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Bushido (YC S11): An App Store For The Web That Can Kickstart Your Side Projects

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Re: Bushido (YC S11): An App Store For The Web That Can Kickstart Your Side Projects

#31

Post by patio11 »

biot wrote: post #23
wheels wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who sits on the other side of that equation, $9/month basically translates to "1 support request per month". I've been meaning to do a blog post on such, but an average single support request costs us around $8. So if you've got a business where the average number of support requests per user are dramatically less than 1.0 per user per month, then it can work out, but I suspect there's a proportional suppo…

If I built a product that allowed you to answer support requests 10% faster, then logically you'd be happy paying an additional $750/month per support person for the software?

I once worked in the customer service division of a company which had, well, let me call it a hundred CSRs. We had an internal application to do everything.

They didn't exactly show me the company budget, but I'm as capable of counting engineers as the next guy. Suffice it to say we paid way more than $75k a month for the productivity gains of that custom app. (It was my first encounter with Enterprise Software (TM) and I think I went into programming in part so that no one should ever again have to suffer like us CSRs suffered...)

Re: Bushido (YC S11): An App Store For The Web That Can Kickstart Your Side Projects

#32

Post by SingAlong »

collint wrote: post #28

I think it sounds like a wicked clever idea. It also sounds like a recipe for bad-blood in the open source world. It emphasizes owning a repo rather than contributing to one that already exists. It also seems to push for over utilization of resources. Once you get to say 1-10K installs a multi-tenant solution would probably make more sense. What happens then? Does bushido help you roll your customers into one big app…

It emphasizes owning a repo rather than contributing to one that already exists.

Something that's been under discussion for a while at Bushido.

Does bushido help you roll your customers into one big app?

No. Each instance of an app runs in it's own sandboxed environment. That helps you keep your app simple and not worry about scaling for those 10k users. If you want a simpler perspective to look at the service - it sort of provides web apps like mobile apps. Separate instances like how they run on your phone. So tomorrow if there's an online editor app (like Google Docs. Just saying...) on Bushido and you have a Chromebook-like device, you can launch your own instance and that'll all be yours like a separate app. Once there's support for more platforms it'll be easier to see it as "app store for the web". All apps on the web and all you do is launch an instance of apps for yourself.

P.S: I work for Bushido

Re: Bushido (YC S11): An App Store For The Web That Can Kickstart Your Side Projects

#33

Post by SingAlong »

chc wrote: post #10

I thought it sounded intriguing until I realized your entire codebase has to be public. Are there actually any popular SaaS products that are 100% open-source? Releasing open-source components and libraries spun off from your app is one thing, but open-sourcing the whole codebase that constitutes the core of your business? Is that done?

Like sean said, "it won't be for everyone", but there's already a ton of OpenSource apps in Ruby alone (mentioning it coz thats what we support right now) that are old but still work fabulously and are useful.

Example: Mockr (https://github.com/causes/mockr-old). A sweet app that lets you share and review designs among teams (and as per last check, it was unmaintained). We ported it to Bushido with a few extra lines of code and it's here https://github.com/HashNuke/mockr

If you have apps like these, that you think others would find useful, mail me (akash@gobushido.com) and I'll help you with porting it to Bushido. And if you are using Devise for auth, we have a plugin and it's 5 lines of code promise! Most apps that we've ported, we've ensured that they work fine outside of Bushido too (opensource is giving back. right? :)

Re: Bushido (YC S11): An App Store For The Web That Can Kickstart Your Side Projects

#34

Post by SingAlong »

relix wrote: post #5

A good concept, I hope their execution will be excellent and they have some marketing skills, because the latter is what will be hardest in this sector. Everyone can make a single sign-on platform with benefits, but getting those customers - now therein lies the rub. I hope you guys succeed, because I would love to integrate with such a platform.

I hope you guys succeed, because I would love to integrate with such a platform.

You don't have to wait. Just get back to me at akash@gobushido.com and I'll help you port your Rails apps to Bushido. Bonus points if you are using Devise coz we have a plugin for it that makes it so much easier.

Re: Bushido (YC S11): An App Store For The Web That Can Kickstart Your Side Projects

#35

Post by wheels »

biot wrote: post #23
wheels wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who sits on the other side of that equation, $9/month basically translates to "1 support request per month". I've been meaning to do a blog post on such, but an average single support request costs us around $8. So if you've got a business where the average number of support requests per user are dramatically less than 1.0 per user per month, then it can work out, but I suspect there's a proportional suppo…

If I built a product that allowed you to answer support requests 10% faster, then logically you'd be happy paying an additional $750/month per support person for the software?

• No, you can't set your pricing to capture all of the theoretical value that your product creates. Otherwise it's a wash. Also, there's friction in any system, so you not only have to create value (that I get to keep), but do so enough to justify the switching costs.

• No, not unless you have no competitors. And if you have a generic solution to lower support costs by 10%, if you don't have competitors now, you will soon.

• No, software pricing isn't rational. Oh, how I wish it were at times. But in general, unless you're an amazing salesman, your prices have to be at a level that to the customer feel "about right".

Re: Bushido (YC S11): An App Store For The Web That Can Kickstart Your Side Projects

#36

Post by Zakuzaa »

prateekdayal wrote: post #24
callmeed wrote: post #6

I remember when Bushido made the front-page of HN a few months ago (search for details). I was pretty pumped then and am even more so now. One thing that's been on my mind lately is help desk software. The current leaders are way overpriced IMO ($9 to $49 per month per agent –are you serious?) [1], especially when it's best for everyone at a startup to wear the support hat now and then. Not to mention the fact that s…

I think pricing by logins for a support tool is just dumb and prevents you from delivering great customer support. That's why we are working on SupportBee - http://blog.supportbee.com/2011/07/28/why-pricing-by-logins-...

I don't find it dumb. Just a different pricing strategy.

Re: Bushido (YC S11): An App Store For The Web That Can Kickstart Your Side Projects

#39

Post by callmeed »

patio11 wrote: post #30
callmeed wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem. Even small startups use them. Imagine a 4-person startup with 2 co-founders, another engineer and another designer. No full-time support staff, so everyone jumps in from time to time. Unless you make a generic agent account (which is lame for assignment/follow-up), you're talking $100/mo for support. I don't discount the value extracted but to me it reeks of enterprise, per-seat licensing a bit. I…

you're talking $100/mo for support You're also talking $20,000 a month in direct costs if you're paying that engineer and designer market wages, or about $10,000 if you're paying them its-not-exploitation-if-you-have-equity-wages. If next to these numbers you think $100 for software is a lot of money, you are not a desirable client.

It's a lot of money compared to what they spend on other essential SaaS products. A GitHub account for that same team would only cost $12/mo. Bug tracking (assuming you're not using GitHub's), $29/mo. 2 1GB Linode plans, $80/mo. Email from Google Apps, $0/mo.

I think it's less about "a lot of money" and more about there being plenty of room for a competitor. Especially one with a "$49/mo for unlimited agents" model.

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