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Show HN: I built a self-hosted Basecamp alternative. Try the demo

duetapp.com

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Re: Show HN: I built a self-hosted Basecamp alternative. Try the demo

#52

Clean looks. I immediately checked out the task timer feature which does not work as expected. If you start the timer and then go to the dashboard (I should expect to see all "active" tasks here) and back the timer is stopped. I currently use TaskCoach to keep track of all my tasks and invoice my clients on a hourly basis.

Yes, you need to keep the task open for the timer to continue to run. You would want it to keep running in the background? It seems like it would be easy to forget about if it's implemented that way...

If it kept running, I'd think you'd want to have a "global" timer widget/area that is always displayed, on every page, if a timer is running.

Re: Show HN: I built a self-hosted Basecamp alternative. Try the demo

#54

Very nice. Is it possible to recover deleted files / projects?

Nope. That's a good idea, but not sure whether I'll add it. I will definitely be adding archive functionality within the next week or two though. So you can archive a file/project, which gets it out of your way until you want to see it again.

How will you handle updates for people who have already purchased?

Re: Show HN: I built a self-hosted Basecamp alternative. Try the demo

#56

Saw this on reddit a few days ago. You could make a lot more money with it by making it a hosted solution and charging monthly/yearly.

Then you are competing directly with Basecamp with no obvious product differentiation. It's going to be tough to get traction going this way. The fact that it can be purchased and installed is the differentiating factor and may target a market audience that's largely ignored. While there is usually the potential for higher sales with a SaaS approach, that doesn't mean it's always the correct fit when entering a marke…

Why not price as the differentiating factor? Basecamp is expensive for what it is.

You could undercut Basecamp by a sizeable margin and still turn a nice profit.

Re: Show HN: I built a self-hosted Basecamp alternative. Try the demo

#58
post #40

Beautiful product! Just be aware of the support nightmare that comes along with people trying to install your software in many different environments. I will never, ever create installable software ever again.

I agree. Handling support for this type of product is definitely a challenge. Especially since many customers don't have any experience installing anything on their servers. I've tried to make the installation process as simple as possible (It only requires database credentials), but many customers still have issues.

Re: Show HN: I built a self-hosted Basecamp alternative. Try the demo

#60
post #40

Beautiful product! Just be aware of the support nightmare that comes along with people trying to install your software in many different environments. I will never, ever create installable software ever again.

I've been thinking about this and I like the idea of building the software to run on Heroku (or similar). For those that want a self hosted plan you just tell them where to host it and if they want installation outside of that you charge them a decent hourly rate to make it worth it.

That only half solves the problem. A lot of shops that want self-hosted literally want to host it themselves, to keep data in their datacenters. if you built something deployable to EC2, you could make sure it works on a local Eucalyptus/OpenStack deployment or something. Or you could try to build for OpenShift and tell clients them have to have their own OpenShift cloud. But there's no real easy solution.
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