All these "generic" apps like notes, photo, project management etc will all be bought once they become successful and be consumed by one of the existing giants in the space. On one hand I would love to try out all the latest and greatest apps. On the other hand, I already know that they will either a) shutdown OR b) sell my data OR c) show ads or some such nonsense.
Why can't people just build products and ask for money upfront? Is bootstrapping really so out of fashion? The startup agenda is either make a billion dollar company or go home. Nothing in between. Very sad (I even saw Sam in some video last week asking 'how do you become a monopoly'?) Why this obsession to grow massive?
I guess that one reason bootstrapping is so tough is that it requires a lot of time, usually years, to even start to imagine one day living off of your company.
Imagine you have this nice business idea, which you have been working on for countless hours after work to make it become an awesome product. You sacrife your free time and maybe even health or friendships. You start to feel bad for every day you don't work on your product, as you know it all depends on you, and maybe a couple of co-founders. You know your product is great and it could make many customers happy. Yet what you earn from your it is peanuts and you don't see how this will change any time soon.
In that scenario, venture capital or a buy-out seem like a very appealing idea. After all, if you've come this far, it means that your product means a lot to you and you have more ideas than time. And suddenly knowing that you could get a decent amount of money to quit your "boring" daily job and make all these ideas come true gets even more interesting.
That burning desire to make your "baby" succeed should not be underestimated. That's why so many startups try hard to get a decent funding. I can't blame them, because I've been there. Heck, if a "big player" came to my little startup and offered a good deal, I would probably more than consider taking it. In the end, life is short and you can only build so many valuable things in your life that might have an impact and make a difference.
Still, I'm happy to have a fully bootstrapped startup that is not yet bringing enough money to quit my job. It is tough, it takes a lot of patience, and even more sacrifice every day. But also the prospect of making it profitable enough to have a small team that can work on your idea has a special kind of appeal. Not wanting to be the next Google or Facebook is a good thing in my opinion, but I understand that there is a lot of people who just burn with desire to push their ideas forward faster. Can't blame them for that.
I think you're attacking a straw man - this situation is nothing like the typical pattern of "acquire company, shut down the product". Hackpad has been running for years since it was acquired (everyone in our company uses it regularly). Dropbox Paper is basically a newer, better version of Hackpad. Anyone using Hackpad can "upgrade" by moving all of their pads into Paper. We just moved over - it was easy and cost nothing.
> Why can't people just build products and ask for money upfront?
As the owner/founder/author of a bootstrapped SaaS app, I can answer that:
People really, really, REALLY do not want to pay. Really. The dominating perception is that software should be free, or if not free, paid with a one-time purchase in the single-digit dollars. The aversion to paying is huge, you have to provide a "can't live without" feature for people to (grudgingly) pull out their wallets.
Also, if you actually do the numbers as a business owner, it turns out that consumer SaaS apps are difficult to sustain financially. With a small number of customers, there just isn't enough money, and if your customer base grows, complexity and costs step in. My SaaS only has paid business tiers for now, starting at $39/month, because much as I try, I can't see how I can make anything cheaper work. It's easy to underestimate costs if you've never ran a business.
I decided to stick with it, charge subscription fees, grow very slowly and see where it takes me, but that is a hard and slow path. I estimate it will take me another year (for an overall of 3 years) to get to a sustainable income stream.
> Why can't people just build products and ask for money upfront?
Because not enough users are willing to pay. The few which would pay won't even cover the increased support effort.
But anyway if you come so far to learn this you already have been kind of successful, because usually it is impossible to get enough attention for your paid app anyway.
I think you're falsely equating "asking for money" with remaining independent in the long-term, I think Hackpad in this case was successful: I know of several companies that used their paid "enterprise" offering for years. At Airbnb we used Hackpad extensively as our wiki in the engineering team.
In many ways Dropbox Paper is like Hackpad 2.0, but it has different branding. Hackpad continued to run long after Dropbox bought them - for 3 years!
This is less of an "our incredible journey" then you think.
Without scale and access to users they are serving as a free user research/prototype for monopoly corporations.
See eg. Sublime text and VS Code. Thank you, Sublime text for validating and educating the market, we'll take it from there with our better and free offering.
>The startup agenda is either make a billion dollar company or go home.
>Why this obsession to grow massive?
It's not just startups. Every publicly traded company is focused on growth. You could have many billions of revenue and billions in profit, but if you aren't growing you're failing. I don't agree with this, but the stock market certainly does.
> Why can't people just build products and ask for money upfront?
Asking for money is such an huge entry barrier. Even if it would only cost one cent, it would still stop 99.99% of the users from using it.
I was kinda hoping for Bitcoin to fix this. But now it already cost a lot to make a transaction, and you can't instantly verify the payment. Paper money was a huge step, electronic payment was another huge step, lets take the next step!
>All these "generic" apps like notes, photo, project management etc will all be bought once they become successful and be consumed by one of the existing giants in the space.
It's already happening. For example, the Microsoft Office365 cloud suite of apps is looking pretty comprehensive.
>Why can't people just build products and ask for money upfront?
They can. Why can't they?
>The startup agenda is either make a billion dollar company or go home.
A certain kind of start-up with a certain kind of investment model. Lots of startups grow to be medium sized business.
A year or two ago when I was running the SageMath booth at a conference a woman (with a Eastern European accent, I think) walked up to me and said "My son co-founded Hackpad. Their company recently got bought by Dropbox. I was so happy because he said now he can finally eat!!"
Hackpad was cofounded by one the original authors of Tomboy, which was a really excellent desktop note taking app that has withered since. It was based on a fork of Etherpad, which was a startup that made a multiplayer, web based note application- that company was purchased by Google, the code open sourced, and the service wound down. Sort of a long sad trip.
I really liked Tomboy, I enjoyed Hackpad, although I quit using it over time- I collaborate much less now.
I don't take notes anymore, with software or on paper.
To be fair - dropbox has shown considerable restraint here. In all that time hackpad was useful and not apparently neglected. And given dropbox gives a small footprint for free, and a bit more of you make virtual instances and email codes to yourself, its not the worst in rent seeking.
There's this open source version of Hackpad, under Dropbox's Github account. Apparently, it's an obsolete version, since the last commit made dates back to two years ago.
Not sure whether they would take down this repo too.
Shameless plug here, but if you were using Hackpad for meeting notes, links, code snippets and other short work notes, you should give https://memo.ai a try!
We're building Memo, a note-taking app for technical teams. We integrate deeply with Slack which makes it super easy to save notes while in Slack, and you can write notes using both Markdown and Slack formatting (including @users, #channels and :emoji:).
Sincere question: why do people use apps like Hackpad and Paper? I mean, obviously "to take notes", or "to collaborate", but in what contexts? In what use case do they add lots of value?
I dig your style. I'm not about solutions looking for a problem. One of my favorite back-and-forth "arguments" with a legit software developer is how much he embraces tech vs. my "luddite" insistence on paper and pen. The use cases end up being very telling.
As I learned from a Jeopardy answer the other day, the most patented design in the United States is for a mousetrap. Everybody tries to build a better mousetrap, apparently that cliche is true! Big picture stuff is kind of wonky like that from my studies, and I love it.
I really love this part:
"Paper takes many of Hackpad’s best features—like instant collaboration, comments, and real-time editing—and adds a lot more, including additional security features, faster search, and more visibility for teams. "
I know it talks about Dropbox Paper, but I just find it funny that this "recommendation" works as well with the real , physical paper.
[+] [-] newsat13|9 years ago|reply
Why can't people just build products and ask for money upfront? Is bootstrapping really so out of fashion? The startup agenda is either make a billion dollar company or go home. Nothing in between. Very sad (I even saw Sam in some video last week asking 'how do you become a monopoly'?) Why this obsession to grow massive?
[+] [-] iagooar|9 years ago|reply
Imagine you have this nice business idea, which you have been working on for countless hours after work to make it become an awesome product. You sacrife your free time and maybe even health or friendships. You start to feel bad for every day you don't work on your product, as you know it all depends on you, and maybe a couple of co-founders. You know your product is great and it could make many customers happy. Yet what you earn from your it is peanuts and you don't see how this will change any time soon.
In that scenario, venture capital or a buy-out seem like a very appealing idea. After all, if you've come this far, it means that your product means a lot to you and you have more ideas than time. And suddenly knowing that you could get a decent amount of money to quit your "boring" daily job and make all these ideas come true gets even more interesting.
That burning desire to make your "baby" succeed should not be underestimated. That's why so many startups try hard to get a decent funding. I can't blame them, because I've been there. Heck, if a "big player" came to my little startup and offered a good deal, I would probably more than consider taking it. In the end, life is short and you can only build so many valuable things in your life that might have an impact and make a difference.
Still, I'm happy to have a fully bootstrapped startup that is not yet bringing enough money to quit my job. It is tough, it takes a lot of patience, and even more sacrifice every day. But also the prospect of making it profitable enough to have a small team that can work on your idea has a special kind of appeal. Not wanting to be the next Google or Facebook is a good thing in my opinion, but I understand that there is a lot of people who just burn with desire to push their ideas forward faster. Can't blame them for that.
[+] [-] nsedlet|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwr|9 years ago|reply
As the owner/founder/author of a bootstrapped SaaS app, I can answer that:
People really, really, REALLY do not want to pay. Really. The dominating perception is that software should be free, or if not free, paid with a one-time purchase in the single-digit dollars. The aversion to paying is huge, you have to provide a "can't live without" feature for people to (grudgingly) pull out their wallets.
Also, if you actually do the numbers as a business owner, it turns out that consumer SaaS apps are difficult to sustain financially. With a small number of customers, there just isn't enough money, and if your customer base grows, complexity and costs step in. My SaaS only has paid business tiers for now, starting at $39/month, because much as I try, I can't see how I can make anything cheaper work. It's easy to underestimate costs if you've never ran a business.
I decided to stick with it, charge subscription fees, grow very slowly and see where it takes me, but that is a hard and slow path. I estimate it will take me another year (for an overall of 3 years) to get to a sustainable income stream.
[+] [-] tobltobs|9 years ago|reply
Because not enough users are willing to pay. The few which would pay won't even cover the increased support effort. But anyway if you come so far to learn this you already have been kind of successful, because usually it is impossible to get enough attention for your paid app anyway.
[+] [-] jitl|9 years ago|reply
In many ways Dropbox Paper is like Hackpad 2.0, but it has different branding. Hackpad continued to run long after Dropbox bought them - for 3 years!
This is less of an "our incredible journey" then you think.
[+] [-] mobitar|9 years ago|reply
[0]: https://standardnotes.org
[+] [-] tomaskafka|9 years ago|reply
See eg. Sublime text and VS Code. Thank you, Sublime text for validating and educating the market, we'll take it from there with our better and free offering.
[+] [-] espadrine|9 years ago|reply
They can.
You just don't hear about them.
They tend to die fast.
Apart from app.net. That one got good publicity before it too died.
[+] [-] iamatworknow|9 years ago|reply
>Why this obsession to grow massive?
It's not just startups. Every publicly traded company is focused on growth. You could have many billions of revenue and billions in profit, but if you aren't growing you're failing. I don't agree with this, but the stock market certainly does.
[+] [-] z3t4|9 years ago|reply
Asking for money is such an huge entry barrier. Even if it would only cost one cent, it would still stop 99.99% of the users from using it. I was kinda hoping for Bitcoin to fix this. But now it already cost a lot to make a transaction, and you can't instantly verify the payment. Paper money was a huge step, electronic payment was another huge step, lets take the next step!
[+] [-] macspoofing|9 years ago|reply
It's already happening. For example, the Microsoft Office365 cloud suite of apps is looking pretty comprehensive.
>Why can't people just build products and ask for money upfront?
They can. Why can't they?
>The startup agenda is either make a billion dollar company or go home.
A certain kind of start-up with a certain kind of investment model. Lots of startups grow to be medium sized business.
[+] [-] smnscu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] williamstein|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krakensden|9 years ago|reply
I really liked Tomboy, I enjoyed Hackpad, although I quit using it over time- I collaborate much less now.
I don't take notes anymore, with software or on paper.
[+] [-] orph|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] copperx|9 years ago|reply
This sentence made me laugh out loud, sounds like you gave up on life.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dceddia|9 years ago|reply
1104 days ago -- about 3 years and a week. Something makes me think this had been planned for a while.
[+] [-] mickrussom|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] draw_down|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Illniyar|9 years ago|reply
Not sure if all the functionality was kept but really I think one of the better acquisition and eventual closing of a Saas app I've heard of so far.
[+] [-] lewisjoe|9 years ago|reply
There's this open source version of Hackpad, under Dropbox's Github account. Apparently, it's an obsolete version, since the last commit made dates back to two years ago.
Not sure whether they would take down this repo too.
[+] [-] domino|9 years ago|reply
We're building Memo, a note-taking app for technical teams. We integrate deeply with Slack which makes it super easy to save notes while in Slack, and you can write notes using both Markdown and Slack formatting (including @users, #channels and :emoji:).
We were recently on Hacker News and Product Hunt and got a ton of great feedback: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14092279
Having been through an acquisition before, our plan is to build a sustainable business asap by charging for the product.
[+] [-] jtraffic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6stringmerc|9 years ago|reply
As I learned from a Jeopardy answer the other day, the most patented design in the United States is for a mousetrap. Everybody tries to build a better mousetrap, apparently that cliche is true! Big picture stuff is kind of wonky like that from my studies, and I love it.
[+] [-] orschiro|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] banhfun|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schoen|9 years ago|reply
https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/about/
[+] [-] 6d6b73|9 years ago|reply
I know it talks about Dropbox Paper, but I just find it funny that this "recommendation" works as well with the real , physical paper.
[+] [-] pbiggar|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] valuearb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esharef|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scuds|9 years ago|reply
best of luck in the future
[+] [-] hackpadrx|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] searchfaster|9 years ago|reply