HACKER Q&A
📣 Nair0

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

  👤 webglfan Accepted Answer ✓
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
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

👤 alex1sa
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.