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Show HN: Avo – Build Ruby on Rails apps faster

avohq.io

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Re: Show HN: Avo – Build Ruby on Rails apps faster

#81

Post by adrianthedev »

danenania wrote: post #75
adrianthedev wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried that and the question that popped up was "what if I don't pay anymore? will I not be able to use it then?". It kind of turned people away, and that's why I change the copy. If an app has a longer lifetime than a year, and I hope it does, then you'd have to resume the subscription to get the updates (bugs and security). It's the way the perpetual-fallback license works. There are plenty of products (table plus…

I think it’s a mistake to optimize for people whose focus is what happens if they stop paying you. They’re unlikely to pay in the first place and are more likely to be difficult customers even if they do. Customers who get value out of your product will want to pay and keep paying and be sure they’re not going to miss important updates if they forget to renew in a year. These are the customers to focus on imo. People…

but I see what you mean and I think you're not wrong.

Re: Show HN: Avo – Build Ruby on Rails apps faster

#82

Post by adrianthedev »

mediaman wrote: post #64

Can I drop this into an existing Rails app? I use Jumpstart but would like a nicer admin experience.

Yes you can. Our site uses Jumpstart (lovely app) and we use Avo everyday with it.

Avo was designed to be unopinionated. I know that might sound off. Avo has a DSL, it must be opinionated, and it is with that DSL, but with the rest, we'd like to allow the developer to use what they want.

BYOB.

Bring your own authentication. You might not want to use devise, but something else. Avo enables you to add your own auth layer.

Bring your own search. Avo plays well with ransack, but you can hook into it and do your thing with algolia or something else.

Bring your own layer of multi tenancy. Scope things out as much as you need it. We have a customer that runs three platforms in one app using Avo. Believe me when I say they were able to scope out their data "to the bone".

So yeah. Avo plays amazingly well with existing apps. It was designed that way.

Re: Show HN: Avo – Build Ruby on Rails apps faster

#83

Post by adrianthedev »

adrianthedev wrote: post #82
mediaman wrote: post #64

Can I drop this into an existing Rails app? I use Jumpstart but would like a nicer admin experience.

Yes you can. Our site uses Jumpstart (lovely app) and we use Avo everyday with it. Avo was designed to be unopinionated. I know that might sound off. Avo has a DSL, it must be opinionated, and it is with that DSL, but with the rest, we'd like to allow the developer to use what they want. BYOB. Bring your own authentication. You might not want to use devise, but something else. Avo enables you to add your own auth lay…

I mentioned this before, that I spoke with Chris Oliver, and started work on bringing Avo inside Jumpstart rails as an alternative to rails admin.

Re: Show HN: Avo – Build Ruby on Rails apps faster

#86

Post by danenania »

adrianthedev wrote: post #80
danenania wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a mistake to optimize for people whose focus is what happens if they stop paying you. They’re unlikely to pay in the first place and are more likely to be difficult customers even if they do. Customers who get value out of your product will want to pay and keep paying and be sure they’re not going to miss important updates if they forget to renew in a year. These are the customers to focus on imo. People…

I mostly agree with you, but that's on more "traditional" SaaS products. When it's a service. This is more of a product. There are developers and agencies that buy Avo, build something for a customer and then transfer the license to them. The customer might not even know that the agency bought something. They might not want to pay something ongoing. Yes, one could make the case that "hey, you pay hosting ongoing afte…

I see your point, but I think it’s just a framing issue. It’s great to have an option for people who are concerned about this, but not at the expense of confusing customers who just want to pay you and keep paying you for your thing, and also killing your year 2 retention by making it opt-in instead of a normal subscription.

Looking at jumpstart rails, they seem to be doing exactly what I’m suggesting. It’s a simple per project per year price, but then in their FAQ they explain that you stop getting updates if you stop paying.

On the agencies point, yeah I think it’s normal for agencies to sign a client up for a bunch of services they need to build the project. You’ll just be one more on the list.

Re: Show HN: Avo – Build Ruby on Rails apps faster

#87

Post by adrianthedev »

vlunkr wrote: post #65

Shouldn't the tagline be more like "Build Ruby on Rails admin panels 10x faster"? Since that seems to be the intent.

When one says "admin panel", the general belief is that it's an obscure space where only the core team comes to check on some stats, or update some records. Avo is more about building a real app with it. It's meant to be what the user sees when they interact with your app. You actually build your app with Avo. Avo becomes the app.

When I talk to Rails developers and mention the words "admin panel", they automatically think about Active Admin, or administrate, which were great alternatives in the past, but nothing compared to Avo (apologies, sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm really not exaggerating). That's the reason I don't communicate that.

I have a "Rails admin themed" page[0] where I speak more about the benefits as a Rails admin.

https://avohq.io/rails-admin

Re: Show HN: Avo – Build Ruby on Rails apps faster

#88

Post by adrianthedev »

bestinterest wrote: post #78

Looks great from the demo https://avodemo.herokuapp.com/users/sign_in My only suggestion would be to perhaps try out a beefer instance for heroku or perhaps it is http/1.1 limitation of heroku and a switching to one of the disruptors like render.com would help performance? It also may completely be because I am in the UK. Clicking around just feels slow 700-800ms+ response times, assuming its hosted in US. Also anoth…

Oh darn. I forgot about the demo site to beef up the hosting for this post. I'll do that this week. I'll probably move it to a separate instance.

Yes, it's hosted in the US.

Thank you for that and unploy. I'll have a look.

Re: Show HN: Avo – Build Ruby on Rails apps faster

#89

Post by jressey »

adrianthedev wrote: post #70
jressey wrote: post #57

This is a serious question: Do any of you folks get paid good money to start projects? In my career I have "started" projects for maybe 2-5% of my time. All of the real effort goes in to massaging the app to actually solve unique business problems, about 80-90% on edge cases. Bold and cynical claim: Making and selling apps like this is akin to building a social media brand about building social media brands. The prob…

A very pertinent question. If you're asking if Avo "pays the bills", it doesn't. I hope it will some day. Damn, I hope I earn money in some other way and donate Avo to Ruby central, becomes free so it becomes the default way of building Rails apps. Until that time, I am pretty stocked that other developers want (and pay) to use something I've created. Yeah, it takes a lot to build the messaging around a product. This…

I respect your hustle and understanding of what makes a successful product. I'm making no comment on that.

I was in general asking the community about how often they get paid to start apps vs. continue them.

Re: Show HN: Avo – Build Ruby on Rails apps faster

#90

Post by MattyMc »

adrianthedev: THANK YOU for implementing a one-time fee. It actually make using this realistic for us.

Quick question: Do you have support for front-end frameworks (i.e. React)? I did try to crawl the docs to find out.

We have a Rails monolith, but we're unique in that we have a highly interactive educational app with a boat load of javascript. Our mantra has been: use React only if we absolutely have to. I realize we're unique in this regard.

Totally cool if not; just thought I'd ask. Great work on the project!

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