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forte124

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Ask HN: Most Interesting Startup Stories?

Posted by forte124 on Tuesday March 28, 2023 @01:28AM
from the ask-hn dept.

Love reading these types of stories and would love to know more!BuiltWith -> 1 person $14M ARR (reportedly?) Instagram -> 13 engineers to $1 billion Evernote -> 500k check that saved the business YouTube -> originally was a dating siteWhat other stories are similar?

( Read More... | no comments | on HN )

Ask HN: DigitalOcean vs. Render

Posted by forte124 on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @04:05PM
from the ask-hn dept.

I’m planning to build out my own SaaS tool with hopefully real users, and I’m trying to decide where to deploy it.In the past, I’ve only hosted small projects, blogs, etc on DigitalOcean, but I’m not too familiar with devops and am in fear something could go wrong.Would using a PaaS like Render work a lot better? I plan to use Postgres/Redis.Would love thoughts, tips, or resources for...

( Read More... | 1 comment | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: What's the best tech stack for indie hacking? on Saturday January 28, 2023 @01:53AM (#34555785)
This thread is really good and just what I was looking for - thanks!

What makes you want to use Elixir, Phoenix, and LiveView? I've never even heard of these before

Back when I dabbled in web dev in college, people only talked about the MERN stack lol

Re:I made a newsletter sharing founder success stories and side hustles on Friday December 02, 2022 @06:57PM (#33838625)
For an audience filled with hackers and founders, I'd love to get some feedback:

• How helpful/valuable this is? • What type of businesses/stories are best? • Optimal word count/read time

Thanks!

Re:Photopea: The Free Photoshop Alternative Making Millions on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @04:29PM (#33335727)
Sorry, I interviewed Ivan and he said roughly 90% of the revenue comes from ads.

I also asked him if he considered creating his own header bidding system, but he said this wasn’t worth it

Re:BuiltWith: $14M ARR, no employees on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @09:16PM (#33186002)
This is a great takeaway! In short, I think it just starts with making people money.

Then you just have to find your slice

Re:BuiltWith: $14M ARR, no employees on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @09:12PM (#33185976)
Given that it was the mid-2000s, I think dot com was fairly positive to be the general assumption.

But thanks for the feedback, I'll make sure I clarify in future posts

Re:BuiltWith: $14M ARR, no employees on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @09:10PM (#33185964)
Hi, I'm the OP. I have no connection with the founder actually. I just like to research success stories like this to help inform and inspire people

I also don't mean to bring harm to the founder. I'm sure he's created scrapers, historical data, and built loyalty that's difficult to replicate

If there's something about this story that I got wrong or if it wasn't as helpful as I intended, do please let me know though!

Re:BuiltWith: $14M ARR, no employees on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @08:36PM (#33185722)
This is actually really interesting to hear.

I always hear the argument "you don't need a fancy website or UI, when I started my site/app looked like ___"

These people created MVPs in 2010. You're now competing with MVPs that can be built with way more features, the latest tech stacks, and more in the same period of time.

Re:BuiltWith: $14M ARR, no employees on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @08:31PM (#33185684)
A lot of the stuff is automated at this point. Datasets are pulled automatically and website scrapers have been built for 15+ years.

Gary Brewer probably just maintains the system by himself these days.