We're launching UNUBO, our first product and are documenting it all, right here on Indie Hackers.
This is the first article in our 5-part launch journey, where I’ll be writing in detail how we approached each part, plus results - good and bad.
Who?
I'm Leandro and together with my brother and co-founder Marcel, we're launching our first product, UNUBO. So, who the hell am I? Just an 80's baby from the UK, who has lived and worked in more countries I care to count, that has spent the last 17 years in tech working for someone else - who is now executing on his one good product idea.
OK, enough of the semi 3rd person voice, it's getting weird (in my head, I just read the entire last paragraph in movie trailer voice 😁).
What?
We built UNUBO to help you easily manage cloud app costs. You can see how much you spend on app subscriptions per month, per quarter and per year - amongst other features.
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This has been some time in the making and we’re excited to get it into the hands of people.
Why?
A lot of companies use a variety of apps such as Trello, Slack, GitHub, G Suite and more to run their business.
As the list of apps grows, the problem is that businesses often don't have a clear view on what they spend on those apps collectively, and figuring that out is mostly a manual process - enter the spreadsheet.
I experienced this frustration at the last startup I worked for as the Head of IT, when I was asked by finance how much was collectively spent on ~50 SaaS apps the company had subscribed to.
When looking for a solution and not finding anything suitable, I knew I had to go about creating it myself. When I say creating, I mean to find someone to build it - you see, I don’t code!
OK, but why Indie Hackers?
It is the community for people who are passionately making and launching stuff. We're all in the same boat and I'd like to share our journey with you - what works and what doesn't.
Hey, maybe you'll learn a thing or two right along with me (psst, spoiler alert: I have no idea what I'm doing).
Everyone is really engaged here, so I want to get honest feedback and hopefully use that to build something really useful.
Being a master procrastinator, I'm also using this as a public accountability tool of sorts. Helps me kill that procrastination monkey 😉.
Awesome, so what now?
We've set the 🚀 date to 1 September and have started things off by creating an Upcoming page on the almighty Product Hunt.
At each stage of the launch I'll post an article here, including details about what I did with accompanying results - good and bad.
Here's the schedule I'll be following:
➡️ Part 1: Product Hunt Upcoming (general intro) - Our pre-launch page will be featured on Product Hunt's Upcoming section, on Tue 29 Aug, but guess what.. you can already access and subscribe to it now if you like. I will return and update with results.
✅ Part 1.5: Product Hunt Upcoming (results)
This is what I'll use to kick things off with UNUBO. Come back and check out the results of this little experiment!
Thanks for stopping by and reading or upvoting. Any questions for me? How about advice, is there something I'm missing when it comes to launching?
Is there something you're launching soon? Would love to hear from you in the comments.
I hang out on Twitter, come say "hi" 🖖🏾.
What's the story behind the name UNUBO?
This is the right move. Always good to keep a fire at your heels with a commitment to future progress.
Looking forward to hearing about your Product Hunt launch in part two!
Hey Channing, thanks for your comment! Things definitely became a lot more laser focused once we set that date. Slightly scary as we're doing this publicly, but equal amounts exciting.
UNUBO is a blend of the words "unigi nubo", which means "unify cloud" in Esperanto. Unifying cloud apps is at the centre of what we do.
Esperanto, if you didn't already know, was an attempt at a universal European language.
Interesting. Hadn't heard of it but Wikipedia just gave me a thorough five-minute education. 😉
Tech entrepreneurs — and especially bootstrappers — who put themselves out there are the ones who do best. People love following stories, so keep putting yours out there.
Good luck!
Thank you Channing, will do!
Thanks for stopping by and reading or upvoting if you did!
Are any of you launching something soon? If you launched in any of the places mentioned in the article, how did it go?
Also let me know if you generally have any questions.
Would love to hear from you, so hit me up in the comments.
Hi guys,
Great stuff - love the enthusiasm and documentation you are doing. You will learning a LOT for sure! :)
That said, looking at youe product, I honestly think there are many solutions already available for this. Each expense for the cloud apps used will be triggered in the financial software used (xero, quickbooks etc) and then they can all be tracked in any tool using certain filters .
One of my main work is that I build executive dashboards using Klipfolio and domo as my main tools and this can be easily then actually.
Not sure if this product is a good idea or more importantly, if there is even a market or need for it.
Just my thoughts - you should just think about it and still keep going. I hope you prove me wrong and your product is a success! Best wishes! :)
Thanks for your comment, Pravin! You're right, there are a few in the market that do this, and we're fully aware of what we're up against (simple spreadsheets included).
Before building anything I checked with people and businesses, to see if this is something they would use and pay for. Luckily the response was positive.
Without any tinkering, UNUBO will give you a real time snapshot of collective cost (not spend) for app subscriptions. As the number of users goes up or down per app (or whatever else is used to calculate cost), the dashboard is dynamically updated.
The way we connect to the APIs of various apps we integrate to, there is a lot we are planning to do with the information beyond cost, which is just the beginning.
For example, at any time we know how many users have access to particular apps, including access levels.
When you mention tools such as Xero, you're limiting the scope of people who can access it. UNUBO is for anyone who administers apps. This could be a freelancer, an IT manger, or just anyone who wants to simply keep track of their growing app subscription costs.
Most of all we are offering something incredibly simple, whilst doing complex stuff in the background.
We will most certainly carry on with this, so watch this space ✌🏾
Super, makes sense mate!
FYI font's are loading correctly @ https://unubo.com/early-access/
You mean the share icons? If it's that then I got rid of them. Didn't need to be there.
Let me know if you meant something else.
It was the share icons.
Yeah, I didn't like those. Thanks for pointing it out!
This is very nice from you, Leandro.
The idea of UNUBO is very interesting.
Working at Plainflow.com (Customer Data Platform) this is something I see every single day I talk to founders.
The SaaS landscape completely redesigned the paradigm under which people and organizations work. The shift from all-in-one solutions software to a more decentralized and fragmented plethora of SaaS product is now very clear.
I've been hearing many ppl saying that at some point the industry needs to consolidate — in reality companies keep choosing the best world-class software vertical on specific needs.
Also, pretty nice your write up ("I don’t know what I’m doing.. and that’s OK"). People tend the underestimate the value of trial and error over knowledge. Romans didn't know anything about Euclidean geometry, they had their own heuristics. It turned out it worked pretty well.
Thanks Leonardo!
The development of the SaaS landscape certainly is interesting, with the shift from old enterprise becoming more and more apparent.
We'll see where it it all goes next. There are a few companies that are starting to move towards PaaS (platform as a service), by offering complementary tools as part of a larger puzzle. Buffer for example is starting to head in that direction.
All in all however, you're right in saying that companies are mostly choosing tools for specific needs - good for us building solutions for those needs, right?
It's very interesting what you're doing with Plainflow - I see some crossover, in that we are communicating with various APIs and doing something useful with it - for you on a customer level of course.
Thanks for also reading my other article, I'm glad it resonated. It's definitely all about experimenting, seeing what works and what doesn't, taking notes and learning along the way.
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