3 ms·

Wanna write a competing software solution? If they didn't have an IP contract, I'm interested :D

by WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago

jessehorne 8y ago
I would be interested in something like this as well. ;)
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
  'This small company was created by three developers who found a joint calling: getting fucked by previous experiences in startups' - YCombinator 2020?
  - jessehorne 8y ago
    I responded to muffins comment. I want to get in touch with you guys. I'd love to see where this goes.
    - MuffinFlavored 8y ago
      Do you have marketing/advertising skills or do you think I'm over-exaggerating how hard it is to gain marketshare? I think we need a blend of developer related skills and non-developer related skills to be successful.
- MuffinFlavored 8y ago
  I don't know how comment response notifications work on HackerNews but... I just responded to the thread above. Let me know your thoughts.
MuffinFlavored 8y ago
The hard part in my eyes is the marketing/advertising. Getting a landing page built, on-boarding customers (every customer wanted custom development to fit their business), getting well written app store listings written, getting support + documentation written for the customer. Videos, images, graphics, blog articles. We'd be up against startups who get $15m+ in funding and have a 7 year head start. I think the market space is beaten down. At first, we were going to do a free beta. That attracted nobody. Then $29/mo. Well, will you look at that? It's not profitable undercutting everybody because of something we didn't think of: support. Ok, let's try $99/mo. Well, that kind of works, but people are coming and going way too quickly. What finally worked is to do $99/mo per user, with a minimum of 3 users. All other companies in this space pretty much charge a $750-$3k onboarding fee because they have realized what a time suck you'll be. I have proved I can build pretty much any SaaS platform (which I'm sure 100k people here could do). In my opinion, it isn't the technology part that is hard (CRUD API endpoints are trivial to say the least). The super hard part technology wise is good user interface. Naming technical things easy terms (your item in inventory... is it an item or a kit/bundle? ok... how many channels do you sell it on? ok, well, you have 3 listings that are linked to your kit/item. Try getting that concept across) Plus, after people choose a system, they invest a ton of time into it (their entire business lives and dies on it. Sync inventory + pricing for Amazon/Jet/Walmart/Shopify. Purchase orders. QuickBooks exports, yada yada). Not a lot of people signing up left and right, and if they were, they really probably weren't worth the headache (anybody can make a "mom and pop" e-commerce shop, but if you have no business/orders, all you have to do to fill an 8 hour day is take out your aggressions on the person on the other end of the phone supporting your failing business inventory software wise) I'm down to write whatever, but we need marketing + advertising + everything else I just described.
- azhenley 8y ago
  If the two of you manage to pull this off, please update us. I would love to see a story of people meeting in the HN comments and go off and build something. I'm sure it has happened on here, but I never hear about it!
- jessehorne 8y ago
  Let's connect. Could you shoot me an email real quick? j.horne2796 AT gmail. :)

Wanna write a competing software solution? If they didn't have an IP contract, I'm interested :D

jessehorne 8y ago

I would be interested in something like this as well. ;)

WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
'This small company was created by three developers who found a joint calling: getting fucked by previous experiences in startups' - YCombinator 2020?
- jessehorne 8y ago
  I responded to muffins comment. I want to get in touch with you guys. I'd love to see where this goes.
  - MuffinFlavored 8y ago
    Do you have marketing/advertising skills or do you think I'm over-exaggerating how hard it is to gain marketshare? I think we need a blend of developer related skills and non-developer related skills to be successful.
MuffinFlavored 8y ago
I don't know how comment response notifications work on HackerNews but... I just responded to the thread above. Let me know your thoughts.

MuffinFlavored 8y ago

The hard part in my eyes is the marketing/advertising. Getting a landing page built, on-boarding customers (every customer wanted custom development to fit their business), getting well written app store listings written, getting support + documentation written for the customer. Videos, images, graphics, blog articles. We'd be up against startups who get $15m+ in funding and have a 7 year head start. I think the market space is beaten down. At first, we were going to do a free beta. That attracted nobody. Then $29/mo. Well, will you look at that? It's not profitable undercutting everybody because of something we didn't think of: support. Ok, let's try $99/mo. Well, that kind of works, but people are coming and going way too quickly. What finally worked is to do $99/mo per user, with a minimum of 3 users. All other companies in this space pretty much charge a $750-$3k onboarding fee because they have realized what a time suck you'll be. I have proved I can build pretty much any SaaS platform (which I'm sure 100k people here could do). In my opinion, it isn't the technology part that is hard (CRUD API endpoints are trivial to say the least). The super hard part technology wise is good user interface. Naming technical things easy terms (your item in inventory... is it an item or a kit/bundle? ok... how many channels do you sell it on? ok, well, you have 3 listings that are linked to your kit/item. Try getting that concept across) Plus, after people choose a system, they invest a ton of time into it (their entire business lives and dies on it. Sync inventory + pricing for Amazon/Jet/Walmart/Shopify. Purchase orders. QuickBooks exports, yada yada). Not a lot of people signing up left and right, and if they were, they really probably weren't worth the headache (anybody can make a "mom and pop" e-commerce shop, but if you have no business/orders, all you have to do to fill an 8 hour day is take out your aggressions on the person on the other end of the phone supporting your failing business inventory software wise) I'm down to write whatever, but we need marketing + advertising + everything else I just described.

azhenley 8y ago
If the two of you manage to pull this off, please update us. I would love to see a story of people meeting in the HN comments and go off and build something. I'm sure it has happened on here, but I never hear about it!
jessehorne 8y ago
Let's connect. Could you shoot me an email real quick? j.horne2796 AT gmail. :)