The change in your past HN posts from "open source order management system" to "open-source Amazon" is a great case of vision selling better than the product itself.
Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
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Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#42A few points I'm skeptical of: simply connect to the seller’s infra instead of locking them in. One of the value-adds of Amazon is there's a whole bunch of tech sellers don't need to know how to write, run, and maintain. You'd need to understand how big the niche "technically literate to run their own e-commerce business, but selling on Amazon for other reasons" is, then how your operation would answer those "other r…
You can always do what bookshop.org did and appeal to social justice and hipster oppression. Talk about supporting "small business" and pretend that everyone's not just dropshipping from asia.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#43I think this is a good solution for businesses that are starting to outgrow their home garages. Here's my feedback: When I read this post and looked at the site I thought you were offering a turnkey drop shipping solution service. I also had the impression that you offered warehousing and other logistical services. I know this is not the case, but it took me several minutes to figure out what exactly was happening.
Wouldn't this be more of an open source Ebay then, if the logistic components, which make up much of Amazon's value, are not there?
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#44Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago.
Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant.
Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a blog post I made in 2019 describing the vision Hence I think you have, regrettably, answered your own question. Its all very well having a vision, but executing it is a different question. The sort of thing you propose requires a lot of time and a lot of money to develop. Let alone maintain. Let alone market and sell. Look, its like all those "Bloomberg killers" that come out of the woodwork as often as the seaso…
> I admire your ambition, but perhaps rein it in a little ? Maaaan if we were in the same room. Don't belittle someone who's trying to accomplish something (and following through with it).
I think this might have brought on more by the multiple submissions but I do agree that it's in HN's spirit to support ambitious endeavors.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#46Love open source projects in the eCommerce domain, especially ones that are JavaScript instead of PHP! Two pieces of feedback: - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. - You've really built an Order Management System for marketplace us…
> - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license.
What makes the AGPL unattractive? I thought it was basically just the GPL with a limitation on using the software to provide a SaaS product. You don't even have to contribute unpublished changes, right?
Before reading your comment I actually checked the licensing in the repo because I was thinking the exact opposite; using MIT would be a mistake because it's too easy to undermine the turnkey offering by selling a competing service without the cost of development.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a blog post I made in 2019 describing the vision Hence I think you have, regrettably, answered your own question. Its all very well having a vision, but executing it is a different question. The sort of thing you propose requires a lot of time and a lot of money to develop. Let alone maintain. Let alone market and sell. Look, its like all those "Bloomberg killers" that come out of the woodwork as often as the seaso…
> I admire your ambition, but perhaps rein it in a little ? Maaaan if we were in the same room. Don't belittle someone who's trying to accomplish something (and following through with it).
> Maaaan if we were in the same room. Don't belittle someone who's trying to accomplish something (and following through with it).
I'm not belittling. I'm just saying set realistic goals. "Build an open-source Amazon" without the budget or the manpower ? Its simply not realistic unless you have very deep pockets and a team of hundreds of full-time staff.
If you think I'm being unduly harsh, what sort of grilling do you think the OP will be subjected to when they rock up at a bank or VC fund looking for a few hundred million ?
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#48The website is ... not the hard part.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#49Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.
Amazon.com is likely the most a/b tested piece of software on the planet. It is ugly and clunky because that's what _works_ - same with Alibaba and Yahoo JP.
Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon
#50Love open source projects in the eCommerce domain, especially ones that are JavaScript instead of PHP! Two pieces of feedback: - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. - You've really built an Order Management System for marketplace us…
> - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. What makes the AGPL unattractive? I thought it was basically just the GPL with a limitation on using the software to provide a SaaS product. You don't even have to contribute unpublished chang…
My 2 cents :
In an ecosystem like this you may want to have businesses build extensions or plugins that they'd sell. GPL has this reputation of spreading to everything it touches, and as such would scare them away.