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Actual is going open-source

actualbudget.com

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Re: Actual is going open-source

#21

Post by tshaddox »

bdcravens wrote: post #12
cpitman wrote: post #5

I wish people wouldn't use "we open sourced it" as a synonym for "this product is dead". Especially for a SaaS company, there is a totally valid business strategy in open sourcing your codebase but continuing to provide a paid SaaS offering for users that are not interested in self-hosting. It causes confusion every time a company open sources their software. Always have to wonder, "Is it dead and they are yeeting it…

Any examples of companies that opened previously closed source that continued to offer that product?

The web framework Remix was closed source and available only to license purchasers for about a year, until they announced their seed funding in October of last year: https://remix.run/blog/seed-funding-for-remix#open-source

Re: Actual is going open-source

#22

Post by Ozzie_osman »

Sad to see this. We were big fans of Actual.

We're working on a product in this space. While there is a ton of demand for products like this (the incumbents, like Mint, aren't really evolving or providing the privacy people want), it's not easy to grow. We ended up raising venture capital to bridge the gap, but once we did, things started to come together. In fact, we ended up having a few people who were trying to build an app solo join the team (because they're so passionate about the space, and had build great products, but couldn't get a lot of traction).

Re: Actual is going open-source

#23

Post by jlongster »

yurishimo wrote: post #10
PStamatiou wrote: post #3

Would be curious if you'd be open to talking about some of the history in terms of user growth, revenue and costs. Just curious about how these types of projects go.

If the final user numbers are accurate, revenue was a bit over $3k a month. Not even enough to really pay the founder if living in the US. Assuming $200/mo for servers, backups, and help desk software, that doesn't leave much after taxes for take home pay. As someone who just discovered this software, I am now really curious to give it a try!

Yep that's right.

I launched around 3 years ago, and it was brutally slow. I think it took a year to hit 100 subscribers.

Another year to hit 300.

This past fall, YNAB increased their prices which gave me decent jump from around 500 to 800 subscribers which is where I'm at today.

I did everything wrong when it comes to marketing and getting subscribers. I focused on the tech and never invested in content, building hype, etc. Well, I take that back -- sometimes I did, but only 10% instead of 70% like I should have been doing.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#24

Post by adrianmsmith »

The blog post says 810 paid subscribers, and the price was $4/month so that's $3.2k/month.

I mean that's not bad, that sounds like they'd nearly made it. Maybe they'd need 2-3x that to live off (depending where they live). But if they got that far I sort of feel they might have been able to make it. Then they wouldn't need any other job, they could just live off the product. And then any additional revenue growth would be profit.

I mean they were a lot closer to it being able to sustain them than a business with e.g. $0/month revenue, or e.g. 3 users at $10/month (I've worked for a few such projects without product/market..)

Re: Actual is going open-source

#25

Post by codegeek »

"I completely underestimated how much work it takes to build a business. There's so much overhead. I'm always figuring out why a build failed, taxes, how to triage issues, responding to support, designing UIs, responding to Apple's complaints, and more. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes. There's no way a single person can possible do this alone, especially as a side project."

This is the part that resonates a lot with me even though I have been able to build a small business that is reasonably successful with a small team but it takes a toll. It is a frikin slog and there are days when you feel like jumping off a cliff. Also the cost of doing something so small can add up when you can have a cushy tech job making 200K relatively easy. To do your own thing requires a very different mindset and incredibly hard.

There is a HUGE difference between building a quick side project for fun VS turning it into a real business (no matter how small). I have full sympathy for the owner and totally understand where they are coming from. No judgement and I wish them all the best.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#26

Post by zwily »

bdcravens wrote: post #12
cpitman wrote: post #5

I wish people wouldn't use "we open sourced it" as a synonym for "this product is dead". Especially for a SaaS company, there is a totally valid business strategy in open sourcing your codebase but continuing to provide a paid SaaS offering for users that are not interested in self-hosting. It causes confusion every time a company open sources their software. Always have to wonder, "Is it dead and they are yeeting it…

Any examples of companies that opened previously closed source that continued to offer that product?

The Canvas LMS: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms

Re: Actual is going open-source

#27

Post by codegeek »

jlongster wrote: post #23
yurishimo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the final user numbers are accurate, revenue was a bit over $3k a month. Not even enough to really pay the founder if living in the US. Assuming $200/mo for servers, backups, and help desk software, that doesn't leave much after taxes for take home pay. As someone who just discovered this software, I am now really curious to give it a try!

Yep that's right. I launched around 3 years ago, and it was brutally slow. I think it took a year to hit 100 subscribers. Another year to hit 300. This past fall, YNAB increased their prices which gave me decent jump from around 500 to 800 subscribers which is where I'm at today. I did everything wrong when it comes to marketing and getting subscribers. I focused on the tech and never invested in content, building hy…

As a bootstrapped solo founder myself (even though I have somehow built a small team after 7 years), I totally get what you are saying. Be proud of what you did and most don't even get to do what you did. It is so hard to do things alone and especially when you realize it is mostly about Marketing and Sales (and not the product only).

Re: Actual is going open-source

#28

Post by candiddevmike »

jlongster wrote: post #23
yurishimo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the final user numbers are accurate, revenue was a bit over $3k a month. Not even enough to really pay the founder if living in the US. Assuming $200/mo for servers, backups, and help desk software, that doesn't leave much after taxes for take home pay. As someone who just discovered this software, I am now really curious to give it a try!

Yep that's right. I launched around 3 years ago, and it was brutally slow. I think it took a year to hit 100 subscribers. Another year to hit 300. This past fall, YNAB increased their prices which gave me decent jump from around 500 to 800 subscribers which is where I'm at today. I did everything wrong when it comes to marketing and getting subscribers. I focused on the tech and never invested in content, building hy…

I'm a firm believer that the only way to stand out in the B2C world is to have a VC backed marketing budget. You can't bootstrap a positive CAC in a reasonable timeframe without going bankrupt as a solo founder.

Re: Actual is going open-source

#29

Post by [deleted] »

jlongster wrote: post #23
yurishimo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the final user numbers are accurate, revenue was a bit over $3k a month. Not even enough to really pay the founder if living in the US. Assuming $200/mo for servers, backups, and help desk software, that doesn't leave much after taxes for take home pay. As someone who just discovered this software, I am now really curious to give it a try!

Yep that's right. I launched around 3 years ago, and it was brutally slow. I think it took a year to hit 100 subscribers. Another year to hit 300. This past fall, YNAB increased their prices which gave me decent jump from around 500 to 800 subscribers which is where I'm at today. I did everything wrong when it comes to marketing and getting subscribers. I focused on the tech and never invested in content, building hy…

[deleted]

Re: Actual is going open-source

#30

Post by difflens »

jlongster wrote: post #23
yurishimo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the final user numbers are accurate, revenue was a bit over $3k a month. Not even enough to really pay the founder if living in the US. Assuming $200/mo for servers, backups, and help desk software, that doesn't leave much after taxes for take home pay. As someone who just discovered this software, I am now really curious to give it a try!

Yep that's right. I launched around 3 years ago, and it was brutally slow. I think it took a year to hit 100 subscribers. Another year to hit 300. This past fall, YNAB increased their prices which gave me decent jump from around 500 to 800 subscribers which is where I'm at today. I did everything wrong when it comes to marketing and getting subscribers. I focused on the tech and never invested in content, building hy…

Can I just say that I appreciate the transparency about your numbers here! As a bootstrapped SAAS builder here, this gives me perspective
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