The implementation of Cronhub is so simple and yet so well thought out. I wish the service had been around when I first started out my journey as a Jr Linux admin.
Years ago when I was starting out as a Junior Linux admin, I was tasked with modifying some shell scripts that were executed by cron jobs. Of course I made mistakes, and my manager missed what I did wrong (lack of time or just simple mistake on his part also) and that caused multiple cron jobs to fail, silently. By the time it was caught, drives were filled, services had been stopped due to full drives, etc and etc.
It was ugly. Hopefully this tool will save the day for other Jr Linux admins out there.
From your experience so far, how critical is it to have a blog directly on your site vs. only having a Medium blog? I personally have moved away from hosting a blog myself and just pushing everything to Medium. Is this a bad idea from a user experience perspective and also an SEO perspective?
I just launched this site (https://www.mynext.team/) and I want to start blogging for it but trying to determine the best strategy so I'm being most effective with my time/content. (Local Blog? Medium Blog? Does the blog need to be branded specifically to the site or can I just use my general blog? etc.?
Any ideas would be much appreciated!
5
This is a great question!
My only advice is not overthinking in the beginning and just writing quality content.
For me, I always want to expose my writings to a larger audience that will be interested in my writings so I publish them on Cronhub's blog first and then republish on Medium and Indie Hackers.
Publishing on your own brand domain has benefits because it helps you with SEO. This brings another question that people wonder whether your blog should be a subdomain or subdirectory. Most people I talked to recommended the subdirectory approach.
I'm not an expert here but what my gut is telling me here is to focus on writing quality content and exposing it to a larger audience. This is what matters imo.
1
Perfect, thanks!
3
Congrats! Nice read too.
Regarding:
Something I didn’t expect at all is seeing almost half of my customers choosing the yearly billing plan over monthly. I don’t know if I should make some conclusions here but I may if I see this pattern repeats when I gain more customers and data points.
I think most companies really hate monthly billing because it literally makes the book keeping 12x more cumbersome to perform.
3
Tigran, you've got a great writing style. I very much enjoyed reading the article. I can really feel the human being behind this project.
I often see small SaaS business using Intercom which looks good but for me seem to be an expensive solution for a starter... You mention having 57$/m of expenses where intercom only cost 49$/m.
Seeing all those startups using it makes me wonder whether we should do the same at simplebackups.io but not sure about the value I could get out of it compared to a free solution like Crisp.
Thanks for the article and I wish you the best for your project!
1
Thanks for the reply! I'm always concerned with spending at an early stage.
Right now I'm only using free Drip account and free Crisp for chat.
Will check if intercom could be adding any value to my current "service stack".
1
When I posted my article I was still in the trial for Intercom so I didn't include it in my expenses. However, I think it's worth it. I'm switching Intercom from Drift and the difference is just unbelievable.
What's the value I get from Intercom?
Customer support
Connecting with leads
Keeping track of my active users
Easily sending emails to any of my users
Daily digest of new sign-ups and possible leads
and more.
I think it's worth it to spend $49 even in the early stage as I am. :)
When I decided to make content as my primary marketing channel I started a blog with a new subdomain blog.cronhub.io. With the new blog, my intention was to squeeze all the SEO benefits.
Does the SEO juice carry over from the main domain to the new subdomain? Curious as to how you made the decision (I'm in position to make a similar decision shortly).
2
I think it does but can be wrong.
2
Super helpful, just launched a beta and working on getting those first customers :)
2
Barev Aper! Shat lav!
1
Interesting about freeCodeCamp. I tried to publish a story there a month ago, but it's still "being reviewed". What's your experience on delay on that or on any interaction?
1
It usually takes couple days to get it approved/declined and then another week to get your article publish :)
1
Thanks for writing this. Really good to get inside stories on how you built something, shipped it, and found your first x users 🙌🏻
I like the statement on the website: "I built Cronhub to scratch my own itch". This makes it really awesome.
The response from Joel Gascoigne via Twitter made me think on something related: The Value Proposition Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder.
It is a really easy but powerfull canvas that makes clear how your product generates VALUE for the people using it.
Recommending it to make sure that what you build, is what is wanted.
1
Thanks, Edwin, I'm still figuring out the right value proposition for Cronhub so this is useful. Thanks for sharing! :)
1
YW, and thank YOU for sharing your story. It's why IH is here; we help eachother out! 🙌🏻
1
Hey, so I'm looking to create a blog subdomain for my SaaS as well. Are you using wordpress for your blog?
If so, what theme is it and did you have to set up a seperate server for it? Thanks!
1
Yes, a separate Digital Ocean server with pre-installed Wordpress. It's been quite straightforward with DO. I'm using this great theme. https://themebeans.com/themes/tabor/
The implementation of Cronhub is so simple and yet so well thought out. I wish the service had been around when I first started out my journey as a Jr Linux admin.
Years ago when I was starting out as a Junior Linux admin, I was tasked with modifying some shell scripts that were executed by cron jobs. Of course I made mistakes, and my manager missed what I did wrong (lack of time or just simple mistake on his part also) and that caused multiple cron jobs to fail, silently. By the time it was caught, drives were filled, services had been stopped due to full drives, etc and etc.
It was ugly. Hopefully this tool will save the day for other Jr Linux admins out there.
Wish you continued progress on this project.
Thank you and thanks for sharing your story.
Great read @tigran
From your experience so far, how critical is it to have a blog directly on your site vs. only having a Medium blog? I personally have moved away from hosting a blog myself and just pushing everything to Medium. Is this a bad idea from a user experience perspective and also an SEO perspective?
I just launched this site (https://www.mynext.team/) and I want to start blogging for it but trying to determine the best strategy so I'm being most effective with my time/content. (Local Blog? Medium Blog? Does the blog need to be branded specifically to the site or can I just use my general blog? etc.?
Any ideas would be much appreciated!
This is a great question!
My only advice is not overthinking in the beginning and just writing quality content.
For me, I always want to expose my writings to a larger audience that will be interested in my writings so I publish them on Cronhub's blog first and then republish on Medium and Indie Hackers.
Publishing on your own brand domain has benefits because it helps you with SEO. This brings another question that people wonder whether your blog should be a subdomain or subdirectory. Most people I talked to recommended the subdirectory approach.
I'm not an expert here but what my gut is telling me here is to focus on writing quality content and exposing it to a larger audience. This is what matters imo.
Perfect, thanks!
Congrats! Nice read too.
Regarding:
I think most companies really hate monthly billing because it literally makes the book keeping 12x more cumbersome to perform.
Tigran, you've got a great writing style. I very much enjoyed reading the article. I can really feel the human being behind this project.
Thanks, Alex! It means a lot to me.
Great read @tigran. Thanks for sharing!
I often see small SaaS business using Intercom which looks good but for me seem to be an expensive solution for a starter... You mention having 57$/m of expenses where intercom only cost 49$/m.
Seeing all those startups using it makes me wonder whether we should do the same at simplebackups.io but not sure about the value I could get out of it compared to a free solution like Crisp.
Thanks for the article and I wish you the best for your project!
Thanks for the reply! I'm always concerned with spending at an early stage.
Right now I'm only using free Drip account and free Crisp for chat.
Will check if intercom could be adding any value to my current "service stack".
When I posted my article I was still in the trial for Intercom so I didn't include it in my expenses. However, I think it's worth it. I'm switching Intercom from Drift and the difference is just unbelievable.
What's the value I get from Intercom?
Customer support
Connecting with leads
Keeping track of my active users
Easily sending emails to any of my users
Daily digest of new sign-ups and possible leads
and more.
I think it's worth it to spend $49 even in the early stage as I am. :)
Intercom is totally worth it. I wrote a post on their blog about how we've used it as a small bootstrapped business: https://www.intercom.com/blog/how-intercom-helped-a-bootstrapped-saas-business-punch-above-its-weight/
Great job there brother! Happy to see you shine.
Thanks :)
Very cool and thanks for the transparency!
Does the SEO juice carry over from the main domain to the new subdomain? Curious as to how you made the decision (I'm in position to make a similar decision shortly).
I think it does but can be wrong.
Super helpful, just launched a beta and working on getting those first customers :)
Barev Aper! Shat lav!
Interesting about freeCodeCamp. I tried to publish a story there a month ago, but it's still "being reviewed". What's your experience on delay on that or on any interaction?
It usually takes couple days to get it approved/declined and then another week to get your article publish :)
Thanks for writing this. Really good to get inside stories on how you built something, shipped it, and found your first x users 🙌🏻
I like the statement on the website: "I built Cronhub to scratch my own itch". This makes it really awesome.
The response from Joel Gascoigne via Twitter made me think on something related: The Value Proposition Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder.
It is a really easy but powerfull canvas that makes clear how your product generates VALUE for the people using it.
It puts relations between pains and expected gains and your product/service. (see an example explanation of the canvas here: https://designabetterbusiness.com/2017/10/12/how-to-really-understand-your-customer-with-the-value-proposition-canvas/)
Recommending it to make sure that what you build, is what is wanted.
Thanks, Edwin, I'm still figuring out the right value proposition for Cronhub so this is useful. Thanks for sharing! :)
YW, and thank YOU for sharing your story. It's why IH is here; we help eachother out! 🙌🏻
Hey, so I'm looking to create a blog subdomain for my SaaS as well. Are you using wordpress for your blog?
If so, what theme is it and did you have to set up a seperate server for it? Thanks!
Yes, a separate Digital Ocean server with pre-installed Wordpress. It's been quite straightforward with DO. I'm using this great theme. https://themebeans.com/themes/tabor/
Awesome! Thanks!