
Ask HN: Would a SaaS tool to handle webhook delivery be useful? - tommaitland
It seems like delivering webhooks to customer endpoints, handling retries, logs and failures is a common problem every app needs to solve. Would you find an ultra low cost SaaS option that handles URL registration, delivery, logs and retries for you useful?
======
eb0la
Thinking about webhooks... do not sell webhook tools.

Only coders with no time to spend will want to use that... and they will feel
bad because they haven't code the stuff and probably they would be able to
code it.

If you want to sell to coders, make libraries and sell support and services
around (think about Cucumber, or Sidekiq for instance).

For other kind of people, sell outcomes instead.

If you have a webhook that notifies you someone has unsubscribed from
mailchimp, DO SELL that insights to a marketing company. Either as a SaaS or
as a one-shot operation.

Outcomes sell much better than technologies.

------
brudgers
If the problem is important, then "ultra low cost" is not a requirement. If
you build something that solves the problem, don't be afraid to charge
meaningful money. 10 customers at $10,000 per month is better than 10,000
customers at $10 per month. Less support, fewer transaction fees, easier to
talk to and get feedback...and a business model viable in a smaller market.

In general, customers who want to pay $0 tend not to be good for business.

Good luck.

~~~
eb0la
"Ultra low cost" can be also a sub-$1000 monthly bill sent to a huge
corporation ;-).

If you can sell them something in that range, they won't stop paying you (even
if they don't use the service).

10 customers @$999 / month that don't make you work at all....

~~~
brudgers
I don't disagree. I'd probably describe such pricing as "directly expensable
pricing" and try to get it on a credit card subscription to avoid an invoicing
process. With enterprise, or even small and medium businesses, invoice
processes often involve discounts for timely payments and 90 day cycle times
if the company thinks they can get away with it.

In terms of presentation for B2B, I think "high value" in the elevator pitch
is better than "low cost." _Low cost_ tends not to distinguish between value
and price. And _low price_ is a risk factor because low priced services tend
to make the service provider less financially stable...and service provider
stability is valuable for an enterprise.

~~~
eb0la
I'm not sure about using a credit card for this. Simply put, credit cards are
usually issued to (high-level?) employees that leave, change contact details,
etc... so your customer lifetime value is capped by the credit card expiration
date.

I've seen bills coming for backup ISDN lines located in offices dismantled
several years ago. Why? because the cost was small and it was already pre-
aproved in the budget.

Only after a _huge_ review we found out cases like this. But, that kind of
reviews are unusual and expensive.

If you can afford to invoice a company and make them pay the bills for small
quantities, you've got a business.

I do agree that _low cost_ is a bad idea to start with, unless you can own all
the market and start raising prices... _BUT_ in that case you open easily the
door to new competition and since your customers are price sensitive, you're
asking them to churn as soon as possible.

------
troydavis
This could be a positive or a negative, but… from personal experience selling
to savvy developers and engineers, a very small percentage of customers
actually use a custom webhook. Think 1%, not 10%. Also, that percentage trends
down as the product gets better.

The downside: that’s reason not to offer webhooks at all (that “every app
needs to solve” them is not accurate), and certainly not to put much effort
into them - maybe not even enough to migrate to your product. That’s a low
ceiling on the amount of value you can add.

The upside: prospective customers aren’t likely to seriously consider building
an equivalent, so their choice is not offering them, offering them with
relatively little visibility, or using your thing.

------
tommaitland
Thanks everyone, some useful thoughts there. The "ultra low cost" comment was
just recognising that the value of the tech here would be compared to the
staff expense of building it yourself. It would just be saving some precious
dev time, but not enough to charge $1000s for it.

I think it's a fair point though that only a small percentage of customers
actually use webhooks, so the value is further constrained by that.

------
taf2
Yes - depends on the pricing model but definitely sounds useful.

