First Project Post Acquisition
Hey all! I bootstrapped and sold my first SaaS startup two years ago - an Electronic Health Record system for the autism space. I worked for the acquirer until last month, which was an amazing experience, and now I'm getting started building again!
I just built https://mernkit.com a MERN stack SaaS boilerplate to handle all the SaaSy stuff that has nothing to do with the actual product (subscriptions, user management, permissions etc). I built it for myself so I could iterate quickly, but then figured I might as well offer it to others while I'm at it.
Most startup kits want a larger upfront fee, but I hate laying out cash when I'm trying to figure out product/market fit so I'm offering it for $9.99 a month with the option to buy the code at anytime. What do you all think? What's missing that you would need to use this product? Would you even use this type of product?
Perhaps this is just me, but for me to consider MERN Kit, it would have to be really early on, before I have any code on my product at all. At that point, I wouldn't be comfortable spending $10/mo (or any cost for that matter). There are so many free boilerplates out there when starting a new project.
I'd be more comfortable if this was free for me to use and prototype early on, but there was some licensing fee past a certain point? Or better yet, if you found a completely different monetization strategy. For instance, if this is not going to be your main gig, you could consider just having a github, and when it becomes popular, get sponsors/patreons or sell banner space on your github readme. A few popular JS repos have this.
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond! I really appreciate it!
Yes it would be for someone just starting out looking to prototype fast - which is what I'm using it for. I agree with you - a lot of the commercial kits I've seen charge $300-1000+ which I'd never pay just starting out before I was pretty sure I have fit at which point I've already coded a lot.
Paying $10 to save 100+ hours of development makes sense to me, but hey, that's why I'm offering it :).
Thank you again!
Paying $10, or even $30 as a one time fee sounds way better to me (as a customer - though it's not great for you as the creator lol)
Check out cruip.com if you haven't already. You share a very similar target market. Cruip is a product I have paid for just because it's really high quality, really cheap and has a long LTV for me (not to be confused with the LTV a customer has TO YOU).