I'm curious, I remember a posting a while back that you were trying to sell this app through Flippa? Any details of that experience you would mind sharing (nothing but tire kickers, not the right market, buyer fall thru, etc...)?
Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
71–80 of 101 posts
Re: Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
#72great to see this open sourced - sorry to hear you closed neoinvoice though the web based invoicing market is extremely crowded and very hard to complete against the likes of freshbooks.com though i went the opposite route to you and its working $ for me created the open source app http://simpleinvoices.org first, got large user based, then offered premium hosting at http://smarterinvoices.com
I think at one point we had some LedgerSMB users using SimpleInvoices and importing data into LedgerSMB.
I think the difficulty with invoicing is that it is so heavily tied to everything else one might try to do in a business, from tracking inventory to CRM to financial accounting. This doesn't mean that one can't do this, but the interconnections seem to be key.
Re: Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
#73I remember writing invoicing systems like this. Then I realized I probably shouldn't reinvent the wheel or break GAAP. :/
Shameless plug here kinda.....
One thing you could do is write a really good invoicing app that works with a decent GAAP accounting system, like LedgerSMB. If the system is ok, and the database underneath is solid, you can do the GAAP stuff without having to write a whole accounting package.
Re: Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
See, the thing is: creating an invoice is an 'accounting' event that needs to be thought out a bit. Like a double entry general ledger, receiving payments, proper audit trails, the inability to modify an invoice after 'posting' it, batches, periods, and other goodness. Otherwise, you get this ugly term: embezzlement. But kudos for opensourcing it and standing up to criticism from hecklers like me.
I disagree, as a business should think first in the broad context of product/market fit, which is a very dynamic issue, and not all markets need the kind of depth in an accounting product you describe.
The only case where that my be true is the case where you have a sole proprietor where the owner is the only one who touches the books. As soon as you have a bookkeeper who is not the owner, or multiple owners you do need that kind of depth.
Re: Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, there is a ton of competition. I started building this without having done proper research.
See, the thing is: creating an invoice is an 'accounting' event that needs to be thought out a bit. Like a double entry general ledger, receiving payments, proper audit trails, the inability to modify an invoice after 'posting' it, batches, periods, and other goodness. Otherwise, you get this ugly term: embezzlement. But kudos for opensourcing it and standing up to criticism from hecklers like me.
First there is an unspoken assumption in your post. Embezzlement can only happen when someone is handling someone else's money. In many sole proprietors, this is not the case. So for those, sure. But it's important to understand the limitations here.
But still within the core area, I think you have to accept that I would trust your books if they were kept in pencil more than I would trust books kept with software that didn't have proper controls.
Re: Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think competition was never your problem. A lack of passion for your industry/product over the long-term, is most always the high level reason people start and stop projects like this.
I spent all of my spare time for a solid nine months on this project, and you are right; I was passionate, but more about the project itself than the industry. There was also a fear of letting this be my full time gig and not having a steady paycheck. My brick and mortar business had just closed its doors as my biggest client stopped paying people (he literally disappeared into the woods and had a class action lawsui…
I had the same happen to me, in the sense that I built a company around passion for the software project vs. the business. It really helped me see what motivations to give more and less weight to. I'd bet your next passion project is a big success.
Here's mine: http://redtagcrazy.com/blog/2011/03/28/rise-and-fall/
Re: Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree, as a business should think first in the broad context of product/market fit, which is a very dynamic issue, and not all markets need the kind of depth in an accounting product you describe.
The only case where that my be true is the case where you have a sole proprietor where the owner is the only one who touches the books. As soon as you have a bookkeeper who is not the owner, or multiple owners you do need that kind of depth.
I'd bet the OP intended it for use by sole proprietors like himself, and that he never aimed to build a product for bookkeepers. There's plenty of a market for invoicing software that targets sole proprietors.
A product with as much depth would likely appeal to accountants or those that assist them directly.
Re: Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
#78great to see this open sourced - sorry to hear you closed neoinvoice though the web based invoicing market is extremely crowded and very hard to complete against the likes of freshbooks.com though i went the opposite route to you and its working $ for me created the open source app http://simpleinvoices.org first, got large user based, then offered premium hosting at http://smarterinvoices.com
I think at one point we had some LedgerSMB users using SimpleInvoices and importing data into LedgerSMB. I think the difficulty with invoicing is that it is so heavily tied to everything else one might try to do in a business, from tracking inventory to CRM to financial accounting. This doesn't mean that one can't do this, but the interconnections seem to be key.
re ledgdersmb
- yep - the ledgersmb crew did some great work to the SimpleInvoices code to make it work for them
re interconnections
* depending on the target market
* the people who need integration already do some form of accounting already - and a 'full stack' accounting solution like http://xero.com is more appropriate for this market
* simpleinvoices market is people with no accounting system or desire for debit/credit stuff so we have make no attempts to make quickbooks, etc. integration work
Re: Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
#79Thanks for sharing! I wished more people would share code of projects they are no longer interested in. The educational value ('how did he/she built this') is worth a lot, regardless of the 'quality' of the code. Thank you!
I've spent many an hour staring at somebody else's code. I love it, but so often when I'm in the middle of a project I totally forget about those time's I've seen code that made me go "wow, I should do that."
Am I doing something wrong? Notes or something?
Re: Just open sourced my 10k LOC PHP & MySQL invoicing app
#80I'm curious, I remember a posting a while back that you were trying to sell this app through Flippa? Any details of that experience you would mind sharing (nothing but tire kickers, not the right market, buyer fall thru, etc...)?
Long story short, not a single bid. A lot of people would ask some questions, but would seem to ignore the info on the page. I didn't bother paying extra to have them tweet the site on their twitter, since they tweet seemingly hundreds of times a day and nobody seems to listen.
I'm used to selling items on the Envato marketplace, which provides all of the 'advertising' for me. But it seems that with Flippa, there is so much noise and one has to do their own finding of buyers.