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Half a year back or so I built a mini SaaS product that failed, now I'm in the process of open sourcing it so that everybody can freely host it for themselves.

Half a year back or so I built a mini SaaS product that failed, now I'm in the process of open sourcing it so that everybody can freely host it for themselves. Here's the project homepage https://magiclogin.net https://magiclogin.net, it was/is transactional e-mails and e-mail authentication as a service. Getting it ready for open sourcing is a lot more work than I anticipated, I don't want to just dump it in a Github repo and have nobody be able to actually use it, so I'm making deployment easier and writing docs on how to run it yourself. I didn't build the project to make money necessarily, it was mostly a learning project. That doesn't mean that I didn't hope it would be at least moderately succesful financially. But it was a case of "build and they won't come" and my other projects took off much more so I couldn't justify trying to market/pivot it. The final nail in the coffin came when I received a cease and desist letter because apparently a vc-funded auth provider trademarked the term "Magic Login".. So yeah..

notRobot 5y ago
That seems really neat! Have you considered just relaunching it under a different name?
herval 5y ago
This is pretty useful as a product, and magic.link has been a hit and miss experience for me. Where will you post/announce the open source version? I’ll definitely check it out!
- protoduction 5y ago
  I'm not sure yet - but for sure I'll post a link up on https://magiclogin.net https://magiclogin.net (or you could follow me on Github, username @gzuidhof)
etewiah 5y ago
Hi, I think it is great that you are making the effort to open source your project. I did the same with a real estate website builder I created: https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder It was a lot of work but I now have a small stream of people who contact me every so often about it. BTW, you seem like a smart guy and I am looking for someone to work with me on a relaunch of the project as a paid product. I have learnt a lot in the years since my first attempt so I think I have a pretty decent chance of success this time round.
blakbelt78 5y ago
This is interesting. I’m building something that is similar. What do you think it didn’t succeed? Not enough marketing? Difficult implementation?

notRobot 5y ago

That seems really neat! Have you considered just relaunching it under a different name?

herval 5y ago

This is pretty useful as a product, and magic.link has been a hit and miss experience for me. Where will you post/announce the open source version? I’ll definitely check it out!

protoduction 5y ago
I'm not sure yet - but for sure I'll post a link up on https://magiclogin.net https://magiclogin.net (or you could follow me on Github, username @gzuidhof)

etewiah 5y ago

Hi, I think it is great that you are making the effort to open source your project. I did the same with a real estate website builder I created: https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder It was a lot of work but I now have a small stream of people who contact me every so often about it. BTW, you seem like a smart guy and I am looking for someone to work with me on a relaunch of the project as a paid product. I have learnt a lot in the years since my first attempt so I think I have a pretty decent chance of success this time round.

blakbelt78 5y ago

This is interesting. I’m building something that is similar. What do you think it didn’t succeed? Not enough marketing? Difficult implementation?