I open-sourced my SaaS dev tool
Hey there,
I've decided to have my backend-as-a-service product StaticBackend released as an open source project with the MIT license.
Some links:
Couple of reasons to do this:
- I think developer tools like this have better chance of getting traction when having open source option.
- I failed at getting enough traction / revenue and I'm now hoping to discover the actual potential of the product.
- I'm using it in production for other SaaS projects, it does solve real problems, it just need some exposure.
Why I failed at getting to profitability
Those are mostly supposition from my part.
- It's a hard ask to developers to trust a small company of 1 with hosting their app's backend and database. I was offering self-hosting and even source code licenses, but I had it backward where I was thinking that the self-hosted / source code licenses should be in the 4 figures price range.
- Being closed source was making the product directly competing against Firebase, eventhough there were self-hosted / source code option to purchase. Developers wanting to use a BaaS are attracted by the generous free offering of Firebase and of course, the reputation.
- I didn't do a great job of trying to reach out as much as I could. Marketing was hard because I was getting the two above points constantly reminded (with reasons).
I'm still very much attached to this project, I love it, I'm passionate about it and I now want to see where it can go being a fully open source project.
I'll continue to offer the managed version, hopefully as(if?) the open source project grows the trust should be less of an issue.
And before someone ask, no I'm not afraid of someone taking the code and starting a SaaS with it because they'll have exactly the same issues I have and I don't think traction can be achieve without a solid open source presence.
Any feedback and thoughts are much appreciated :)
