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Ente – Opening Our Books

ente.com

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Re: Ente – Opening Our Books

#31

Post by jadbox »

gortok wrote: post #8

This is one of those vanity blog posts, a “look at us, we’re open” blog posts without actual openness, or rather, limited openness where it helps their image and not openness that could backfire. Businesses don’t operate based on revenue. They operate based on profit. They operate based on operating expenses. They operate based off of free cash flow. Showing off revenue and number of accounts is showing off a tiny po…

> "Showing off revenue and number of accounts is showing off a tiny portion of the picture"

Showing revenue is not "tiny" by any means. Considering that the vast majority of businesses hide this from the public, I think it's very notably "something larger than tiny".

> "but practically speaking [they] are broke"

How do you know this?

Re: Ente – Opening Our Books

#34

Post by dismalaf »

This is cool, I was looking into Ente to supplement Google Photos (I got 6k of my kid's photos, my Google account is associated with too many things and I worry about losing access).

$1M ARR seems low though.

Re: Ente – Opening Our Books

#35

Post by iamjs »

jadbox wrote: post #31
gortok wrote: post #8

This is one of those vanity blog posts, a “look at us, we’re open” blog posts without actual openness, or rather, limited openness where it helps their image and not openness that could backfire. Businesses don’t operate based on revenue. They operate based on profit. They operate based on operating expenses. They operate based off of free cash flow. Showing off revenue and number of accounts is showing off a tiny po…

> "Showing off revenue and number of accounts is showing off a tiny portion of the picture" Showing revenue is not "tiny" by any means. Considering that the vast majority of businesses hide this from the public, I think it's very notably "something larger than tiny". > "but practically speaking [they] are broke" How do you know this?

>> "but practically speaking [they] are broke"

> How do you know this?

They were not claiming a fact, they were posing a hypothetical.

Re: Ente – Opening Our Books

#36

Post by speak_plainly »

MomsAVoxell wrote: post #16
Shalomboy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came to the comments to say the same thing! I would love to take a seminar or a class from the folks in their design department.

I found it over blown. It took me far too long looking past the ducks to find out what Ente actually does. The design team don’t seem to be interested in the product.

If you were being fair, designers typically don't decide the website strategy or write the copy. Ente's site seems heavily optimized for a search-driven funnel – they are targeting people explicitly searching for 'photo storage.' When that's your primary acquisition channel, you can afford to be less pedantic about copy variety. They keep the copy incredibly sparse and let the context do the heavy lifting, there is also no need to repeat descriptions on-site when that context is already handled by the search description and App Store links. When people arrive on the site, they know what they've found.

In terms of the design, they cut through a lot of the bullshit developers and designers do on the web. The execution is great and there are a lot of high-fidelity details: the scale is on point, the text hierarchy is great, the use of colour is smart, it has a fantastic, almost brochure-like layout, and generally, the design is consistent throughout and plays an important role in customer experience and branding their product.

You're not their customer, they're not targeting Hacker News as a potential sales funnel. If your takeaway is the design team isn't interested in the product, I hope to God you don't work in web.

Re: Ente – Opening Our Books

#38

Post by Cider9986 »

timcobb wrote: post #32
Cider9986 wrote: post #21

Are there any other self-hostable E2EE cloud products as good as Ente? This company is great. AGPL as well.

What do you like about AGPL in this context? Building a similar product and curious! Thanks

I don't like copyright at all and I don't like the FSF but it protects the users freedoms which gives the community trust. With AI I think any copyright will be less and less important, though.

Re: Ente – Opening Our Books

#39

Post by satvikpendem »

iamjs wrote: post #35
jadbox wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Showing off revenue and number of accounts is showing off a tiny portion of the picture" Showing revenue is not "tiny" by any means. Considering that the vast majority of businesses hide this from the public, I think it's very notably "something larger than tiny". > "but practically speaking [they] are broke" How do you know this?

>> "but practically speaking [they] are broke" > How do you know this? They were not claiming a fact, they were posing a hypothetical.

They mean even in the hypothetical how would they know, without open books? They're just theorizing, same as with revenue.

Re: Ente – Opening Our Books

#40

Post by satvikpendem »

alberth wrote: post #37

Buffer.com is famously open as well, if you like this kind of stuff. Revenue: https://buffer.com/metrics Expenses: https://buffer.com/transparent-pricing Salaries of every employee (which seems like PII to me): https://buffer.com/salaries And more: https://buffer.com/open

/open was popularized by Pieter Levels as well, there are quite a few of these sorts of companies.
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