4 ms·

I think most things were self hosted before they moved to the cloud and software as a service became a thing? So what you're saying is that maybe we're going b

I think most things were self hosted before they moved to the cloud and software as a service became a thing? So what you're saying is that maybe we're going back to self hosting again. This could make sense! Then we're buying software for a reasonable price and not having to pay every month for it. I don't like these monthly payments somehow! It's like $20 here and $30 there, and you'll pay $500/mo before realising it. Self-hosting could be the answer to my problem here: 1) when I have monthly packages, I need to keep the product alive as long people pay me (or when I have only a few paying customers I can say I'll shut it down and they don't need to pay anymore) 2) when I sell lifetime packages, I need to keep the product alive for an eternity even though maybe nobody pays me Curious if you're also sharing your revenue publicly? Would be fun to list you on MakeHub.

XCSme 6y ago
I agree. With services you also feel that you are captive and paying for stuff that you don't even use, but if you stop you lose your data or might not be able to come back in the future, so you keep it running "in case I need it" or "I will use it at some point". I also think software is way overpriced, especially when it comes to services that mostly just rent a server for $5/mo and resell it for $100/mo with not a lot of real value added on top. I think it makes more sense to buy the app/product and choose the server yourself, and pay $5/mo for the server or like $100/mo for a REALLY powerful server, not for a plan with "100k visits, 30 days retention". On point 2), if no one buys your product anymore you can just stop supporting it and "kill it". Being a software product it usually doesn't break over time, unless it's something based on other volatile APIs. Take games for example, they sell as a lifetime software license, games released 20 years ago can usually still run without problems and without any maintenence. I do somewhat openly share the revenue, currently I have myan estimated revenue shown on the IndieHackers page, but being only a product up until now, the revenue varies from month to month (not as stable as a SaaS). Currently it's around $1000/mo as I'm not doing any marketing, I still get sells from people coming from Google or from word of mouth. I usually try to update the IH page as soon as a big milestone is reached. I think userTrack could be listed on MakeHub (from what I read, as I'm a solo founder, no funding, public revenue).
- raunometsa 6y ago
  Thanks! I think userTrack makes a nice addition to MakeHub, added now! https://makehub.io/startups/usertrack https://makehub.io/startups/usertrack
  - XCSme 6y ago
    Thanks for adding it! I also subbed to MakeHub :)
XCSme 6y ago
That being said, I do think that services with high monthly payments should be for actual services, something that is actually done each month (eg. hosting, maintenence, etc.), but unforunately this is not how the world works. The big advantage of this, is that people would focus more on creating more value instead of creating some value that can be sold for exorbitant prices just because "that's the market".

XCSme 6y ago

I agree. With services you also feel that you are captive and paying for stuff that you don't even use, but if you stop you lose your data or might not be able to come back in the future, so you keep it running "in case I need it" or "I will use it at some point". I also think software is way overpriced, especially when it comes to services that mostly just rent a server for $5/mo and resell it for $100/mo with not a lot of real value added on top. I think it makes more sense to buy the app/product and choose the server yourself, and pay $5/mo for the server or like $100/mo for a REALLY powerful server, not for a plan with "100k visits, 30 days retention". On point 2), if no one buys your product anymore you can just stop supporting it and "kill it". Being a software product it usually doesn't break over time, unless it's something based on other volatile APIs. Take games for example, they sell as a lifetime software license, games released 20 years ago can usually still run without problems and without any maintenence. I do somewhat openly share the revenue, currently I have myan estimated revenue shown on the IndieHackers page, but being only a product up until now, the revenue varies from month to month (not as stable as a SaaS). Currently it's around $1000/mo as I'm not doing any marketing, I still get sells from people coming from Google or from word of mouth. I usually try to update the IH page as soon as a big milestone is reached. I think userTrack could be listed on MakeHub (from what I read, as I'm a solo founder, no funding, public revenue).

raunometsa 6y ago
Thanks! I think userTrack makes a nice addition to MakeHub, added now! https://makehub.io/startups/usertrack https://makehub.io/startups/usertrack
- XCSme 6y ago
  Thanks for adding it! I also subbed to MakeHub :)

XCSme 6y ago

That being said, I do think that services with high monthly payments should be for actual services, something that is actually done each month (eg. hosting, maintenence, etc.), but unforunately this is not how the world works. The big advantage of this, is that people would focus more on creating more value instead of creating some value that can be sold for exorbitant prices just because "that's the market".