Ask HN: I made a SaaS prototype. What now?
In the past few months, I've been spending a few hours a week to create a Twilio-based virtual phone number web app. I knew there was enough demand for this product since there are a host of similar companies out there, and one of them (Grasshopper) was recently acquired too. I was mainly interested in the technology so I picked a few features for an MVP and started coding.
I launched the app a couple of weeks ago, and bought some ads to see if it gets any attention. The landing page isn't optimized, and it looks rough at this time, so it didn't get any paying customers. As I was considering different ways of marketing it, I found the typical tasks too menial or daunting, and realized I don't have enough passion/drive to actually run the SaaS as a side business.
I even tried listing it on Flippa, hoping an interested folk might find it interesting and take over. It got some attention there, but since this service is in a low-margin commodity market and there were a couple of more mature similar websites, none of the prospects placed a bid.
Now, my question is what would you do if you were in my shoes? Do you think it's worth giving a shot? Should I open-source and write about it to get some technical credit out of it? Should I be looking for a partner that can run the business side while I further develop it?
Thanks!
PS: If you're curious, the website is www.phonjour.com. Please be gentle since everything is hosted on a single AWS micro instance!