Zipsell

@yongfook Congrats on the launch Jon! 💪 Does Zipsell work for free digital downloads as well? Say you just want to capture email in exchange for an ebook.

@robjama hmm the way it's currently built doesn't cater for this. I think if you're just giving free downloads for email addresses you can achieve that by adding a link to your mailing list software's "thanks for subscribing" template.

@yongfook aside: as someone who is trying to learn more programming (Rails in particular) I would pay for a digital video tutorial showing me how I could build this from step 1! (I know it’s open source, but getting step by step instructions would be 🔥)

@yongfook congrats! and it looks beautiful. i just want to point out that there are platforms like e-junkie which do _not_ take a percentage and work on a flat monthly fee.

@yongfook @mijustin Dude. Yes. This!

@woodss I think it's a fair question. I can answer in three ways. 1) Partly this is a question of semantics. It does depend on what definition of a startup you subscribe to. Do all startups make money from day one? Certainly not. Should I, as a bootstrapped founder be more focused on revenue generation from day one? Erm.. yes, probably 😅 however, as I mentioned in the article linked to this submission, this first "startup" is me exercising my product skillset again after a long hiatus. I wasn't super focused on revenue for this first launch, but revenue will definitely be a consideration for the next 11. 2) Allegorical example - when Wordpress launched did anyone consider it a startup? I don't think so. But somewhere along the line it morphed from "project" to "multi million dollar ecosystem". The same can be said for all commercially successful open source projects - they all started with a cruddy v1 that some people found useful. Not that I have ambitions as lofty as these, but it's something to remember before thinking there's nothing to be gained from developing free tools. 3) Practical example - I'm planning to use Zipsell to sell my own digital downloads, so you can sort of see it as a "foundational" piece of work for a startup... Hope that makes sense!

@yongfook Point 3) is what I envisaged [when I mentioned strategy] but I thought it was worth asking the question - thanks for replying, I appreciate it!

@yongfook @woodss I think you could also host the platform for users and charge for it like a traditional SaaS because most people would rather pay someone to take care of the technical details and focus on their own product, such as their book that they'd be selling through Zipsell. Open source does not preclude revenue simply because most people don't know about and indeed don't want the hassle of setting up a tech stack.

@woodss @yongfook Another interesting business model could be the WeTransfer model where you use the background of the "selling UI" as a curated advertising space. I think this model works because people will inevitably share the Zipsell link to sell their products and having a gorgeous background from a brand wouldn't hurt. This will give you revenue and be a gorgeous product enhancement.

@allbombs The target audience is people who need to sell digital downloads but don't want to do it on wordpress or a 3rd party marketplace. I feel like that's a growing segment. At the moment this might mean it's geared more towards technical folks but I'm sure there's improvements I can implement to make the setup easy for anyone.

@allbombs For now I think the main value proposition is helping you maximise your profit. For example, one of the leading 3rd party marketplaces charges an 8.5% fee on every one of your sales. If you're selling low cost products that might not bother you, but if you're selling a $299 product and paying $25 to the marketplace for each transaction - you'd be looking for long-term alternatives. The best route is to self-host but there aren't many drop-dead simple solutions out there. This is me throwing my hat into the ring 😅

@yongfook I am exactly your target audience! I'm tired of using Gumroad and since I've been working on moving away from WordPress for my own website, so I wanted to look into rolling something to sell on my own. This came along at the perfect time.

@captmacsparrow that’s awesome! So glad to hear it :) let me know how you get on and if you have any feedback

@captmacsparrow Founder of Gumroad here. Curious why you're tired and what we could do better? Thanks!

@kay_tan Thanks for the support!