Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apps I pay for as a bootstrapped business

daily.patwalls.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 142 posts

Re: Apps I pay for as a bootstrapped business

#51

Post by mrblues »

jblake wrote: post #36
patwalls wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to switch platforms but I'm SO fast and comfortable with Heroku. Change costs for me might be high. I'd rather spend time on marketing / features that could get me 3 more customers/month to make up for it... I learned Heroku at my coding boot camp and they have made thousands of $$ off of me since...

Agreed, I've been using Heroku about 8 years now for my solo SaaS business. The most I've ever done in dev-ops is restarting a server and upgrading postgres versions. However, paying around $800/mo, I do fantasize sometimes on switching to AWS. Honestly I wouldn't even know where to start, and likely not a good use of time. For Heroku, I'd like to see HTTP/2 support, automated wildcard certs, and another Performance…

Start with Dokku

Re: Apps I pay for as a bootstrapped business

#52

Post by Normal_gaussian »

swalsh wrote: post #49
ttoinou wrote: post #40

Upwork (~$1000/month): Freelancers. I especially use Upwork because I don't have to think about all the billing stuff and time tracking, etc. The same for me, and they take a cut both sides (3% or 50 USD / month + 3% fees USD/EUR on my side and 5 to 10% on the freelancer side). I was wondering if there was an alternative to upwork for those who only need it for its automatic billing system + time tracking + weekly su…

I've tended to avoid Upwork, because it seems onerous on Freelancers, and also seems to result in the commoditization of freelancers. Working with that kind of talent can be burdensome. The best results require you to be ultra specific in your requests. I guess I'd prefer spending a bit more on Smart people... but those guys aren't on Upwork.

Where are they?

Re: Apps I pay for as a bootstrapped business

#54

Post by Normal_gaussian »

ttoinou wrote: post #48
patwalls wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would pay for that if it's cheaper and my freelancers were OK with it. I think another benefit of using Upwork for this is the hours get logged on their Upwork profile which makes them more "active" and preferred in the Upwork algo?

Yeah right ! That's why I was thinking that freelancers would be OK to stay a few months on upwork (and improve their profile) and if you want to hire them more long term they'll be OK to switch and avoid the high fees

upwork has a non-circumvention clause with a minimal $3500 fee to break (it pretty much always scales to be not worth breaking).

As to "how will they catch us" it would seem to fairly obvious from the freelancers schedule

Re: Apps I pay for as a bootstrapped business

#55

Post by whytaka »

reidjs wrote: post #19

If you feel trapped in Heroku or Netlify and you have a somewhat technical background I wrote an article recently on how to escape them using a DO droplet and Nginx. $200 a month seems high to me for what it is. https://medium.com/@reid.sherman/deploying-and-configuring-a...

I am very glad that I started with and maintain simple servers that act simply as computers connected to the internet. I understand more clearly how it works and can make more informed decisions on when and why more managed services can benefit me.

Re: Apps I pay for as a bootstrapped business

#57

Post by ttoinou »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #54
ttoinou wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah right ! That's why I was thinking that freelancers would be OK to stay a few months on upwork (and improve their profile) and if you want to hire them more long term they'll be OK to switch and avoid the high fees

upwork has a non-circumvention clause with a minimal $3500 fee to break (it pretty much always scales to be not worth breaking). As to "how will they catch us" it would seem to fairly obvious from the freelancers schedule

They are not necessarily enforceable. It's probably just to scare the freelancers. Once upwork makes contact between freelancer and employers there's nothing they can do to really prevent them from talking between each others and agreeing on working on a new contract.

(also I've been told this clause is only for the 2 first years.. ?)

Re: Apps I pay for as a bootstrapped business

#58

Post by em-bee »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #20
marceldegraaf wrote: post #12

@patwalls a note regarding Sendgrid. As a user of their free tier (for a freelance job) I was recently bitten by a shared IP that was put on a block list, probably due to abuse by another Sendgrid user. Support does not migrate accounts on the shared IP pool to another IP, basically leaving me unable to send email for days. Might be worth upgrading to their Pro plan ($90/mo). This gets you your own dedicated IP so th…

Dedicated IPs can be worse for low senders, as there's no other legitimate volume coming through outside of your own, so you need to build and maintain your own reputation entirely. Ideal solution would be a provider that only allows trusted people on shared IPs. Generally a non-free provider will be best for that.

how is building and maintaining your own reputation a problem for low volume sender?

Re: Apps I pay for as a bootstrapped business

#59

Post by ttoinou »

swalsh wrote: post #49
ttoinou wrote: post #40

Upwork (~$1000/month): Freelancers. I especially use Upwork because I don't have to think about all the billing stuff and time tracking, etc. The same for me, and they take a cut both sides (3% or 50 USD / month + 3% fees USD/EUR on my side and 5 to 10% on the freelancer side). I was wondering if there was an alternative to upwork for those who only need it for its automatic billing system + time tracking + weekly su…

I've tended to avoid Upwork, because it seems onerous on Freelancers, and also seems to result in the commoditization of freelancers. Working with that kind of talent can be burdensome. The best results require you to be ultra specific in your requests. I guess I'd prefer spending a bit more on Smart people... but those guys aren't on Upwork.

There's everything on upwork ! Really good workers, bad people (lying about their schedule, deliverable, making up false excuses and insulting you) and average freelancers. If you are looking for someone remotely for a few well-defined small tasks upwork is really good to start with
Post reply on HN