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Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

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Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#151

Post by ta999999171 »

privateSFacct wrote: post #131
cronix wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty cool! Have you thought about making it into a PWA and ditch the proprietary ios/android ecosystems and just allow anyone with a browser to use it? It doesn't seem like there is much in this app that NEEDS to be a "mobile" specific app. It looks like you could do it all with html/js and some local storage. I'm a big believer in open crossplatform systems, when it's possible. Obviously if you need access…

Can you give some examples of simple open cross platform systems that make money? I like my apps to be apps and a lot of the "Apps" that are HTML/js are janky cross platform and are tricky to pay for (vs one touch on ioS)

"Make money" is a misnomer, but successful PWAs tossed around here include Uber, Starbucks, etc...

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#152

Post by ISO-morphism »

jodrellblank wrote: post #95
frits1993 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an IPTV playlist management tool: m3u-editor.com Posted it on HN a while back as well, but interestingly it is one of my least successful HN posts.

“ Are you an IPTV enthusiast, or simply a user which is not fully happy with the playlist given to you.. ” Nitpick: A user who is not happy; users are people, not things.

To the author - congratulations on the success so far!

Additional nits from a native US English speaker, hope they're helpful:

* "$5.00 / Per Month" - the "/" is read as "per," so it reads as "five dollars per per month." Should drop either the slash or the "per."

* "...Billed annually. Or..." - these are dependent clauses, should be "...Billed annually, or..."

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#153

Post by CallMeMarc »

tasuki wrote: post #145
CallMeMarc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a coincidence, you're in the same small town as the company I work for! ;) Great app btw and congratulations on last year's success :)

The world is a small place! I once worked for a startup, one of our investors was from Herford, apparently got rich off Bitcoin. We visited their coworking space, it was pretty fun.

You're probably talking about Oliver Flaskämper, right? We're renting an office in his coworking space!

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#154

Post by ryantgtg »

mduerksen wrote: post #47

Pardon my complete speculation, but I bet your success factor is "I built ... my girlfriend a tool." My only successful product to this date is an app I built because my wife asked me to. It is in an non-technical domain which I knew nothing about. I thought it was rather non-promising, but, since it was a pet-peeve of hers, I gave it a try. It was an awesome (and very bonding) experience - she explained me the probl…

My wife works in fashion and sometimes has SaaS ideas that fill a niche in her world, and which I never would have thought of myself. Unfortunately so far my programming skills are not up to snuff to fulfill her needs. But I’m working on it!

The ideas generally fall into “my company is paying lots of money for some really powerful, complicated software, and we use about 5% of what it offers. Why not create cheaper software that just does the 5%?”

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#155

Post by shanecleveland »

amelius wrote: post #140
DBYCZ wrote: post #61

"build something that scratches your own itch." Awesome advice.

I'm not sure this is solid advice. As a programmer it would mean I'd have to build my own compiler and editor, but the low-hanging fruit has already been taken in this area, so perhaps it's better to scratch someone else's itch in some niche area that nobody has explored yet.

The implication here is that the best way to know that someone else has an itch to scratch is to have that same itch yourself.

And "itch" is to "problem" as "scratch" is to "solve." The fact that you know or use something doesn't make it a problem to solve. But if you think you can do it better or different, then maybe someone else agrees.

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#156

Post by mindcrime »

bovermyer wrote: post #71
jjjensen90 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amateur, at least in common American English, is virtually never used in a positive or neutral sense. It should definitely be changed in anything marketing-related.

I speak common American English, and I've always equated "amateur" with "not paid or licensed to do the thing," rather than "awful at the thing." It's neither positive nor negative most of the time. Context: I've lived primarily in the Midwest and the East Coast, with a few years spent in New Zealand. I've also been either involved in or peripheral to a few hobbies that style themselves as "amateur X."

I speak common American English, and I've always equated "amateur" with "not paid or licensed to do the thing," rather than "awful at the thing."

Same here. Native English speaker, lived on the East Coast all of my life. I don't find "amateur" to necessarily have negative connotations, but clearly it depends on the context.

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#157

Post by jjeaff »

JshWright wrote: post #69
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amateur has no negative connotations to me (as a native English speaker from the Midwest US). It's comparable to "hobbyist" or "enthusiast", basically meaning "someone who can do X but doesn't get paid for it". I think a lot of people would be proud to be amateur musicians or amateur athletes, for example, and would have said that no (non-professional) customer would not want to be called an amateur. Just shows you h…

Agreed, "amateur" has pretty positive connotations for me in this context (native English speaker from New York).

But I don't think amateur works if you are being paid or are charging for something. Even if you are new. Amateur is fine for a hobbyist, but if you call an unexperienced "professional" an amateur, I think it would usually be considered a slight.

Re: Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month

#158

Post by niemyjski »

Congrats! I wish we could do the same but with full time employee(s) being covered. But I'm terrible at marketing and just want to build the oss products. We have over 1k stars in multiple projects for .NET but the developer market is hard to get paying customers (we all want everything for free ;-)). It also doesn't help we have massively funded companies competing against us...
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