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Show HN: We've open-sourced our bootstrapped startup, ShareLaTeX

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Re: Show HN: We've open-sourced our bootstrapped startup, ShareLaTeX

#22

Post by kriro »

This looks excellent. I'll certainly try it for my next paper and will see if I can lobby our university to pay for the hosted version.

I'm assuming universities are what you are aiming for? I think you should focus on CSy departments.

Could also target conferences/journals i.e. allow them to offer access to the hosted version for people collaborating on a paper for that journal/conference.

From a business development POV, I think it would make sense to wade through university pages and collect departments that offer Latex-Templates to their students as potential contacts.

Re: Show HN: We've open-sourced our bootstrapped startup, ShareLaTeX

#27

Post by brickcap »

Share latex.....

Open source.....

I will just come out and say it. I had funny thoughts in my head when I read that.

The official site as well as the products looks well designed (love the idea of templates). Here is the clickable link

https://www.sharelatex.com/

Re: Show HN: We've open-sourced our bootstrapped startup, ShareLaTeX

#28

Post by jpallen »

theallan wrote: post #13
jpallen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, we wanted to! We've benefited hugely from open source projects ourselves, and have always enjoyed being part of the community surrounding them. It seems like the default state is to not be open source, but we realised that since we own and run the business behind ShareLaTeX, we had the freedom to play by our own rules. We also think it makes sense from a business point of view as well, since it will (hopef…

I (and I suspect many others here) would be very interested to know what effect this will have on your turnover. I guess you will get some increased revenue as others have indicated in this thread, but also loose some for those who just fire up their own installation. Presumably you won't really know until your try it, but do you have any data to support that it might increase your revenue (assuming of course that is…

We don't have any hard data - this is based on our personal vision, and our understanding of our user base. People mostly use ShareLaTeX because: 1) There is no installation, 2) You can access it anywhere, 3) You can collaborate easily and effectively without needing to be technical and know git/svn/etc. I don't think being open source will threaten any of those points, but it will make ShareLaTeX accessible to the large group of people who want to run a local version but haven't been able to so far.

It will be interesting to see how things look in a months time. I'll try to post an update!

Re: Show HN: We've open-sourced our bootstrapped startup, ShareLaTeX

#29

Post by bookworm101 »

Well, i have been working on something similar for a little while, what is the biggest challenge when getting started with this type of SAAS? what do you wish you knew when you were getting up and running? Would you recommend anyone to try out the same venture you guys have done? Is there some worry about what this might do to revenue? or was there already some evidence this would do nothing evil to your business model?

Re: Show HN: We've open-sourced our bootstrapped startup, ShareLaTeX

#30

Post by jpallen »

brickcap wrote: post #27

Share latex..... Open source..... I will just come out and say it. I had funny thoughts in my head when I read that. The official site as well as the products looks well designed (love the idea of templates). Here is the clickable link https://www.sharelatex.com/

You're not the first (and I doubt you'll be the last) to think that we're some sort of social media site based around prophylactics :)
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