
Ask HN: Launching a side-project - karmakaze
This is a SaaS webapp targeting devops.<p>1. When to launch: too soon or too late?<p>Rather launch &#x27;embarrassingly early&#x27; than later to benefit from early feedback. It has been used at my day job and does make some tasks faster and easier. I made basic changes so that it can run multi-tenant.<p>2. Pricing<p>Going to use an open-source core. The back-end and front-end will both be AGPL open-source from the start. Client access libraries to the API will be MIT licenced. The &#x27;core&#x27; is that which is needed to run the app standalone in one&#x27;s own environment, similar to what is run at my day job. Other non-core changes are infra-related e.g. supporting more scalable dbs.<p>Having the core open source also makes any service provider (including myself) use value-add-based pricing. I&#x27;m planning on $5, $29, $150 per month for Hobby, Startup, and Business tiers which have different limits and all with a free trial. Using a PayPal checkout button which seems to support the free trial bit.<p>3. Marketing<p>Being a side-project I&#x27;m not spending on marketing, just on operating the platform. The main places I hope to get traffic from are HN and Product Hunt. Also thought I&#x27;d give out some free accounts (can I call it Beta if I&#x27;m charging others?).<p>Other ideas are to write dev blog posts and possibly tech talks on software development with the related product plug. I don&#x27;t have any significant online presence (Twitter etc).<p>Materials I have so far:<p><pre><code>  a. the webapp (static served from Netlify+CloudFlare)
  b. single landing page
     (unspalsh bg, screenshot, features, pricing and checkout)
  c. API documentation
  d. try it playground&#x2F;sandbox
     (like cURL requests in web forms)
  e. favicon (i.e. low quality logo)
  f. an .io domain name
</code></pre>
So there&#x27;s where I&#x27;m at, any pitfalls or suggestions for making a better first impression? Any comments much appreciated.
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dylanhassinger
It's a niche market so you need to be aggressive if you want it to be
sustainable. You might consider zeroing in on that Business tier and see if
you can quietly sell it to ~10 customers as beta users. That would give you a
revenue stream to grow the rest of the business.

The cheapie accounts will be very low return / high maintenance. The real
sustainability of the business is all going to be $100/mo and up (even that is
too cheap).

last but not least, you might use this as an opportunity to build your
personal social presence. Start tweeting/blogging your entrepreneurial
journey. might consider starting a DevOps podcast, sponsored by your app.

~~~
karmakaze
Thanks for your perspective. I think I just wanted to 'release' and get it
into many hands quickly without as much consideration for operating the
business. The cheap accounts were either to help spread the word or if it
didn't offer enough value for the $100+ plan.

I thought of doing the blog/tweet thing after launch, but your suggestion
sharing the journey first makes for good marketing. [Co-incidentally my day-
job makes a live podcast-like platform getdialog.am which can promote each
other.]

