News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by greysteil on Monday March 19, 2018 @08:44AM (#16617904)
I left my job, took some time out, and then started building my business (https://dependabot.com).

Financially, it's been tough - after 10 months Dependabot makes $2,100 a month (although that's now growing quite fast). I know I'm the kind of personality that couldn't have started it at the same time as working a full time job, though - I need to be really focussed on one thing at a time.

Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by cl0wnshoes on Monday March 19, 2018 @11:17AM (#16619003)
Looks like a great product. How did you come up with the pricing models? It seems on the cheap side. Have you thought about having something between small and unlimited (at the $50 mark or more) and then the unlimited plan for quite a bit more (or even contact us for pricing)?
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by kalkut on Monday March 19, 2018 @11:32AM (#16619154)
You are definitely right, unlimited is too cheap. OP has a nice thing going on here !
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by k1ns on Monday March 19, 2018 @03:01PM (#16621921)
From what channels did you gain the most initial traction? After reading your other comments, I assume you didn't do "traditional" sales such as cold calling/emailing, so I'm curious as to how you built up a user base. I'm currently struggling to do that exact thing with my own business right now. I started selling (cold calling/emailing, demoing, PH/HN/IH posts, etc.) Jan. 1 2018 and I feel like there's something I'm missing as far as my sales process.
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by greysteil on Monday March 19, 2018 @04:17PM (#16622679)
I did an interview for Indie Hackers with some detail (https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/dependabot) but the short answer is cold sales was how I got started, followed by piggybacking off of GitHub's new marketplace.

I can't stress enough how valuable (from a learning perspective) sales was for Dependabot, but only after I started targeting the right people. For Dependabot that was commenting on open-source dependency update PRs (that people had created manually).

Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by lmq10 on Monday March 19, 2018 @10:08AM (#16618404)
Nice, Love that you offer to free for open source, $50/month seems super cheap for enterprise through?
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by greysteil on Monday March 19, 2018 @11:03AM (#16618866)
Yeah, this is going to sound mad, but I quite like only charging $50. I know some customers would be willing to pay more, but under the hood the product is the same and I personally feel good about giving people great value.

The above would have to change if I started doing serious sales, in which case I’d need a higher number to justify the time involved.

Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by cl0wnshoes on Monday March 19, 2018 @12:20PM (#16619602)
Value is relative. That is how you justify charging open source $0, a bootstrapped business $15, and a multi-billion dollar corporation $5000. The larger the product/more revenue a product brings in the more value your service offers them.
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by bulatb on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @11:40AM (#16629511)
Others take note: this is how you do a homepage.

- What it does and who it's for, in one clear sentence at the top

- How it works, in three clear steps

- A list of features that implicitly addresses common concerns

- Simple pricing

- Nice clean look

Really well done.

Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by bulatb on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @11:54AM (#16629674)
The only thing I'd change: At the very bottom, "Set up" should be "Setup", since it's used as a noun.
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by tootie on Monday March 19, 2018 @08:58AM (#16617978)
If you want those big money enterprise clients, add Maven and Nuget support.
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by Totoradio on Monday March 19, 2018 @09:21AM (#16618120)
I agree. If this tool does what it says, and supported .Net/Nuget, my company would throw a lot of money at it. More than the $50/month advertised.
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by greysteil on Monday March 19, 2018 @09:44AM (#16618271)
Interesting, thanks for the validation. We have basic Maven support already, and a PR half-finished for .Net - I'll get on it :-)
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by avenoir on Monday March 19, 2018 @01:12PM (#16620288)
+1 for .NET. This'll be a killer thing for us!
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by photonios on Monday March 19, 2018 @10:14AM (#16618450)
Seems Maven is already supported, or at least in beta: https://dependabot.com/java.html
Re:Ask HN: How did you start your business? by npezolano on Monday March 19, 2018 @11:04AM (#16618879)
Awesome product, I reached out with some general questions