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You're correct- it's more targeted for an entrepreneur who's trying to hire someone on elance to build such a thing. You can build this in a few hours in RoR? I

You're correct- it's more targeted for an entrepreneur who's trying to hire someone on elance to build such a thing. You can build this in a few hours in RoR? I was thinking it'd be more like maybe a weekend of work to replicate, but perhaps I've underestimated the power of Rails. Thanks!

clark-kent 15y ago
I think the text on the homepage is too technical for your target audience. Try listing the benefits and features in a way a business type person can understand. You can don't have to include the part about being written in Java... Only developers care about that. Overall this could be a good service. I agree with others, you can make this kit free and charge for a monthly fee for support/maintenance. Just something to consider. Your niche is in an area where business users will be happy to pay for support.
garethsprice 15y ago
As an entrepreneur: That Java is what powers major companies (including Google) would be interesting to know. What's the benefit to installing this? If I install it, how am I going to find someone to work on it? That is is based on industry standard, easily modifiable Java that I can easily hire developers to work on would be good to know. Maybe even pitch it as a first round product to build a prototype or proof of concept rapidly. Would need to find some target customers and ask them what they want, though. How many developer hours am I saving? Showing that "most developers estimate around 100-200 hours to set up the basic framework for a new application" lets me work out in my head how much I'm saving. I don't care about HTML or CSS or BCrypt or SQL, but that I can save X00 hours reinventing the wheel and get straight into implementing just the logic of my app is a big draw. If it were me, I'd probably give this product away - you have nothing to lose. The target audience will have no idea how to use it anyway, just that it can save them money. And that's where they contact you for help, as the World's #1 Quickstarter expert. Worst thing that can happen is that other developers download it for free and start building products on it, in which case you've built yourself an ecosystem. Case study: Wordpress (Wordpress.com), Drupal (Acquia), all built themselves into multi-million dollar companies on this model. For a smaller case study, Lovdbyless.com is a free RoR social network framework that some friends of mine gave away and that led to millions in consulting work.

clark-kent 15y ago

I think the text on the homepage is too technical for your target audience. Try listing the benefits and features in a way a business type person can understand. You can don't have to include the part about being written in Java... Only developers care about that. Overall this could be a good service. I agree with others, you can make this kit free and charge for a monthly fee for support/maintenance. Just something to consider. Your niche is in an area where business users will be happy to pay for support.

garethsprice 15y ago

As an entrepreneur: That Java is what powers major companies (including Google) would be interesting to know. What's the benefit to installing this? If I install it, how am I going to find someone to work on it? That is is based on industry standard, easily modifiable Java that I can easily hire developers to work on would be good to know. Maybe even pitch it as a first round product to build a prototype or proof of concept rapidly. Would need to find some target customers and ask them what they want, though. How many developer hours am I saving? Showing that "most developers estimate around 100-200 hours to set up the basic framework for a new application" lets me work out in my head how much I'm saving. I don't care about HTML or CSS or BCrypt or SQL, but that I can save X00 hours reinventing the wheel and get straight into implementing just the logic of my app is a big draw. If it were me, I'd probably give this product away - you have nothing to lose. The target audience will have no idea how to use it anyway, just that it can save them money. And that's where they contact you for help, as the World's #1 Quickstarter expert. Worst thing that can happen is that other developers download it for free and start building products on it, in which case you've built yourself an ecosystem. Case study: Wordpress (Wordpress.com), Drupal (Acquia), all built themselves into multi-million dollar companies on this model. For a smaller case study, Lovdbyless.com is a free RoR social network framework that some friends of mine gave away and that led to millions in consulting work.