Tweak, don't pivot: how we solved our product's identity crisis

blog.handcraft.com

9 points·primigenus··6 comments

Sounds to me like they missed an opportunity to also host, in addition to being a prototyping site.

The correct answer for that client was "If you want to host that site with us, the URL will be X and it will cost you Y per month."

Chances are they just wanted free hosting, but if they didn't, you've got more income and an additional revenue model. Without much work.

Right, a seamless deploy to a 'production' site would be worth an added fee to a lot of people. From the blog post, it seems like they spent a lot of mental effort around the development direction and sidestepping a possible added revenue stream. The hosting doesn't have to be part of the core product - a 'publish site' button to a hosted solution would be great for the users who want it (and not horribly complex).

We're considering that kind of functionality, eg. a button or something similar allowing you to publish the prototype to your own site. But that's different from hosting a live site within Handcraft.

I've been following you since the last post you had, it was a very enjoyable read - I'm one of the two guys behind http://bushi.do/

I'd definitely love to speak with you - s@bushi.do, lemme know if you have a chance to chat.

Great! The original blog post seemed a bit dismissive of the concept, so good to hear that it's at least being considered. Agreed that there should be some kind of separation, rather than hosting from within the prototype area.

Even if they don't want to host it themselves, they could partner with a host and coordinate the single button click push to production for their customers.

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