
Show HN: A Digital Marketplace I Built, with Git Integration - zschuessler
https://squarebit.io
======
zschuessler
Cofounder & CTO here - happy to answer any questions! My heart is filled with
joy today to finally launch this product.

The project has been an entire year, full-time, in the making. It started when
I tried selling software that I had written as a side project. I saw two very
big problems with the digital marketplaces online:

1\. One company owns most of the marketplaces. Fees start in a tier, at 50%.
Others like Creative Market are better (30% flat), but still seems excessive.
I did a whole lot of spreadsheet math and determined 18% is more than fair for
both creators and the company.

2\. Engineers: do you like downloading Zip archives to get updates? Me either.
I made the platform with deep Git integration. Customers can type `git pull`
to get updates, or add the CDN urls to their package managers. Creators can
use branches and tags as they see fit to manager their products. And hey, if
your customers aren't technical, they can still download archives & see all
Git commits in their dashboard.

So here I am one year later, finally complete (unit tests and all!). I'm a
classic ENFJ personality. Please send me any feedback, good, bad, or downright
mean :-)

Cheers!

~~~
throwaway2016a
Out of curiosity, how do you manage git account authentication?

I have been trying to find a git server solution that uses a database to do
access control for repositories over SSH.

~~~
throwaway413
I’m forgetting the details and names of the API calls, but essentially, you
can override the default SSH authentication check which normally looks in the
authorized_key file to instead query a remote resource to get back the
fingerprint for that key pair. You can then use this in that custom script to
authenticate the connection. You also need a second piece, one that uses SSH
ForcedCommands, to essentially pipe the original git request into the newly
authenticated session and execute.

If I remember the name of the method to override I’ll update. It was hard to
find. It has everything to do with SSH and nothing to do with Git.

Edit: Found it - it's the AuthorizedKeysCommand [1] and you can use that in
lieu of an AuthorizedKeysFile (which is authorized_keys by default) to run a
script that can query a remote resource for the pubkey.

[1]
[https://man.openbsd.org/sshd_config#AuthorizedKeysCommand](https://man.openbsd.org/sshd_config#AuthorizedKeysCommand)

~~~
throwaway2016a
Awesome, thank you!

------
rrggrr
RE: Fees

Should be sliding scale. Our average price point is about $30,000 and what you
built could work for us, but at 18% we'll just build it internally.

RE: SquareBit Site

Not clear what this product does. Screenshots off UI should be foremost with
brief explanation of what this does.

RE: App UI

You've got what looks like an MVP flow shown here. If there's more depth to
this product I'd want to know about it. For example, how am I handling
payments? What if I want payments outside of credit cards? How much of git
internals are exposed to users?

RE: Inventory vs. Marketplace

You're demonstrating an inventory application here, not a marketplace. That's
good b/c there is a shortage of good inventory applications for small
business, and its a niche that needs to be filled.

~~~
zschuessler
Fees: great point. I have "capped fees" logged as a future feature, but
haven't gotten to it yet since it's an edge case. Contact me if you'd like to
talk more about your product, I'd be thrilled to work together:
zac@squarebit.io

The other points are all excellent items.. I've written them down to review
later today. I appreciate you taking the time to submit feedback here!

------
nudpiedo
By the landing page it seems to be a market for git ruled projects/files? such
as designs and code...?

Where do I see the products? everything seems to be more focused in the market
itself but not on the products being sold/purchase. Perhaps I didn't get it
and you are selling the market place itself and not any product within the
market?

I won't register in such place, unless I see how it is solving my problem
(e.g. there is a piece of software, plugin or theme layout for my CRM, which I
would like to buy idk).

~~~
zschuessler
Hey thanks for that feedback!

The current setup is focused on creators, not customers. Something like
ThemeForest is customer-focused, while this is more similar to Gumroad, which
is more creator-focused. (Gumroad does have its "Discover" feature, but it's
not prominent)

Eventually if some product categories get popular I'll find a way to showcase
a curated catalog. And if any creators are worried about reaching an audience,
get in direct contact with me. I do free PPC campaigns for products I believe
in: zac@squarebit.io

~~~
nudpiedo
In first instance everything looks quite focused on yourself as
admin/developer more than on the customer. I am always from the opinion that
customer's experience/actions come first (in your case creators and
consumers).

But that's only my humble opinion, I think I would never buy software in that
way and I only would offer to sell it if the distribution would save me some
costs with the interactions with my customers.

------
dyeje
I read the whole site but I have no idea what this is supposed to be used for.
Could you give some example use cases?

~~~
zschuessler
Definitely! You're right, the homepage doesn't explain as well as it should.

All use cases boil down to two scenarios:

1\. Creators want to sell a digital thing, but don't want to give up 30% to
50% in fees. Digital things could be: ebooks, a font, PSD templates, WordPress
plugins, etc.

2\. Creators want to take advantage of Git integration (fantastic for selling
software, ebooks, etc)

~~~
frankzander
Write that on your page ... on the top so that on the first impression the
user knows what's the purpose of the site.

------
have_faith
It says buyers will be using git to download updates to products they've
purchased, does this mean this is strictly for a programmer / very technical
crowd?

It seems to oversell on the technical implementation instead of the features
that set it apart from a conceptual standpoint.

I also had to read the homepage, about page, and blog post to get a basic
understanding of what it is, and that's only because I recognised Theme Forest
when you mentioned it in your blog post. I would definitely suggest more copy
on the homepage and a demo of some kind that doesn't involve joining.

~~~
zschuessler
Excellent feedback, and very true.. new user onboarding isn't as good as it
should be. It's for non-technical users too, and I'll need to find a way to
communicate to them as well.

Oof, being a one-man show is taxing. Thanks so much for your feedback, I've
added a task in Teamwork to get on this!

------
michaelbuckbee
Hey, I really like the concept here. But think you've made a number of
missteps, so this is my (hopefully) constructive criticism.

ONE

I think you're making a grave category error with your pricing comparison.
Because while it's true that you charge much less than Themeforest etc. you
are not doing what they are doing.

They're true marketplaces and the % price you pay to them is for the payment
processing, delivery management and _most crucially_ implicit marketing.

If I've made a Wordpress theme I'm much more likely to make more selling it on
Themeforest (even with their 50-70% take) than I am with you and your 18%
because they have literally millions and millions of people coursing through
their ecosystem and searching directly within their site.

I think a more apt comparison is to something like Gumroad (which is more of a
digital goods payments+fulfillment system and not a "marketplace"). Lots of
people sell things like their eBooks and courses on Gumroad for $10/mo and
3.5%.

TWO

You need some example, case study, _something_ that shows how this actually
works. Ideally you'd have this for all of the different ways you see this
being used. There are a bunch of questions I had as a potential seller looking
at this: do they accept Paypal? What's the checkout process look like? Do
buyers end up with a library of stuff they've bought on SquareBit?

THREE

I think you've fallen into the "everything" tool trap where (since you're deep
in the weeds with the service) you're finding stuff every day where you think:
"SquareBit would be perfect for these people selling this thing" but to an
outsider it's really hard to connect the dots.

Is SquareBit a good fit for ebooks? Video Courses? Private package repos? I
have my thoughts, but your site and marketing needs to very cleanly say how
and what this is for and how people would use it.

FOUR

I'd be concerned using your service on the basis of you're doing online
payments of a sort and call yourself Square. This isn't great and I hope you
don't get into legal trouble, but ouch (IANAL, but any way you cut it, this
isn't a positive to you).

~~~
zschuessler
LOVE this feedback, thank you so much. This is extremely helpful.

I've jotted down some tasks as a result of this. And I'll say to point #4 - if
I have to rebrand, it will be the second time. (And as a result, won't be too
hard to swap the name out) Fun fact: was originally called git.cash, and well,
Git started enforcing their trademark so that was a no-go :-)

Thanks again, I really enjoyed this write up.

------
johnhorsema
MARKETING

1\. Not a marketplace. It's just a Git management software with payment.
Please don't create another Github.

2\. No demo and no screenshots. You need to make a decision on your marketing
focus: on sellers or on buyers.

FINANCIALS

Did not explain why the fees are 18%. What are the hidden costs that come
with, since you offer X, Y, and Z services.

------
xori
Is it just me? But I don't believe git is really meant for delivering software
or digital assets. 90% of buyers of books, software or digital media don't
need all versions from the beginning of time.

Isn't this what 'zsync' was made for?

