Web apps or Mobile apps for solopreneur? | Hacker News Reader

Web apps or Mobile apps for solopreneur?

16 pointsrustyrose20 comments

My life circumstances have changed and I have 2 years to establish a lucrative remote solopreneur side gig. Assume that the technical proficiency/learning curve is the same, all things being equal, would you bet on web apps (like a SaaS), mobile apps, or something else entirely? I know it won’t be easy no matter what I pick. I also know that it would be better to pick the idea first and then the technology, but having to study one or the other, which one is more likely to serve me well. My naive understanding is that web apps can make more money but they are harder to monetize. Mobile apps can make some money more easily as they are part of a marketplace, but it’s hard to make 150k a year from them. What would you recommend me?

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Does it really matter? I would say finding a problem to solve is the first step. From there you can assess if your target users are more prone to use a desktop website, a web app, or a native mobile app. I guess that some industries will only rely on installed native apps and frown upon browser web apps, and vice versa. Also, if your solution save people time, they would probably take the extra step of downloading something if they have to. I work on a rather popular dev tool, and it's a desktop app. Nothing else would really make sense for what it does (maybe a web app, but it would be more limited in capabilities). But people are willing to download it because it's useful.

That being said, I think mobile apps come with different challenges regarding distribution, conversion, etc. Also, the learning curve is definitely steeper in my opinion. Learn the web techs (JS, HTML, CSS) and you will be able to build nearly anything you want, front-end (websites, web apps, hybrid mobile apps) and back-end.

Web app over mobile app every single day of the week. Precious few cases require a native mobile app.

I have web apps for iPads that haven't needed to be updated in ~7 years. Conversely, the maintenance and updates and complexity-overhead required for mobile apps is overwhelming for a solopreneur.

If you're on your own, optimize for maintainability, understanding, and tools within your control, not features or environments that someone else can (and will) change or deprecate tomorrow.

Source: solopreneur with both web apps and mobile apps.

Thank you very much. For web stacks, I was thinking Django, Rails, or alternatively Svelte plus REST API written in Go or FastAPI. Any thoughts on that in light of the solo aspect?

If you're going to be a team of one keep things simple.

If you know Python, use Django for full stack and FastAPI for APIs.

Although Go is great, I wouldn't add another language into the mix. Just not worth the overhead given that you can do so much with Python.

Also, try using boring old server side rendering as much as is possible.

Not to rag on Svelte specifically, but you'd be surprised at how far you can take a web app before needing to adopt a frontend framework!

I don't think it's my place to say what exactly you should use, since I think that more depends on things that I don't have context for; namely, what are you already comfortable with, which tools/technologies are you within one or two steps/layers of comprehending and mastering? If I recommend anything, I would avoid anything with a build step, only because all debugging will happen by you, and that adds a lot of complexity to the feedback loop of troubleshooting and testing.

I think the debate of which language/framework is "best" is silly, because 1) they all start to look the same after awhile, they implement concepts from each other constantly, and whichever you choose can probably already do what you need at a scale that you don't have yet anyways, and 2) the "right" language is more a function of "how many people do you have working on it?", not "what do you need it to do?".

Since you're on your own, odds are that whichever you choose, it can already do what you need. Choose something boring and solid. Choose the one you're more comfortable with. At least get the ball rolling and a foundation in place. If two years go by and you discover you need to alter your path, that wasn't a waste of time, that's you being two years down the road and have momentum in your favor and a launch pad to make the changes you need. Don't get bogged down too much in the nebulous "woulda/coulda/shoulda in two year's time". Build for the needs you have right in front of you; it's too easy to get paralyzed by the endless things that "could" be built at a later date. Solve the known problems now, let the unknown ones come in their due time.

> Precious few cases require a native mobile app

How does that mean that a solopreneur can't have more chances for profit in mobile apps?

> complexity-overhead required for mobile apps is overwhelming

This also means less competition.

Here goes..

I'm a "solopreneur" as you put it. I have been doing this solo for about eight years now. My service costs $697 per-month to run and my annual reoccurring revenue for this year was close to a million dollars (USD), which was about 10% less than last year (industry layoffs affected my product).

With that being said, I highly suggest building a web service for businesses (b2b sales). Target a service that would sell at least $199 per-month minimum, anything less and it's a massive waste of time to do demos.

Don't build a service where your primary user is individuals in a company. Instead, build a service that will be used by the company itself.. perhaps I am not wording this well, so I'll use an example.

A) A productivity tool used by employees to do X better.

B) An API used by a company to do X.

Build B, not A. A looks like a b2b product, but it's more like b2c.

Interesting, how do you acquire new business?

I have considered this question many times for my side projects. On long term, I want to transition to native apps. But for now, I am sticking with web apps for side projects.

The reasons why I want to move to native dev eventually:

1. It seems more fun, better access to hardware, you can build more experimental apps like a network monitor that plays/generates music based on network stats, you could tell if something is wrong from another room.

2. Speaking of monitoring, you can build apps that are local-only and you don't need to worry about your servers being up on your vacation etc.

3. And with local only, you don't have to worry too much about privacy laws.

But the big cons of native apps for me are:

1. Monopoly of app stores and difficulty of distributing applications outside of them. As a consumer, I appreciate quality controls that app stores provide but as a dev, I am not a big fan of them.

2. Lack of any open-source IDEs for app dev in Apple's ecosystem. I would focus mostly on Apple's ecosystem but I don't like the idea of being tied to XCode. I really like that in web dev, I can spin up $5 VPS and start coding with vim.

3. And even more specific to my situation, I am a web dev at work, so there is extra cognitive load when learning native dev.

The pros and cons of web dev are essentially reverse of above. You can start web dev really easily, there is no one gatekeeper, there seems to be more jobs for web dev. But it is hard to build interesting apps on the web. Everything on the web seems more salesy, less innovative.

The reason why I am sticking with web dev for now is due to cognitive load. Though sometimes working on something different from your day job actually feels refreshing.

Neither. I would bet on learning sales/marketing.

I learned this after our company wasted 144+ man months creating a web app no one wanted to purchase, while this nearly computer illiterate person built a profitable SaaS in only 3 months with no coding skills. Eventually he scaled it to $50,000 MRR and beyond. He explained how he did it, and his secret was marketing. When I say "marketing," in this context I mean a special type of marketing that focuses on the user.

I can't find the original presentation slides, but this is the business Dane described building: https://www.paperlesspipeline.com

No coding skills. Just marketing.

- You will almost certainly need sales/marketing to sell your product/service.

- Marketing will tell you if an idea is worth building, even before you start development.

- (Job search/hiring is just another form of marketing.) You can use marketing to hire the best developers to build both a web app and mobile app.

- Marketing (market research) will tell you which to build (app vs. web app)

Even marketing isn't a silver bullet, but I think it maximizes your chances of success. Dane Maxwell developed the most risk-free way to start a business (based on marketing). He currently teaches his method here: https://startfromzero.com

https://30x500.com is a very similar course, geared more towards techies.

And this is like a "greatest hits" collection of the best marketing lessons compressed into a single book: https://expertsecrets.com

Thank you.

I'm curious where does such a specific 2y deadline come from?

What if you don't establish in the timeframe?

I rarely see a real entrepreneur (not snake oil sales-marketing gurus who prey on our lack of knowledge) achieving anything meaningful in less than few years from scratch.

I don't want to get into too many details but basically it will be when I must leave the country. Having established a source of independent income would significantly affect my lifestyle back at home.

Mobile apps can be very profitable, I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers/info from. Profitable mobile apps are typically B2C which is challenging. B2B SaaS can be easier to sell, especially for one person and would typically be distributed as a web app. HN skews towards web developers so you'll typically get the feedback to go with a web app here.

I think it probably makes sense to find an interesting problem and validate it and then decide on how to distribute your software that solves that problem, while also considering what stack you're most productive in.

My 2c (which is probably worth less than that valuation) is that with native apps, you're primarily going to be chasing individual users and doing B2C stuff. With web apps, the door is more easily open to B2B stuff, where potentially one lucrative engagement could be all you need (obviously there's a lot of risk in having all your revenue with a single customer).

Bear in mind I've never done this myself, so you're probably better off listening to someone who knows what they're talking about (if you can find such a person).

Web apps can be packaged for release in different marketplaces, that's something that you can't do with all native code of just one platform.

That being said, you better start learning to pull up quickly landing pages and gauge/investigate interest of the audience or potential clients and improve your marketing and selling skills asap.

The idea alone is never enough most of times even though your hands are itching to start on building an idea or product.

Right question, if you consider to create service for creating web apps (like a SaaS) or mobile apps, or something else entirely.

Because if you make business, not app-creation studio, you will soon see, what really need your clients, probably create one SaaS, one mobile app, and after that will just forget this side of activity, and focus on leadgen and retention.

You missed the widgets: chatbots, mini-apps, browser extensions, add-ons, etc.

Today lots of major successful products have an ecosystem for extensions/add-ons.

You can find a missing feature in such a product and implement a paid extension for it.

Pros:

- easier to build

- can be promoted via platform stores/markets/directories

Cons:

- limited

- 3rd-party platform risk

It's best to use a widget to validate the idea, and then rewrite it either as a mobile or web app (when it makes sense, or possible at all).

I considered Shopify (I understand I could use whatever tech I want to build them provided I use their API) and even Chrome Extensions. Thank you for mentioning this.

Why not desktop apps?

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