

Starting a new PaaS, looking for feedback - markuphive

Hi, all. I started a new PaaS based on my past experiences as a web developer: https://www.markuphive.com/<p>The two pain points I address with this is<p>1. The complexity of setting up support for these languages (less, jade, etc.) such as Grunt configuration or a build process.<p>2. My employer at the time did not want me to dedicate time maintaining a web stack for clients. LAMP was the bread and butter so there was no need to venture off into other tech.<p>My target audience are freelancers and web dev agencies. This should be simple enough to help them get on board with more modern web technologies and addressing that "we're not a hosting service" concern.<p>Naturally HN readers are likely to have the chops to do this themselves. But would still like to hear your feedback.<p>If you were to use this, how much would you pay? What about for a non-CMS plan?
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aroman
I really don't understand what your service does. Nor do I understand what it
is offering that I can't do already with a simple few-line Makefile.

We're developers. Saying "it does X" means much less than "it does X by Y".
_How_ exactly does your app do what it does? That will explain what your
service actually does.

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markuphive
It's true, devs can implement a build process. I'm not targeting devs, but web
shops who do not want to run a server for their client sites to use
$NON_LAMP_TECH. Think of it as nodejs or rails hosting.

A "how it works" page and snippet on the landing page would be something to
consider.

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Throwadev
"Think of it as node.js or rails hosting"... so is that what it actually is,
or is that a metaphor. If the latter, then I think the idea is still to
complicated because I don't understand it. Not that anything I don't
understand is complicated, but you should be able to communicate what your
service is/does without too much trouble and it doesn't seem that's the case
here.

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markuphive
It is a metaphor: we can all put up a node or rails site ourselves in a VPS
but these companies are serving a different market.

I will certainly focus on making it easier to understand. Thanks.

