Ask HN: Has anyone became successful on their own?

Hi, there are many people out there claiming they quit their job and got reach by "starting a business", and though I'm sure there are many actual real success stories, I'm more curious about the "underdog" scenarios, people who:

- started with little money, savings etc - didn't have any well-know mentor or relative that boosted them - didn't have some kind of revolutionary idea, physics, biology and so on, but actually some kind of doable product, a game, something

I personally am on this kind of path, and though I was always able to somehow learn and make it, and I trust it might work out, I notice how hard the entire thing actually is. It makes me realize that it's impossible all the success stories out there are actually real

I'm curious if anyone here has something of their own they can share or someone they know that "made it"? I work better when motivated so I'm actually curious haha

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Nair0 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And to say about myself, I worked as a developer for about 4 years, reached a position higher than peers my age and experience level usually reach, so it gave me confidence that I can actually learn and progress.

Some time ago I started seeing people bragging about how they made millions after starting their own thing. I knew that is probably not real, or at least not common, but I live in a country with smaller cost of living so for me even something like 1k a month would be enough to get by, I thought at least that might be more realistic.

Around 5 months ago I got fed up with my job. I was depressed and burnt out, felt stuck and as if I made no progress in a while. So I decided to give it a try. Worked on my own thing for a couple of months, decided I can't keep doing both so quit my job with about 2 years worth of savings and started working solo.

Currently nothing is actually making me money, and I'm getting a bit tired, but I still feel so much better than I was at my old job. I'm here asking this because it feels like people here are a lot more 'genuine' and might actually give better advice or more honest stories, so I'm curious

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marekful 6 hours ago | parent [-]

What do you expect to achieve as a business? Assuming you live in a country with fractional reserve banking, free market and "wild west" capitalism, your options are dire. Be selfish, ruthless, lack all empathy, be corrupt, cheat and steal. You cheat more you win more. Are you great at exploiting other people and looking the other way? How about being dishonest and deceitful? Then you have excellent prospects. Ah, wait, you want a decent _and_ honest business that self sustains and doesn't kneel to disgraceful, corrupt giants? Good luck with that.

	▲	Nair0 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ah I get what you're saying, but I feel like this is a bit of a dark take on the world. I know (relatively) rich people that are some of the kindest people I met. But I do agree that it's much easier to get rich by being corrupt and stealing, the shortest path is and will always be by cheating. That being said, there are plenty of counter examples out there, of people that built stuff out of love and reached financial freedom, not billions of dollars, but enough to buy a home and live with their family, by doing innocent stuff. I'm thinking about indie games, or small shops, learning apps, healthcare focused apps. Do you get an advantage by lying and marketing the "wrong" people? Sure. Do you have to do it to actually succeed? I don't think so But I do not disagree with you completely, I think this is just a black and white vision when in the real world there are just many shades of gray. You will never be a completely innocent person and you will never be a completely evil person, it is just impossible.

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webglfan 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You might consider looking at the stories from the devs behind Balatro and Ballionaire:

Balatro: How a Solo Developer Sold more than 1M Copies in One Month - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47612430

Show HN: I got laid off from Meta and created a minor hit on Steam - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43186406

	▲	Nair0 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That is so cool, I know both games but I never knew they posted their stories on here. It seems the first link points to this question though, do you have the correct one? If not, I'll just try to look for it myself

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alex1sa 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Depends how you define ‘successful’, but most ‘underdog’ cases I’ve seen look pretty similar: simple product, no breakthrough idea, just consistent iteration over time. The hard part isn’t building, it’s sticking with it for 6–12 months when nothing is happening.

	▲	Nair0 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I guess that makes sense, I've seen this myself as well. But it feels a bit weird. Probably it's because not many are able to actually keep up this flow for such a long time, but still, it sounds like a simple "recipe" to success so how is it that so many people don't do it? This is what makes me question this strategy? What makes "just sticking with it" a good strategy, how is it that the same idea made 12 months later could work but made at the beginning of the journey couldn't?