<story><title>Ask HN: Is the concept of a one-person software shop still viable?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;ve started a software company and want to keep it just me and no employees. In this day and age with the popularity of SaaS and uptime needed is it still a realistic goal of starting and keep running a micro ISV?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasonswett</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll add something I wish I had realized several years ago: build a SaaS is not the only path to a product business, and for a solo founder, it&amp;#x27;s (in my opinion) probably not a very good path.&lt;p&gt;I spent 5 years trying to get a micro ISV off the ground which made scheduling software for hair salons. It was a terrible idea for a large number of reasons (described in detail here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jasonswett.net&amp;#x2F;im-shutting-down-snip-heres-why&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jasonswett.net&amp;#x2F;im-shutting-down-snip-heres-why&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;) and I never made more than about $430&amp;#x2F;mo.&lt;p&gt;My opinion now is that info products are a better way for a solo founder to get started with a product business. The reason is that a SaaS product can take a huge amount of effort (perhaps pre-traction effort, which is risky) to get off the ground whereas an info product business can be started with a tiny &amp;quot;guide&amp;quot; and then expanded outwardly from there, keeping effort in proportion with traction the whole time.&lt;p&gt;My current business is AngularOnRails.com, an info product business. In its third month of making money, it made $1580, over 3 times what the SaaS made at its peak. Here&amp;#x27;s a detailed income report: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jasonswett.net&amp;#x2F;november-2016-angular-on-rails-income-report&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jasonswett.net&amp;#x2F;november-2016-angular-on-rails-in...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jv22222</author><text>Hey Jason,&lt;p&gt;Amy Hoy says the best way for solo founders to start off is with in info product. Just to cut their teeth at marketing and such.&lt;p&gt;One thing, now that you have got that ball rolling I think you might consider another saas product in the future because you have so much learning about that.&lt;p&gt;The one good thing about a saas product with good market fit is that you will get years of recurring revenue from the same customers.&lt;p&gt;With pluggio I had some customers hitting $3.5k over time (and higher).&lt;p&gt;That is the real power of saas and why it&amp;#x27;s worth considering in the long run.&lt;p&gt;Edit: I guess it may be useful to note we have a bunch of articles here - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.nugget.one&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.nugget.one&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; - about how to avoid the kind of issues you spoke about in your blog.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Is the concept of a one-person software shop still viable?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;ve started a software company and want to keep it just me and no employees. In this day and age with the popularity of SaaS and uptime needed is it still a realistic goal of starting and keep running a micro ISV?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasonswett</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll add something I wish I had realized several years ago: build a SaaS is not the only path to a product business, and for a solo founder, it&amp;#x27;s (in my opinion) probably not a very good path.&lt;p&gt;I spent 5 years trying to get a micro ISV off the ground which made scheduling software for hair salons. It was a terrible idea for a large number of reasons (described in detail here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jasonswett.net&amp;#x2F;im-shutting-down-snip-heres-why&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jasonswett.net&amp;#x2F;im-shutting-down-snip-heres-why&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;) and I never made more than about $430&amp;#x2F;mo.&lt;p&gt;My opinion now is that info products are a better way for a solo founder to get started with a product business. The reason is that a SaaS product can take a huge amount of effort (perhaps pre-traction effort, which is risky) to get off the ground whereas an info product business can be started with a tiny &amp;quot;guide&amp;quot; and then expanded outwardly from there, keeping effort in proportion with traction the whole time.&lt;p&gt;My current business is AngularOnRails.com, an info product business. In its third month of making money, it made $1580, over 3 times what the SaaS made at its peak. Here&amp;#x27;s a detailed income report: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jasonswett.net&amp;#x2F;november-2016-angular-on-rails-income-report&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jasonswett.net&amp;#x2F;november-2016-angular-on-rails-in...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>imarg</author><text>Starting with an info product is a common suggestion (Amy Hoy is one advocate as a sibling comment noted). But in order to be able to offer an info product don&amp;#x27;t you need to be really knowledgeable about something? If you hadn&amp;#x27;t your experience with your SaaS would you be in the same position to write (and sell!) your tutorial?</text></comment>