Please vet my startup idea: Get your SAAS up and running in record time with Nextbase
I am building a boilerplate called Nextbase for Indie Makers to build SAAS products quickly.
A SAAS requires more than just the core idea to succeed. Teams, Payments integrations, projects, authentication etc are all essential ingredients of every SAAS . These features usually take weeks to build and few thousands of dollars to spend. And you require them for every SAAS you build.
Nextbase is the ultimate SAAS starter for building scalable, feature-rich SAAS applications. It integrates three powerful technologies – Next.js, Supabase, and Stripe – to provide a seamless, end-to-end solution for building and deploying your app.
With Nextbase, you'll have access to a range of components for all the essential features your SAAS needs, including teams, application admin panels, and user profiles. These components are designed to be quick and easy to customize, so you can get your app up and running in no time. It is also fully typed with Typescript, comes with unit tests and integration test setups helping you sleep peacefully at night.
Your users will be able to login with any popular auth provider, create/manage projects, be able to invite team members to them and manage their stripe subscriptions. They will also be able to upload assets in public, user level and team level scopes and determine who can view their assets.
All that remains is to build your core SAAS functionality on top of it.
As an indie hacker, would you be interested in a product such as this? If yes, what are the things you are REALLY looking for in it? If no, why not?
Thanks!
Maybe I would use it, but it really depends on the type of product I would be working on. The problem for me is usual that there are many features that I do not need, what makes that it is bloated (to me). At the other hand is it usually also missing some features that I do need. The problem is in that case that I have to learn about the existing codestructure, which is not always that easy.
At the other hand are more of such boilerplates developed and many of them do a good job, so there is definitely a market for it
Your comment made me wonder if I should release the starter kit I created for my projects. It is mostly a collection of packages that work together on a common base with a CLI that facilitates installing/removing them. I think this would solve the bloated issue, as you would only use the modules you need.
I think that should really be a good idea, but all things: it depends whether releasing it would be a good idea.
Indeed multiple modules would in my opinion be very powerful for a boilerplate, but at the other hand is testing of it and usability also very important for boilerplates.
But when you would release it, please notify us, because dependent on the techstack and such, I could be interested!
At the other hand: releasing a boilerplate also requires usually some support to buyers, it's just the question whether you think releasing it and giving support is worth it
👍 Very true. I am trying to find the right balance between what most users would find useful and not bloated.
Are there any features that you would REALLY want to see in Nextbase?
Also, I didn't think of "The problem is in that case that I have to learn about the existing codestructure, which is not always that easy." at all. Very valid point. What, in your opinion, can make this easier? Good documentation, comments, anything else?
Thanks 🙏
What I really would see I'm nextbase is difficult to tell, first because I'm mainly focused on dotnet, second because every SaaS is different. I think that it really would be interested to have a base with just auth for example. Then different modules should be loaded, based on users config. This could include something like a module to make use of a CQRS architecture, and such. At the other hand is it of course also a valid decision to just build an app with some default features, because there will also be a market for just that features of course
For the second one: firstly it is needed to have a very clear architecture / design. Secondly documentation is very important indeed. There should be explained the structure (also why some choices are made) and there should for example be explained how to add new features to the app. Finally, it would in my opinion be very nice to have tests, to validate the correct working of the core of the application.
Very insightful! Thanks @Jvds!
I have written about this earlier in Micro SaaS Ideas and this is a very good niche. Most players are charging $100-$1500/year for Yearly updates. Start with LTDs and then have an incremental increase.
Here are a few I recently mentioned in my blog: https://microsaashq.com/insights/saas-starter-kits-boilerplates
Awesome! 💯 Thanks for sharing this link!
More power!!
Just want to quickly update this thread: We went ahead and built this.
https://usenextbase.com
More detailed thread coming shortly. Love you all!
I'm working on a similar idea but with ruby on rails. you can check it out here https://github.com/tarunvelli/rails-tabler-starter.
Would love to hear from you, and I'm open to collaborate in anyway if possible.
Hey bhargav, I think its a great idea. Coming from a tech background myself, I was actually searching for SaaS boilerplate but couldn't find a great one on the internet (github, etc). I think there are many like me and it hits the pain point for us.
One suggestion I have is make 2 versions, one free for users to play with limited features around and one Paid version with all features. Its a new market and you can surely do great,
All the best
Thanks for your insights! We are sure you will love nextbase.
Love this idea - I built a SaaS startup and we had to build out payments, integrations, etc from scratch which I feel like could've been boilerplate.
So good to hear this!
Lots of us are doing the same, and fairly profitably; I see no reason why you wouldn't succeed as long as your offering clicks with an audience.
Love this!