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Hey thrw42A8N, I've done a large greenfield rebuild before, which was a success - but I will never do that again. It ate my life. I do have a bootstrapped pro

Hey thrw42A8N, I've done a large greenfield rebuild before, which was a success - but I will never do that again. It ate my life. I do have a bootstrapped product already in the market, but this is a second, unrelated product for a different audience....a new project entirely. First project is Node + React but considering Retool for a v1 for this next project.

thrw42A8N 2y ago
PayloadCMS was recently front page Can't speak about Retool but I wouldn't want to go away from standard software development life cycle with version control, release management and testing... And I definitely would want to avoid a proprietary platform. Isn't there an open source alternative?
- bootstrpppin 2y ago
  Thanks for that - I hadn't come across PayloadCMS. Retool seems to support basics like version control, release mgt etc but the platform risk of a proprietary platform is certainly a concern.
  - lurker_72 2y ago
    I would also recommend looking at Directus (https://directus.io https://directus.io). We evaluated PayloadCMS to drive the backend of a mobile app and eventually settled on Directus because it supported heterogeneous collections which was something we had to have. Directus also has a template for a multi-tenant app which sounds like something you might need.
- selcuka 2y ago
  I believe Appsmith is open source, and self-hostable. Never used it, so I'm not sure if it's fully or partially open.
  - snowe2010 2y ago
    Lowcoder is fully open source and self hostable.
wayoverthecloud 2y ago
Curious, why do you want to start another product, especially on a new stack if you have one already in the market? Doesn't it make sense to put focus all in the one you've launched? I am also trying to figure out this bootstrapping thing so got curious.
- bootstrpppin 2y ago
  yeehhh thats a very good question - we've been asking ourselves the same thing. We've got one product in the market, but launching that product and talking to customers has given us insight into a potentially larger, more lucrative problem to solve. So we're currently allowing idea #1 to tick over, while validating idea #2. We plan to only focus on one of the two ideas going forward, but are first trying to do enough discovery on idea #2, so that we can choose the best one to take forward.
  - wayoverthecloud 2y ago
    Any advice on how to talk to potential customers in the beginning say even before writing the code? Do you cold email/cold call? How do you start to talk about their problems?
    - bootstrpppin 2y ago
      We've been reaching potential customers on LinkedIn, asking them for 15 mins to give feedback on our 'product idea' (at this point is just a sales deck). Some tactical advice is to include in the connection request message: 1) a little explainer about the problem space that you're looking to tackle 2) the fact that you're an engineer (that why they'll know this isn't a sale call) Normally we do about 5 mins talking about their business, problems and context then dive into a slide deck that pitches our idea. At the end of the 'pitch' we get feedback from the customer. We also explain that we're launching a pilot, and give them an opportunity to join the pilot. The pilot is paid (but cheaper than the public pricing will be), and it involves signing a v.simple 1 page contract/agreement which allows us to invoice them ahead of the 'launch'. For us, this has been incredibly effective at: - Understanding if this product hits a pain-point that customers are actually willing to spend budget on - Weeding out the 'weak' signals like 'I quite like it' (people who 'like' it but may never buy) - Giving us financial/commercial confidence, since we have invoiceable revenue guaranteed Sometimes, when you find somebody that really gets it, their body language and attitude is entirely different....they literally PULL the product from your hands (vs. you pushing it on them). They're asking questions like "when can we launch/try it", and "can I introduce you to X Y Z people, who are going to love this?". And they say things like "We're budget constrained, but there are tons of things I'd rather get rid of, to make budget for this"....that's the feeling we're looking for, that tells us we're thinking about the right problem in the right way. Happy to help if you have any more Qs
gprakhar 2y ago
Given your first project is in Node + React, you might find Toolpad (https://mui.com/toolpad/ https://mui.com/toolpad/) worth considering. It’s a set of components designed to build React dashboards. It's built on top of Material UI and is fully extensible. Also, it’s open source and free to use regardless of scale.

thrw42A8N 2y ago

PayloadCMS was recently front page Can't speak about Retool but I wouldn't want to go away from standard software development life cycle with version control, release management and testing... And I definitely would want to avoid a proprietary platform. Isn't there an open source alternative?

bootstrpppin 2y ago
Thanks for that - I hadn't come across PayloadCMS. Retool seems to support basics like version control, release mgt etc but the platform risk of a proprietary platform is certainly a concern.
- lurker_72 2y ago
  I would also recommend looking at Directus (https://directus.io https://directus.io). We evaluated PayloadCMS to drive the backend of a mobile app and eventually settled on Directus because it supported heterogeneous collections which was something we had to have. Directus also has a template for a multi-tenant app which sounds like something you might need.
selcuka 2y ago
I believe Appsmith is open source, and self-hostable. Never used it, so I'm not sure if it's fully or partially open.
- snowe2010 2y ago
  Lowcoder is fully open source and self hostable.

wayoverthecloud 2y ago

Curious, why do you want to start another product, especially on a new stack if you have one already in the market? Doesn't it make sense to put focus all in the one you've launched? I am also trying to figure out this bootstrapping thing so got curious.

bootstrpppin 2y ago
yeehhh thats a very good question - we've been asking ourselves the same thing. We've got one product in the market, but launching that product and talking to customers has given us insight into a potentially larger, more lucrative problem to solve. So we're currently allowing idea #1 to tick over, while validating idea #2. We plan to only focus on one of the two ideas going forward, but are first trying to do enough discovery on idea #2, so that we can choose the best one to take forward.
- wayoverthecloud 2y ago
  Any advice on how to talk to potential customers in the beginning say even before writing the code? Do you cold email/cold call? How do you start to talk about their problems?
  - bootstrpppin 2y ago
    We've been reaching potential customers on LinkedIn, asking them for 15 mins to give feedback on our 'product idea' (at this point is just a sales deck). Some tactical advice is to include in the connection request message: 1) a little explainer about the problem space that you're looking to tackle 2) the fact that you're an engineer (that why they'll know this isn't a sale call) Normally we do about 5 mins talking about their business, problems and context then dive into a slide deck that pitches our idea. At the end of the 'pitch' we get feedback from the customer. We also explain that we're launching a pilot, and give them an opportunity to join the pilot. The pilot is paid (but cheaper than the public pricing will be), and it involves signing a v.simple 1 page contract/agreement which allows us to invoice them ahead of the 'launch'. For us, this has been incredibly effective at: - Understanding if this product hits a pain-point that customers are actually willing to spend budget on - Weeding out the 'weak' signals like 'I quite like it' (people who 'like' it but may never buy) - Giving us financial/commercial confidence, since we have invoiceable revenue guaranteed Sometimes, when you find somebody that really gets it, their body language and attitude is entirely different....they literally PULL the product from your hands (vs. you pushing it on them). They're asking questions like "when can we launch/try it", and "can I introduce you to X Y Z people, who are going to love this?". And they say things like "We're budget constrained, but there are tons of things I'd rather get rid of, to make budget for this"....that's the feeling we're looking for, that tells us we're thinking about the right problem in the right way. Happy to help if you have any more Qs

gprakhar 2y ago

Given your first project is in Node + React, you might find Toolpad (https://mui.com/toolpad/ https://mui.com/toolpad/) worth considering. It’s a set of components designed to build React dashboards. It's built on top of Material UI and is fully extensible. Also, it’s open source and free to use regardless of scale.