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The difficulties we face to monetize our open source project

locomotivecms.com

11–20 of 51 posts

Re: The difficulties we face to monetize our open source project

#11
post #3

Here's a marketing tip, your comparison page only compares to WordPress. "Better WordPress" doesn't impress me. Try comparing yourself to a better product. One that people are currently paying money for.

Millions of people pay money to wordpress developers, wordpress hosting companies, wordpress themers, wordpress plugin makers, etc. Wordpress runs half the web. I'd say building a better wordpress is a worthy goal.

A majority of those customers won't consider a "better wordpress", either because choosing wordpress is the safe option, or they are invested in the Wordpress ecosystem.

The customer looking at the LocamotiveCMS webpage has probably already decided they want a better Wordpress, and they are trying to compare between the other options available.

I'm not saying they shouldn't compare against Wordpress, but it wouldn't hurt to include a few more comparisons.

Re: The difficulties we face to monetize our open source project

#13
post #3

Here's a marketing tip, your comparison page only compares to WordPress. "Better WordPress" doesn't impress me. Try comparing yourself to a better product. One that people are currently paying money for.

Also, it seems a lot of the comparisons to WordPress are hardly accurate. Most notably is the 'Security' area where it asserts that

> There are a million plugins available that extend your site’s functionality, but each plugin increases your security risk and your maintenance overhead.

but with LocomotiveCMS

> Since LocomotiveCMS is built on Ruby on Rails, you get tons of power without having to rely on a bunch of plugins that can compromise the security of your site.

So, what, is that saying that LocomotiveCMS doesn't have a plugin architecture for porting in additional functionality? Or is it just hubris to the point of saying all extensions are naturally more secure? Or that users would never need to install plugins, because LocoCMS has lots of features already? 'cuz, y'know, WordPress has lots of features too.

Plus:

> [In WordPress, to] make many site changes, you have to download a copy of the database and the entire content folder back to your local installation.

Nope. That's just factually wrong.

> [In WordPress] some assets are stored in a database, and others are in templates or additional places.

... no? Content and configuration is stored in the database, templates and assets are in files. Really wondering wtf they're talking about here.

> And forget about trying to make those custom types relate to each other without significant code slinging.

Nope. Easy plugin. No code slinging required. https://wordpress.org/plugins/posts-to-posts/

> While WordPress has multi-site capability, you often run into compatibility issues that can hamstring the production of your sites.

Really? Like ... what? The only things I've ever seen break in multisite was when the developer was doing things incorrectly, trying to hack one thing into another without understanding the system they were working in.

> If you've worked with WordPress, you already know what we're talking about.

I've worked with WordPress for six plus years now, and have no idea what you're talking about.

Re: The difficulties we face to monetize our open source project

#14

I'm curious whether the business model is truly the problem. While I'm sure LocomotiveCMS is a nice product, it's operating in a very crowded space with numerous and established open-source, proprietary, and hosted solutions. From the way it's described on your website, it doesn't seem particularly specialized and thus highly valuable to a niche of the marketplace. I wonder what would happen if a) you focused v3 on h…

This. It feels like they're trying to solve technology issues instead of real world market issues.

If I'm a WordPress guy who needs to get multi-site going, then I'm going to figure it out. I'm not jumping ship because someone else might do it 10% better.

But if I'm a dentist with HIPPA compliance issues (good example), I don't care about underlying technology. I just want the closest solution with someone who's been there before.

Trying to sell an already-technical user on $20/month hosting is a bit of a joke when there's DigitalOcean or a dozen others after a quarter of the cost... Or less.

Web hosting isn't really even "SAAS" anymore. It's a commodity service.

Re: The difficulties we face to monetize our open source project

#15
If there's truly a need and the product is a 10x improvement on the competition (even for a small niche), you shouldn't need to pay people to work on an open source project like this. There are plenty of niches, and the main one I can think of is focusing on a super lightweight drop in CMS for existing Rails apps. Perhaps it generates static files into the `public` directory.

Re: The difficulties we face to monetize our open source project

#17

Doesn't Locomotive help you acquire new clients?

I like how people just assume that HN is where the writers of any random blog post will go to respond to questions.

Update: Ah, apologies for assuming it's "his" post. The author is clearly a woman and I'm a moron. Sorry.

Original:

I think it's a pretty reasonable assumption that someone who's trying to run a web services company/consultancy would know when his post is on the HN frontpage. If he isn't, that probably says more about the business than anything in the post.

Re: The difficulties we face to monetize our open source project

#18

If there's truly a need and the product is a 10x improvement on the competition (even for a small niche), you shouldn't need to pay people to work on an open source project like this. There are plenty of niches, and the main one I can think of is focusing on a super lightweight drop in CMS for existing Rails apps. Perhaps it generates static files into the `public` directory.

Exactly this.

One of the biggest flaws of the CMS space is assuming or requiring that they are completely in control of the application. When in reality, all I need is a CMS for is a subset of pages. At most it can be in control of a subset of domains -- but never all of them.

For example, a common requirement is a faq-like page, a blog section and easily being able to edit other public pages (about, team, contact, index, etc.). Then the real bread and butter of the application is behind some sort of login wall or is all internal and requires custom code and logic. I shouldn't have to stand up two applications to achieve this (increasing application maintenance by an order of magnitude in the process), fight the cms, or roll my own every time.

Ideally I should be able to tell a CMS a single page it can control (or subset of domains), and it takes the existing content and allows editing and saving of it.

Start with that idea, then add premium features like easy a/b testing.

edit... Also, in my experience CMS is a race to the bottom when it comes to client quality. You end up making very little money per project as the person looking for a wordpress/cms solution is either pinching pennies or just plain cheap. The real money clients come from those looking for real solutions (which are almost always custom solutions) to enhance their business' bottom line, not give it a crappy web presence that wont change for the next 10 years.

Re: The difficulties we face to monetize our open source project

#20

I'm curious whether the business model is truly the problem. While I'm sure LocomotiveCMS is a nice product, it's operating in a very crowded space with numerous and established open-source, proprietary, and hosted solutions. From the way it's described on your website, it doesn't seem particularly specialized and thus highly valuable to a niche of the marketplace. I wonder what would happen if a) you focused v3 on h…

I'm just getting through Zero To One, that Peter Thiel book that came out and this is a perfect example of why you should seek new ground and avoid competition. For some reason, every developer thinks every CMS system out there doesn't meet their needs. I don't know if it's because they aren't well-documented or well-architected enough but every dev or company eventually gets to the point there they want a customized CMS for themselves because they think they have a value-add.

I think if they had a very unique value proposition in order to avoid competition, they'd be in good shape. Maybe a CMS just for a specific industry.

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