4 ms·

Maybe it's wishful thinking, being one of the SaaS-developing developers he describes. But I think that only the complexity required for a SaaS is increasing. Y

by tjansen 8mo ago

Maybe it's wishful thinking, being one of the SaaS-developing developers he describes. But I think that only the complexity required for a SaaS is increasing. You certainly can't earn millions with the kind of SaaS that used to take a week or two, and can now be done on a weekend. So I am trying the kind of SaaS that I never dared to start, knowing that it would take a year or two of my spare time. And with AI agents, I now hope to complete it in 3 or 4 months, with a lot of extra features I would never have dared to include in an MVP.

arkensaw 8mo ago
do you want to tell us what it is?
- tjansen 8mo ago
  A cloud-based RSS reader (like Google Reader, Feedly, Inoreader...).
  - arkensaw 8mo ago
    sold :)
  - hagbard_c 8mo ago
    What would distinguish your cloud-based RSS reader from the many other cloud-based RSS readers, both self-hosted as well as the others?
    - tjansen 8mo ago
      Mainly, a friendly and simple UI. Feedly looks like it hasn't gotten much love recently. Inoreader is too cluttered for my taste, though it has a feature set I can't match any time soon. I have plenty of other ideas for what to build on top of it: offering an SDK and APIs so you can vibe-code the UI you want, a built-in podcast listener, using news from aggregated feeds to build a personalized AI feed. But the first step is to reach the Google Reader feature set minus social features.
      - hagbard_c 8mo ago
        I'm using (self-hosted) Nextcloud News, what would your... service? Tool? Product? ... offer beyond what NN does? It is quite simple as well, offers an uncluttered interface, keeps my subscriptions as private as RSS subscriptions can be. I suspect you're targeting a different market from the one catered by self-hosted services like Nextcloud?
        tjansen 8mo ago
        I am not familiar with Nextcloud News. In the first version, it probably won't offer much for you, besides having a catalog of feeds, the ability to search them, and subscribe with one click, which is usually not offered by non-cloud RSS readers. For people who do not want to use self-hosted services (which generally includes me), it offers simplicity. Open the page, choose Google as auth provider, confirm, and you will get a friendly start page. Click on 'follow' on one of the feeds, and you can start reading immediately. The UI is more like Facebook or X, so basically, you just need to scroll. Either in a feed of your choice, or all your feeds. It's designed to work well on small mobile screens, tablets, and desktops, with great keyboard support on the latter. Larger screens use two or three columns.
      - SyneRyder 8mo ago
        I think you're in a tough market, but I'll agree that Feedly hasn't gotten much love, and is clearly aiming for a more enterprise market. API access is worth chasing. There was something I wanted to do with Feedly (I've already forgotten what it was) but once I saw their APIs were hidden behind some enterprise level plan, that was the end of that. If we're in a world where everyone has a personal AI agent, giving their agent an API key to their RSS sync account... that might have some interest. Feedly seems hostile to third-party client access (ie mobile & desktop apps), so being friendlier towards RSS clients could be of interest. Personalized AI feed is a good idea but you don't have all the personalized year of context that my Claude does. My AI agent is (probably) going to do a better job of choosing the most relevant stuff. And personally, less interested in podcasts in my RSS app. That's something for Pocket Casts / AntennaPod. I like my audio separate from my RSS. But that's me.
  - MagicMoonlight 8mo ago
    Nobody uses RSS… I thought you were going to say salesforce or something.
    - theptip 8mo ago
      Wat. RSS is back! https://x.com/karpathy/status/2018043254986703167 https://x.com/karpathy/status/2018043254986703167
    - tjansen 8mo ago
      That's more in the range of dozens or even hundreds of conventional man-years.
    - yreg 8mo ago
      Then why is "everybody" so pissed about Google Reader being killed?

by tjansen 8mo ago

arkensaw 8mo ago

do you want to tell us what it is?

tjansen 8mo ago
A cloud-based RSS reader (like Google Reader, Feedly, Inoreader...).
- arkensaw 8mo ago
  sold :)
- hagbard_c 8mo ago
  What would distinguish your cloud-based RSS reader from the many other cloud-based RSS readers, both self-hosted as well as the others?
  - tjansen 8mo ago
    Mainly, a friendly and simple UI. Feedly looks like it hasn't gotten much love recently. Inoreader is too cluttered for my taste, though it has a feature set I can't match any time soon. I have plenty of other ideas for what to build on top of it: offering an SDK and APIs so you can vibe-code the UI you want, a built-in podcast listener, using news from aggregated feeds to build a personalized AI feed. But the first step is to reach the Google Reader feature set minus social features.
    - hagbard_c 8mo ago
      I'm using (self-hosted) Nextcloud News, what would your... service? Tool? Product? ... offer beyond what NN does? It is quite simple as well, offers an uncluttered interface, keeps my subscriptions as private as RSS subscriptions can be. I suspect you're targeting a different market from the one catered by self-hosted services like Nextcloud?
      - tjansen 8mo ago
        I am not familiar with Nextcloud News. In the first version, it probably won't offer much for you, besides having a catalog of feeds, the ability to search them, and subscribe with one click, which is usually not offered by non-cloud RSS readers. For people who do not want to use self-hosted services (which generally includes me), it offers simplicity. Open the page, choose Google as auth provider, confirm, and you will get a friendly start page. Click on 'follow' on one of the feeds, and you can start reading immediately. The UI is more like Facebook or X, so basically, you just need to scroll. Either in a feed of your choice, or all your feeds. It's designed to work well on small mobile screens, tablets, and desktops, with great keyboard support on the latter. Larger screens use two or three columns.
    - SyneRyder 8mo ago
      I think you're in a tough market, but I'll agree that Feedly hasn't gotten much love, and is clearly aiming for a more enterprise market. API access is worth chasing. There was something I wanted to do with Feedly (I've already forgotten what it was) but once I saw their APIs were hidden behind some enterprise level plan, that was the end of that. If we're in a world where everyone has a personal AI agent, giving their agent an API key to their RSS sync account... that might have some interest. Feedly seems hostile to third-party client access (ie mobile & desktop apps), so being friendlier towards RSS clients could be of interest. Personalized AI feed is a good idea but you don't have all the personalized year of context that my Claude does. My AI agent is (probably) going to do a better job of choosing the most relevant stuff. And personally, less interested in podcasts in my RSS app. That's something for Pocket Casts / AntennaPod. I like my audio separate from my RSS. But that's me.
- MagicMoonlight 8mo ago
  Nobody uses RSS… I thought you were going to say salesforce or something.
  - theptip 8mo ago
    Wat. RSS is back! https://x.com/karpathy/status/2018043254986703167 https://x.com/karpathy/status/2018043254986703167
  - tjansen 8mo ago
    That's more in the range of dozens or even hundreds of conventional man-years.
  - yreg 8mo ago
    Then why is "everybody" so pissed about Google Reader being killed?