Can't figure out how to best communicate/explain my idea
Hi Indie Hackers!
Having a lot of trouble communicating my business idea - similar products exist, but not exactly what I’m trying to do (as far as I know).
The problem I'm solving: You’re a solo-dev or small team who wants to launch a SaaS or similar web app, have some coding experience, but you don’t have time to dig deep into learning everything (frontend, backend, infrastructure, etc.).
The idea to solve this: You select what you need for launching a SaaS (e.g. web frontend, user auth, database, payment processing, etc.) and my service generates interconnected code for all these components, and then deploys everything to your cloud account, so that all features are already working together. With a few clicks and for a one-time fee you’d basically get a working, deployed website, which you can then customize to your needs. You also get all the code for all the components. It’s kind of like a template, but not just for the frontend, it includes backend and infrastructure. It’s more powerful and flexible than a site builder, and easier than doing everything yourself on AWS.
Here’s my current attempt at explaining it: launchwolf.com
Do you think the page communicates the basic idea? Is anything missing? What could be improved?
What do you think of the idea? Would you use something like this?
Thanks a bunch!
This reminded me of https://www.meteorkitchen.com/
I think there is definitely a need for this, would think of it as a customizable boilerplate for saas products.
Your explanation is pretty clear, the only thing I would add is some info around who is this specifically for. Something short and punchy for the hero like "Saas boilerplates for not-so-technical founders"
Hey, thanks for your quick feedback, and the link, that looks really neat!
See the problem is, I'm not sure about the "not-so-technical founders" part - I think while site builders and the like are becoming more and more powerful, you do need some coding skills eventually, because you can hit the constraints of these tools pretty quickly, at least from my experience. Which is why I wanted to specifically target coders who just want to save time (also there's a huge market of site builders out there, making it hard to differentiate yourself). Do you think something like this could be interesting to more experienced programmers as well?
Yea I see what you mean.
Hard to say as I'm not a coder myself, but I think there's always value in saving time - the question is how much is it worth :)
Hehe yes, that's the big question :-) Thanks again for your feedback.
Would definitely use something like this, the hardest part of learning to code a web app from scratch has been figuring out what the components are and how to hook them together. I've badly wanted guidance on how front-back-middle are connected. IMO this is what most free learn-to-code resources online lack, focusing on the language itself (important, sure) instead of the architecture.
I've found it much easier to edit an existing codebase to do what I want than to create it from scratch -- can definitely see the need!
One note on the landing page: It moves a bit too fast for me. For example, the call to action tells me to "purchase now" even after just a line of description. If I'm a new entrepreneur, you need to butter me up with more explanation of the specific value you're giving me before you tell me to purchase!
Overall cool service though. Have you thought about offering ongoing support etc?
Thanks a lot for your feedback! I can totally see that asking for a purchase right away is a bit too pushy - might have read too many landing page guides from all the "growth hackers" ;-)
What exactly do you mean when you say support? Support customizing your site? Right now the plan is to just have people email me with any questions they have and I'll support them as much as I can (of course that won't scale in the long run but for now it should be ok). In the future I'd like to also let you add new components later, so say you've already bought our web frontend and backend, and now also need a mobile app that is connected, you could get that too. I could even see myself offering a basic subset for free and just charge for certain features, or even turn it into a subscription service, but that's probably years down the road.
Haha they can be a bit overeager. Every customer's different :)
Essentially yes. Because once someone buys the "template" (good word for this, btw), you're assuming that they'll be able to go in and customize it themselves. If they try and realize "oh crap this is harder than I thought", you can offer them an affordable way to get it done. You can "coach" them via email for a lower price, then offer a done-for-you service for higher. Good to see what the demand is first, but I could imagine this being a substantial enough need for someone to pay for. Just an experiment to run.
I see, makes sense. Thanks for your suggestion!
Do you have an editor for data-model or something? Screen designers? Would it work similar to bubble.is just you can export?
Thanks for your question, this is a sign for me that I'm not communicating this well enough.
No, there is no editor/screen designer. Let's say you select web frontend, user auth and database. You'd get access to a repo containing HTML/CSS/JS code for the frontend, which is already connected to user auth on Firebase, which is already connected to the Firebase Cloud Firestore (=database). Everything will be deployed and you can already register new users, and store data associated with them in the database. You'd edit the datamodel directly in the Firebase console. After the initial setup, there wouldn't be a reason to use my service again (at least for now).
It's not a platform that runs on our infrastructure, it's just a starter template you run in your own cloud account. You do need coding skills to use it afterwards.
Does that make any sense? Any ideas how I can communicate this better?
“SaaS in a box”?
Haha you've also read that post about business ideas/problems on Hacker News, haven't you? :D
I did consider this as a name/explanation, but I think it has a negative connotation, implying that it's a black box. Whereas my product is not a platform, but instead something that runs on your own cloud account and is fully customizable.
I haven’t seen that thread. Been trying to limit my HN time lately.
Fair. My experience as a kid is you get X in a box shipped to you and you do whatever you want with it.
I think it’s concise and clear.
Would be interesting to just survey some people and see what they think it is given we’re just two data points :)
Good idea. Do you know where/how to run surveys like this?
There’s plenty of free survey tools online. Regarding finding people, you could probably put out a separate request on IH for people to take the survey (so they’re not “tainted” by this thread.
It could also be insightful to just have 5 Skype conversations where you can ask them what they think the service provides. This gives you the ability to have really good follow ups and develop good insight (instead of just getting data points with a survey).
Cool I'll try that, thanks a lot for your help!
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Right now most components are just based on Firebase (which doesn't use a specific language), except for the Frontend which is just some HTML/CSS/JS with a bit of JQuery and a few templates, and payments which uses Stripe. In the future you'll be able to select the language/technology for each component, and also choose which host to deploy to. Thanks for the question, gotta communicate that better.
May I ask, why would you never use something like this? Not trying to be pushy, just wanna figure out your thought process, especially since I'm trying to market to other developers.
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I see, you'd wanna work with tools that are already familiar, makes sense.
To answer your question, Firebase is a platform-as-service, kind of a managed backend.
In your example, you'd have to read up a little bit on how the data models work in the Firebase docs (https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/data-model) or look at the data model that is already set up in the code/infrastructure that you bought from me. Then you could connect Firebase Cloud functions that listen for transactions and call whatever other service you'd want to use for sending the text messages.
I'm planning on adding a FAQ/knowledge base that explains how to do common tasks, and where you'd find more information/docs. But from your post I get the feeling that still wouldn't quite convince you, your main gripe is that you'd want to work with familiar technologies, right?
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I see, choice is important. Thanks a lot for your feedback!