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I started my indie electron app a year after Keygen started. I looked at Keygen when I launched a version of my app off the app stores. I needed a way to licens

I started my indie electron app a year after Keygen started. I looked at Keygen when I launched a version of my app off the app stores. I needed a way to license and have complete control. At the time, Keygen didn’t do everything I needed (but it probably does now), so I’m not a user. However, I’ve always looked at Keygen and its solo dev with great respect. I just knew that we were going to be successful in our niches and although we haven’t helped each other with direct product offerings, just know that Keygen made me feel like I could do anything. Because we are talking license servers … My license server is node+mongo and vends licenses as JWT. My desktop app verifies the JWT and uses the payload to unlock features. They work offline. Pretty slick! I’m proud of what we’ve built. Truly standing on the shoulders of giants. Best of luck on your open sourcing of Keygen! Let me know if you’re ever in the Midwest USA and we can grab a meal or beverage together.

ezekg 3y ago
> ...although we haven’t helped each other with direct product offerings, just know that Keygen made me felt like I could do anything Incredibly humbled to hear that. Sometimes it's quiet and lonely as a solo founder, and this comment brought me joy. So thanks for sharing. Today is a big change, but I'm excited (even if my hands have been shaking all day).
kayson 3y ago
If you're using electron... what's to stop someone from just modifying the client side JavaScript to circumvent the licensing?
- semireg 3y ago
  Not a ton, I suspect. On macOS there'd be app signing/notarizing issues and you'd probably have to disable gate keeper or knock another hole in the walled garden. The real "trick" is keeping the app inexpensive and the purchase low friction. If I raised prices there'd be more pressure to pirate. People who need my app are solving a "terrible problem" (printing labels). They aren't the kind of customer that would seek out a pirated copy or try to pirate it. For example, for a period of time the app's licensing could be bypassed by starting another 14 day free trial using a different email address. After watching these "clones" keep re-registering every two weeks (for maybe 20 weeks!), I finally updated the licensing to be slightly more restrictive: you can register again but the 2nd free trial on any particular computer is limited to 4 hours, the 3rd registration doesn't show a free trial. Guess what happened? ~50 new customers over two weeks, all from a particular geography. It was wild. But I've had no complaints. Long story short: People will pay to solve the soul-crushing task of label printing. I joke that I write the colonoscopy of the software world. It can be a dirty job.
  - kayson 3y ago
    Thanks for the insight!

ezekg 3y ago

> ...although we haven’t helped each other with direct product offerings, just know that Keygen made me felt like I could do anything Incredibly humbled to hear that. Sometimes it's quiet and lonely as a solo founder, and this comment brought me joy. So thanks for sharing. Today is a big change, but I'm excited (even if my hands have been shaking all day).

kayson 3y ago

If you're using electron... what's to stop someone from just modifying the client side JavaScript to circumvent the licensing?

semireg 3y ago
Not a ton, I suspect. On macOS there'd be app signing/notarizing issues and you'd probably have to disable gate keeper or knock another hole in the walled garden. The real "trick" is keeping the app inexpensive and the purchase low friction. If I raised prices there'd be more pressure to pirate. People who need my app are solving a "terrible problem" (printing labels). They aren't the kind of customer that would seek out a pirated copy or try to pirate it. For example, for a period of time the app's licensing could be bypassed by starting another 14 day free trial using a different email address. After watching these "clones" keep re-registering every two weeks (for maybe 20 weeks!), I finally updated the licensing to be slightly more restrictive: you can register again but the 2nd free trial on any particular computer is limited to 4 hours, the 3rd registration doesn't show a free trial. Guess what happened? ~50 new customers over two weeks, all from a particular geography. It was wild. But I've had no complaints. Long story short: People will pay to solve the soul-crushing task of label printing. I joke that I write the colonoscopy of the software world. It can be a dirty job.
- kayson 3y ago
  Thanks for the insight!