We launched Transistor.fm three years ago with a Show HN [0].
The company's gone on to do better than we could have dreamed. We're profitable, paying ourselves well, have hired two people, and have a pretty calm existence (during the pandemic we averaged 25 hours per week).
Three things that helped:
1. Self-funding meant we needed to get to profitability as quick as possible.
2. We targeted a market we understood, where there was demonstrated demand. We weren't trying to invent a new category.
3. Having a co-founder (Jon). We had complimentary strengths (full stack dev for him, marketing and sales for me) that really helped us run fast.