Stackdraft
Create and present 2D/3D cloud architecture diagrams
I created Stackdraft, because I wanted a better tool for both creating and presenting cloud architecture diagrams, that was compelling to viewers. Architecture diagrams shouldn't be boring, just like Stackdraft isn't :D
Crossed 10 subscribed users!
Growing slowly, but steadily. Currently at 12 subscribed users, $120 MRR.
Full update here:
Stackdraft Early Adopter - update #2
I have just sent out the second update via e-mail to Stackdraft's Early Adopters (including pre-launch insiders). To me, it's a way of saying thank you for their early support and a way to keep them posted on the details of product development.
This time, I informed my users about a whole bunch of UX improvements to Stackdraft. Feature quality is certainly more important to me than quantity, so I was happy to prioritise improvements to the user experience.
About Early Adopters
Stackdraft Early Adopters not only get access to Stackdraft for an equivalent of a BigMac meal per month, but are on an exclusive plan that will get more features as Stackdraft grows. I'll be worth a multiple of what it currently is, so if you're a cloud architect or a cloud related conference speaker, this is the perfect time to subscribe.
Stackdraft Early Adopter - update #1
I just sent out the very first update via e-mail to Stackdraft's Early Adopters (including pre-launch insiders). I really like to communicate with my users, because every, even tiniest bit of feedback is invaluable to improving my product. I would like the product roadmap to be driven by and for my customers, because they know best where the value is and what they want to pay for.
Stackdraft Early Adopters not only get access to Stackdraft for an equivalent of a BigMac meal per month, but are on an exclusive plan that will get more features as Stackdraft grows. I'll be worth a multiple of what it currently is, so if you're a cloud architect or a cloud related conference speaker, this is the perfect time to subscribe.
I also just announced first 3D models of a couple of AWS services. I think they look pretty darn neat! What do you think :)? (Click Twitter link for GIF!)
https://twitter.com/stackdraft_io/status/1036557211554787331
The launch!
I launched stackdraft.io on the following sites:
ProductHunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/stackdraft-beta
HackerNews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17733812
IndieHackers: https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/show-ih-stackdraft-create-and-present-3d-cloud-architecture-diagrams-047b603c05
I tried to be direct and personal in my communication, professional, but not too business-y, because, well, I'm was on my own. The launch on IndieHackers was a bit more personal, as I knew this community was exactly just like myself.
As it usually goes, if you don't do much marketing beforehand (I had no mailing list and not too many followers on my personal Twitter), the launch was a bit underwhelming.
"Build it, and they will come"-not style underwhelming ;)
The posts received some attention and a few comments (the interaction in the comments made me very happy), but I wasn't convinced, if the decision on the "card up-front"+14 day trial was the right one (I intend to write a separate article about that). In any case, the show must go on, so I kept an eye on the launch pages to reply to any comments (which very soon silenced) and went back to improving the product. I should definitely have invested more in marketing and stirring up hype, but that's how we programmers are. Focus too much on the product, too little on marketing ;).
Last thoughts on American Express
I use Braintree as my payment service provider. I was set up to accept payments in EUR and in USD... or so I thought.
I had 2 customers, who couldn't register with American Express cards. Turned out, to accept USD payments specifically from AmEx cards, I had to register with them separately, and hook that into Braintree.
I created a thread on IH, where I described some of that mildly weird experience.
Need help testing?
An engineer from DigitalOcean reached out with an offer to help testing Stackdraft. I was pleasantly surprised - the product wasn't live yet, but I was in contact with DigitalOcean requesting their icons, so they knew very well what I was cooking :). I was also posting updates to my personal Twitter account with GIFs and screenshots, so they could see a bit more. I created two insider accounts for them to play around and received some constructive feedback. Sweet!
Need feedback. Get creative!
I'll later update this post with more fun details, but 2 months into building the MVP (I still had nothing to let users in, but I could screen share some stuff already) - this is how I got creative and caught attention of the original author of the gigantic "Obama for America" AWS architecture diagram, who at that time turned out to be the Director of Google Cloud. We later talked and it was fantastic. I am so thankful!
Scratch my own itch
Around mid February I wanted to create a diagram of an infrastructure I was planning, for documentation purposes. I was researching diagramming tools on-line, but honestly the output of most was just ugly. There was only one tool that had diagrams in this AWS-like isometric projection, but it was AWS only, and I wanted to create a DigitalOcean infra diagram.
At the time, I read some about a JavaScript WebGL library, three.js. I decided to have a bit fun, and try create my own. A few days later I was like interesting... let's try some more. A week later this is shaping up, not bad. Two weeks later I had a working prototype and proved myself that, even without prior experience in 3D graphics, I could probably build something nice.
That's when I started hacking on this day and night.