News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by keithnz on Monday October 15, 2018 @02:21AM (#18217765)
I think I'm too cynical to do these kinds of side businesses... I look at this and am confused why anyone is paying for it. I often find it hard to step away from what I would do compared to what others will do.
Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by r3bl on Monday October 15, 2018 @12:55PM (#18221401)
I'm one of those 500 paid users (renewed my yearly subscription a few days ago), so here's my arguing why:

- It's arguably the only Markdown editor dedicated to note keeping that looks even remotely modern on Ubuntu.

- Its mobile support is decent and gets the job done.

- The developer is very responsive. I can't contribute to the code directly, but my name has appeared on a changelog multiple times because I suggested features / reported problems. Unlike an open source project, this one has a person dedicated to it full time whose goal is to keep me happy as a subscriber. Issues I raise don't tend to be open for months or years with no end, they tend to be fixed within a month or so.

- Its plugins are easy to install. Similarly to Atom, I'm only "ipm install <plugin>" away from having a plugin.

- I find GTD features (notebooks, tags, to-do lists) to be nice to have, even though I don't rely on them extensively.

- I can create a public link for a note and share it with whoever.

- In case shit hits the fan, you can back up the data to a local folder and sync it using whatever.

If I was relying on macOS or Windows, I would have probably found something else.

Standard Notes, as the only decent competitor, is out of the question for me since I would have to use a third-party cloud instead of my own Nextcloud install for the backups.

Main con I could think of: I manually have to download deb packages with every update like I'm some sort of a Windows user.

In fact, here's a note I've created a year ago comparing the various options that were at my disposal a year ago when I was making this decision: https://community.inkdrop.info/note/f607a6970af9e4b40795ec5b...

Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by GoToRO on Monday October 15, 2018 @03:46AM (#18218082)
People pay also for convenience. Also, if you are really busy making $$$ a month then there is no problem to pay 5$ a month for something that is saving you some time, some stress and so on. I was thinking the same as you...
Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by albertgoeswoof on Monday October 15, 2018 @03:48AM (#18218089)
Well what’s the alternative to taking good notes for a developer? Markdown on git? You still have to pay for github if you want it to be private and you have the hassle of setting it up. $5/month is irrelevant if you use it a couple of times a day
Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by keithnz on Monday October 15, 2018 @04:35PM (#18223441)
my point is not so much about the markdown editor, good job to the dev for spotting a niche where he can make a product. I'm just observing that my brain (annoyingly) would have never let me create something like that.

As an aside, for my dev diary (stored on a cloud file system ) I write markdown in Vim, I used to want to see it rendered and played around with visual editors, but I like vim style editing so I just deal with it in text form with syntax highlighting and that's plenty good enough for me.

Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by priccis on Monday October 15, 2018 @10:30PM (#18225931)
I've been using StackEdit.

> You still have to pay for github if you want it to be private

You can upload to a Gist and set it private

https://stackedit.io/ https://github.com/benweet/stackedit/

Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by ttty on Monday October 15, 2018 @05:08AM (#18218365)
Bitbucket for free?
Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by Svexar on Monday October 15, 2018 @06:32AM (#18218662)
Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by albertgoeswoof on Monday October 15, 2018 @07:11AM (#18218784)
But I have to install this and run my own server- the cheapest one I can find is 5usd/month, so I’m paying for that and the time to set it up + maintain it. Inkdrop still looks like better value for money
Re:How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS by Svexar on Monday October 15, 2018 @01:40PM (#18221802)
BookStack is free. You can add it to a server you already have or host it locally.