E23: Something Else Than Saas
11/11/2024, duration: 12:14
In this episode, I reflect on my journey of building side projects primarily focused on SaaS (Software as a Service) and the exploration of alternatives such as desktop and mobile applications. As I walk along the beach, I discuss my experiences with technologies like PHP and Node.js and how advancements like React Native and Electron are opening new windows for app development. I share my thoughts on the challenges of video processing and storage in my current project, Dan Cuts, and my desire to shift towards building a local Electron app that minimizes reliance on subscription models. This also allows me to incorporate a different business model while keeping everything locally processed. Ultimately, I aim to break free from the SaaS box, explore other app development avenues, and improve my marketing strategy while growing my podcast subscriber base.
Video
Transcript
Today, I'd like to talk about, do we side projects, but not with SaaS? Is there a different world for side projects besides SaaS? But before I get into that, I might sound a little different than other episodes if you've really sent other episodes before, because I'm recording this outside. So I'm away for the weekend and I figured I'd still record a podcast, but I'm now doing this outside while I'm walking along the beach with my phone. So it might sound a different vibe than that I normally have, but I did have an ID floating through my head for the past week. So let's get into that.
I've been building side projects for years. What I've always been building and using are technologies like PHP. Node.js server technologies that require you to build a website and build a website as a SaaS. So SaaS is the acronym for Software as a Service, which means that people don't need to download anything, they just visit the website, they do what they need to do, they use the product and then they continue. That's what I've always been doing, that's all I know, but there is an entire world there different than SaaS. You couldn't build an app as a side project, which means that it will be running on somebody's phone and being distributed from the app store. You could be building a desktop app, anything else.
So for me, that's an idea that I started exploring. I've always been doing web apps because that's the technology that I've learned that I started with 25 years ago. But now with the upcoming of other technologies, it's easier to create desktop apps or different apps or phones or desktops. So now you can apply web technologies and build non-web on non-web platforms. For example, with React Native, you can use React and build a native app. You can use Electron and build a desktop app.
For the past week or the past weeks, I was building on den cuts, which requires video files to be uploaded, downloaded and storage. And I was feeling that was becoming a hassle because I need to store the video, so I need to pay for storage. I'm going to do that with a free tier. People need to wait because they're uploading the videos. So then I was thinking about doing it differently. So building an Electron app, for example, where somebody downloads the app on the desktop environment, they just pick a local file using a file picker. They can pick the different effects that they want.
And then the video gets generated. And with den cuts, I for example use FFmpeg. And I'm going to look into a way to have that included via WASM, so a web assembly, or having people download the FFmpeg binary separately or included in the distribution itself, depending on what is allowed in the FFmpeg license. And just evoke the console command and have FFmpeg do the video for us on the local machine. And the end result is also on the local machine, so there's no reaching out to one of my servers. Everything is done locally because a different thing that triggered me besides data storage and video processing is also that there is now currently a big influx of people building stuff.
You need to download software and no, you need to download software. You need to buy a subscription and everything seems to be subscription based. And I also see some comments popping up of people that are getting subscription-tired. And I understand why people ask for subscription, it's recurring revenue. It's a guaranteed income. People often forget to cancel their subscriptions. So in that aspect, for the builder over the developer, creating the app is good. They have a recurring revenue instead of a one-off and having a uncertainty every month how much instances of their software are going to sell.
But I feel that also, and especially combined with the video and the storage part, I was thinking about the dank cuts in the desktop. So that would mean that what I've built until now with dank cuts isn't really that usable. It helps in the fact that I now have a mind map, a mind model, what works, what doesn't work, how it flows through the app and the desktop app is of course very different than a web app and how it flows and stuff.
But I figured maybe I can build an Electron app. I like technology, it's also a different technology for me and I've seen Electron apps that work like Vizon City Code is an Electron app, but also Zizin by Kitze is an Electron app and it works, it's fluent and of course there are the negative aspects in there that every Electron app is shipping its own version of Chromium. I've also looked into alternative desktop packing builders, some use the native system WebView, new stuff, but the Electron still is the biggest player, it's the biggest ecosystem, so that's what I'm going for if I choose to build that, because the idea is still floating around but for the common use I have other stuff planned to do like updating the welcome app site.
I looked into some bugs and watch your numbers, but I figured let's at least have the idea floating through my head of building a desktop app, I've been already looking into some stuff out of the routing with the desktop app, because it just has a local index.html file, I can protect source code and I could even attach a subscription model still, so what I could do is I could offer a free download that works with the monowar, with the Warnermark for example and all the other stuff just works and you could buy a license for a Warnel license for example that allows you to use that version of the app indefinitely and you're entitled to updates for an entire year.
So I've seen that specific business model, I've seen that promoted by Tony Dean, a friend of his had built a SEO desktop app and he did that and offered dates for a year and if you want to have new features after that year, you need to renew your license and in this case besides the license I could also add additional features like having AI stuff or additional services that are more advanced, transcribing with whisper, connecting to an AI model, allowing to have your generated file to be available for download, approaching data from local computer to my server to someone else, for example, stuff like that, that's also what I was thinking about, so those are the IDs that are floating through my head and I think it's good that I'm letting go of the, I'm not only building SaaS things because we're kind of stuck in a little box and the saying goes if you have a hammer everything looks like a nail, so all the IDs that I have converted to a SaaS and maybe if I'm learning to build a desktop app, the step to build on a normal app is also smaller, that it's also easier to get started on because the advantage there is that you have a distribution mechanism, so also for desktop apps you have the Microsoft Store even though I don't think it's not that big, but for an Apple you have the Apple Store, of course you need to follow their requirements, but you could have your app published there.
I don't know if they allow Electron apps, probably not syncing, but how you're embedding your own web browser, but you can also offer it for download outside their ecosystem. So that's what I was thinking about for Dan Cuts, I think it's good to step out of that SaaS box and open myself up to more things and of course I also realized that having this or taking this step will again walk me down a rabbit hole of doing technical and implementation stuff and still moving away from marketing of the stuff that I currently have, but with the mindset and the stuff that's been going on at my nine to five job that fits at the moment.
So I don't really feel like going far out of my comfort zone and starting reaching out but of course I'm still, I'm following social media and other stuff and I'm trying to promote what I've built where I can, but I don't have an active marketing strategy. And besides that, I'd also like to focus more on growing my podcast, my subscribers. This is also what I'm building Dan Cuts for. So the SaaS that I'm building, I'm building up to a level that I can use myself. I can upload my podcast videos there, edit them and prepare them for social. So I can also share there easier and hopefully get some more traction there, some more connection with other people.
So yeah, that's what I've been thinking about. So for me, that's a pretty big step. The technologies that I'd like to use with Electron are the same. So I want to use an SQLite database I can use with my open source framework, SuperSafe. I want to use React on the front end and some UI library. So that's basically it in the comfort zone. I just need to learn how to do Electron specific things, accessing files from disk, stuff like that, but that should be okay. So that's what I wanted to share this week here from a very cloudy and drizzle covered beach. There's a jellyfish here. See you later. Bye.
