - partly to scratch my own itch and partly because the existing offering was in a bit of a sorry state.

Was profitable within 2 months despite some idealistic pricing on my part. The feedback and kind words from my users over the past year has been incredibly humbling.

joshdance
Curious about this. What does your API do? Associate addresses with postcodes and vice versa? And this is a rookie question but how are postcode different from zip codes in the US?
junto
Interesting. We are using Post code anywhere.co.UK for a variety of projects in the UK. What's your URL?
gamebak
I started http://skyul.com and it's been profitable since it's first month when I released this service. The main reason why is because I'm keeping costs low and I re-invested most of the cash into advertising and more product development :)
mjwhansen
We launched Geocodio [1] in January 2014. It's a side project, so the definition of "profitable" is a bit different, but it's paying for itself and then some -- servers, Basecamp, LLC filing fees, etc. We're making enough that it covers costs for other, less serious projects [2][3] and our "fun" server (for testing out new projects/ideas/etc) with some to spare.

This was our first time launching a serious product as a side project and it's been a blast. I actually wrote up a few thoughts on launching side projects last week [4], largely based on our experience with Geocodio.

[1] http://geocod.io [2] http://opennear.by [3] http://happykitchen.dotsqua.re [4] https://medium.com/@mjwhansen/things-ive-learned-launching-a...

thibaut_barrere
I launched WiseCash (https://www.wisecashhq.com), a cash flow forecasting app for freelancers and small businesses publicly in July 2013.

This is bootstrapped using freelancing. We are currently at $800 MRR and growing.

I'm having a lot of fun helping people get more freedom of choice in their lives!