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docsapp_io

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I really hope Postgres can support temporal table out of the box. Temporal table can simplify development for the feature that need audits.

Imagine you running large database workload and AWS say you need reboot because underlying hardware start having issue.

Live migration can help you in that case.

I run a SaaS that building and hosting developer hub https://www.docsapp.io using the following technologies.

Backend: Scala and Playframework

Frontend: Jquery

DB: RDS, Postgresql on AWS

Hosting: Baremetal on Scaleway

DNS: AWS Route53

Object Store: AWS S3

CDN: AWS CloudFront

Infrastructure: Ansible and Kubernetes

Monitoring: CloudWatch and Influxdb + Grafana in k8s

Logging: ELK in k8s

Scaleway is a great hosting with cheap price. Instead of finding reliable but expensive hosting, I prefer cheaper hosting, but more servers and build HA to handle server issue. Server die all the time.

I am working on SaaS DocsApp (https://www.docsapp.io/) solo and bootstrapped. DocsApp is a platform to manage your product documentation. DocsApp now is profitable and growing. Currently I am focusing on marketing to grow more. DocsApp was born as a result of frustration to building documentation for Product/SaaS.

I have been working on DocsApp for 3 years and only now start profitable. The hardest problem I faced was marketing and sales. Development is only 30% of the work.

Been working on my project https://www.docsapp.io/ for more then one year and now growing slowly.

Initially I work on this project to learn Scala + Play! Framework and now I turn it into real project with real customers.

What I learnt from working on this project: 1. Time to market - Push your product to market and find customers ASAP to get real feedback. 2. Hosting - Build on cheap hosting provider with self setup that support HA. Machine fail all the time even you use expensive hosting (Cloud)

DocsApp https://www.docsapp.io/ - Started ~ 2 years ago but only profitable since few months ago.

I built DocsApp to provide platform to publish documentation easily. Instead of spending time to build your documentation site, DocsApp allow you to start publish documentation in minutes.

The challenges to build a profitable SaaS is marketing, especially for people with only technical background.

No extensive marketing done yet so users growth slowly. A lot improvement to be done especially on UX side.

I built DocsApp (https://www.docsapp.io/) two years ago and launched around 8 months ago.

So far no revenue because I focus on building features. While DocsApp already launched 8 months ago, I still don`t see any growth in term of active users.

So far only one active user with two sites and few users sign up to test then abandon completely, possibly go to competitor site with much expensive pricing.

Here is what I think did wrong:

1. No marketing effort to reach more users.

2. UX really important.

3. Actively reach out to users to gather feedback.

Thanks for the feedback! English is not my first language and I definitely need improve my English!

You can give suggestions and I will update accordingly. You can email hi at docsapp.io to request life time free plan from me :)

Two years ago I learnt new language (Scala) and wanted to find real problems to work on. So I built DocsApp[1] as real-world project as well as trying build profitable SaaS.

Few months ago I plan to sell off DocsApp, but I got low ball offer because low revenue. Then I decided to refocus DocsApp and continue to build it.

I wouldn't say DocsApp very successful, but it is getting successful now.

[1] https://www.docsapp.io/

One of the features I think RTD missing is DocsApp support upload swagger.yml file and auto generate API browser (https://demo.docsapp.io/docs/swagger-api) as well as API Tester (soon).

Another one is DocsApp is using markdown editor instead of pulling docs from SCM (git). Which good for users that do not know to use git.

DocsApp also support generate Github release page (https://demo.docsapp.io/docs/github-release) so users able to download artifacts without leaving DocsApp.

PS: I never use RTD so I might wrong.

I built my side project "Documentation Hub for Developers" DocsApp.io (https://www.docsapp.io/). I spent 1 year+ to build it. Current revenue around $800 per month. Now I still spending night time and weekends to enhance it. HTTPS for custom domain powered by LetsEncrypt is on roadmap.

The project started because there is always need for documentation for software projects (in my career), and a lot companies are not used to have one. At the same time, I want to learn Scala so I pick up Play! framework to play and build real world app.

Happy to answer any questions!

Here is link to demo published site https://demo.docsapp.io/

- We support Github Flavored Markdown

- We dont have paste image from clipboard, but we will add the feature idea to roadmap.

- We provide support for versioning, fulltext search, private internal documentation (soon)