
Show HN: Bootstrapping a community-based startup for AR creators. Catchar 2.0 - dan_zaitsev
https://www.catchar.io/
======
dsukhin
Great work creating a vibrant community in just a short couple of years! This
is certainly a space that's only going to grow and you have positioned
yourself well.

As someone deeply interested/involved in the area, I have a few leading
questions and a shameless plug:

\- From the description of your pivot, it seems that you plan for this to
become a job board/professional profile/LinkedIn/Behance of AR. Did I
understand that correctly? What do you consider to be the main source of
revenue in that case?

\- Do you feel that the simplification of your stack from JS to PHP helped you
be more agile for 2.0? This is a tangential question but the answer is likely
an interesting one given the choices and current web dev trends.

\- Can you share some of your most successful SEO/Traffic tricks with the HN
community? What worked the best? We love to hear a great creative/innovative
bootstrap story.

\- Do you miss working in AR dev itself given your background in the space or
do you feel the most value comes from empowering other creators in the AR
community?

\- Shameless plug:
[https://pinealeye.co/adkitxr/](https://pinealeye.co/adkitxr/) We are working
on 3D native ads for AR/MR/XR. Check us out, let me know what you think, and
let me know if there is a potential/interest for a partnership. I see a big
synergy between building a community of creators who want to get their
creations known, and our technology.

~~~
dan_zaitsev
Hey @dsukhin! Thank you so much for reading our story and checking Catchar!
Sure, I would love to answer your questions..

1) Regarding this point: From the description of your pivot…..

Yeah, you understood this correctly but I feel that we need a half a year to
bring this model. In terms of revenue, we are testing the different streams
but I suppose the most profitable would be B2B (between brands and creators)
/or/ a subscription-based model for creators and studios with PRO features.

2) Regarding this: Do you feel that the simplification of your stack from JS
to PHP…

I’m very happy that we switched tech stack. React and Angular are too much
difficult for bootstrapping, MPVs and PoCs... Unless of course, you have
100500 ready to go components that you can adapt to your new project. Sure SPA
is much better in terms of performance but honestly, we feel good right now.

3) Can you share some of your most successful SEO/Traffic tricks...

Huh mate, SEO is tough in 2020 especially that Google changed 2 or 3 times
their ranking system for the last 5 months. A couple weeks ago we lost -3 dA
and this was very sad. I wouldn’t say I can recommend some hacks but you have
to write tons of unique content posts and make guest blogging this is it.

4) Do you miss working in AR dev itself given...

I have some ideas in terms of new AR apps however I feel that Catchar has
right now more value for the AR/MR industry. I hope that shortly, Catchar will
open lots of opportunities for AR/MR space and for their creators and help to
scale these domains.

5) Shameless plug...

Actually, I love your idea... Monetization of AR/MR apps is the pain in the a…
#2 after promotion and user adoption. Sure, I would love to discuss some
potential opportunities, feel free to ping me anytime. You can find my
contacts on [https://catchar.io/creator/dan-
zaitsev](https://catchar.io/creator/dan-zaitsev)

Best of luck to you! Dan

------
Wolfmother
Really nice described product! I love it. Maybe you would like to do the same
on our website [https://owwly.com](https://owwly.com) and introduce to our
audience :) worth to check in free time. Good luck with Catchar!

~~~
dan_zaitsev
Hey! Thanks for supporting us! Sure, I would love to discover owwly. Good luck
with your product too, guys!

------
dan_zaitsev
Hello HN

We are a team of independent makers from Ukraine. Today, three of us are
launching Catchar 2.0 and we would like to showcase our updated version to HN.
Please feel free to share your feedback or any suggestions.

What is Catchar 2.0?

Catchar 2.0 is the world's largest community and hub where creators and
companies build, share and support the best Augmented & Mixed Reality projects
that change the ways we interact with digital content and information.

What problem do we solve?

First of all, Catchar helps creators and companies to organize and showcase
their Augmented and Mixed Reality portfolios online. As a result, their
portfolios and profiles can be searchable across the web and on our website.
Catchar also helps to connect brands with creators and companies. And
definitely, you will be able to find and get lots of different AR/MR related
projects and articles that can be sorted by date, rating and category.

About us

My name is Dan Zaitsev and I’m a hustler (CEO) and founder of Catchar. I
jumped into the Augmented and Mixed Reality space approx 7 years ago when I
was developing apps for Google Glasses, then I joined Looksery that was
acquired by Snap Inc. After I worked on ROAR, a cloud-based platform that
allows you to create your own AR experiences. At the end of 2018 I started
working on Catchar. Also, in the team is Dmytro Zolotar who is our hacker and
co-founder and Sergey Lagodzinsky is our lead hipster ;) / designer and co-
founder.

Business model and investments

Currently, Catchar is a 100% bootstrapping startup that we have built and
supported without investments / investors. In terms of business models, all
creators and companies have to pay membership fees (once) to be listed on
Catchar. In addition, we have paid options that help to promote AR/MR projects
and experiences. And also we are experimenting with a PRO subscription.

How I started with version 1.0 and my challenges

I started Catchar 1.5 years ago as a side-project and was the solo-founder
during the first year. One friend of mine helped me to build the basic MVP
based on React_js. We have chosen Prisma_io as a solution for back-end and
user management. Also, we connected and used Mailchimp as a notification and
newsletter service. The first version was a simple, curated directory where
users were able to share their projects. I’ve got some transactions and
feedback but honestly, the first 4 to 8 months were very tough for me. First
of all, it was difficult in terms of activity and traffic, secondly, I had a
lack of features and resources. I even tried to learn React_js and Node_js to
improve the core features but had no time to mix marketing, management, design
and also do my full-time job. Anyway, I didn't stop working on marketing, SEO
and AR content. Also, I was talking to users to get feedback and collect more
XR projects. I felt that I had problems in PMF so I was looking and thinking
about new ideas for Catchar.

Changes and profit

In 2019 I came up with an idea to transform Catchar into a community-based
startup / project. In summer 2019 I met my new co-founders and we started
working on the 2.0 version. Our main goal was to build something for AR/MR
creators and to be more focused on people rather than on projects. And this
worked well. Also, I jumped into Startupschool by YC in the summer of 2019. It
helped me to change my mindset a little bit and think more about KPIs and PMF.
The first positive feedback was received when we got a spike of pre-
registrations for the 2.0 version and our first donations.

Tech stack that we use in version 2.0

Website is written on PHP and Javascript, using Laravel framework for back-end
and Vue.js on the public. Server instance has Ubuntu 18 and MySQL 5.7
database. We use Redis for caching and Pusher for broadcasting events. For the
instant notifications we have connected Mailgun service. Payments are going
through Stripe. Hosted everything on GCP.

Support

Since Catchar is a community-based startup, anyone can share and contribute
AR/MR content, similar to Wikipedia, Crunchbase, etc. However, Catchar needs
some support in terms of approving content and users that fit community rules.
In these terms, some of my friends help me to moderate the community properly.
Also, we are working on a new role, named Community Leader. As a result, our
CLs would be able to help us to support and moderate the community.

Our stats

We have fully launched version 2.0 in December 2019 and to this day we have
around 2,550 registered creators, companies and basic users. Before December
we were in the pre-launch phase for approximately an additional 2 months.
During this time we collected our first 30% of users and got some payments.
This gave us some nice motivation and a boost to our mentality. In terms of
projects, we have 950 submitted AR/MR apps, lenses and experiences. Some
projects were submitted and contributed to the first version of Catchar. We
migrated them from 1.0 into the 2.0 version. In terms of revenue, up until
today we have earned approx $976.

How much we spend per month:

Support - $140/mo (I have a friend of mine who works with us on a part-time
basis. He helps us in terms of moderating the community properly) Hosting -
$0/mo (Trial by Google Cloud Platform) Content - $50/mo (Proofreading of EN
articles, posts, etc.) SEO - $100/mo (We are also working with 1 guy who helps
us in terms of SEO)

How much I spent in one year

Currently, I’m investing in Catchar with my own funds. Please note I’m not an
investor but it’s necessary in terms of supporting, marketing, etc. So, if
someone thinks that they can build a startup or side-project with 0
investment, I would say it’s possible but will be difficult. During the last
year and 3 months, I have invested around $1,529.

Our plans for 2.0

We have to finish and polish lots of new features. First of all, we have to
work on the improvements of the subcommunity pages (i.e. SparkAR, Magic Leap,
Lens Studio, ARKit, etc.). Our goal is to help creators to focus on the tech
stack that they follow and specialize in. The next step is to release a
collaborative module. And definitely add the ability to edit profiles,
projects and release password recovery feature :P Also, we have to scale our
revenue streams.

So guys, I hope you liked our story. My main question to you is what do you
think about Catchar? Can we turn it into a $1B company or will Catchar remain
in the side-project phase? :)

