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Ask HN: Anyone Interested in Authoring/Collaborating on a Software Product?

20 points by zschuessler ↗ HN
I'm not entirely sure if this post is allowed, so feel free to remove if not.

Hello! I have recently created a digital product platform that is based on Git. So think Envato, but friendlier to devs and much more technical and deep support of all things Git.

I very recently published a test product and went through a first public release. Things are looking pretty good!

Now I would like to talk to more potential authors who may want to collaborate or offer an existing digital product up on the platform I've created.

I'm a full stack engineer that can assist there, or with UX, design, or marketing. (I'm also the sole creator of this product: design, ux, backend, etc, so I can collaborate in many roles)

The platform is https://git.cash - you can read a bit about it on the homepage and the about page.

Anyway, thanks for looking! And if anyone has suggestions on where to find authors, if not here, I'd be much appreciative.

Cheers.

18 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 51.4 ms ] thread
sharemywin
so can I fork your product and sell it and split the fees?

or if I check in a rewrite of a paragraph and you approve the check in do I get a cut your future sales?

zschuessler
Hey! Sorry I realize now maybe the idea of Git-powered products wasn't very clear.

No forking/reselling takes place (unless of course that is desired by the product creator). The only role Git plays is first-class support for developers to do things like:

1. Do a "git pull" to get product updates instead of having to go to some online UI (like CodeCanyon) to get a zip archive, then manually do a diff to see what changed. And my favorite thing is you can add the git repo in your package manager (like npm or composer), which none of the other product platforms allow.

2. Creators can make releases (like GitHub does them), which is very cool for managing release-specific issues/bugs, handling subscriptions per-release, or allowing customers to get updates only when you're ready for a release.

As far as compensation goes for any collab done related to this HN post, I'm open to any suggestions. My main goal is to find creators, not to profit from the collaboration directly. Mostly just looking for fun creators to work with and willing to help them any way I can!

sharemywin
imagine if I put an image up and someone wants to use it for a landing page template sold on your space. I could offer the image for sale at $100, but if they use it in a template I might take 10% of their sales of that product.
w458cmau
Now that I am thinking about it I am amazed that this is not how existing platforms work.
zschuessler
Right! I've been developing this for almost a year now, and any time I spoke about it at a networking event, each dev says "Wait, you're right. Why doesn't this exist?"

It has been nice to hear that, it helps with the crushing doubt in my mind that I've wasted the past 7 months of my life.

sharemywin
so, your core use case is a marketplace for code packages. The thing you offer no one else does. So, if I do a git pull or link to a package on something I haven't paid for it will block me?
sharemywin
Have you thought about cutting your fee to 7% plus 3% to paypal or stripe and letting the author set a commission for affiliates. So if I offer 25% an affiliate would get 15%.
sharemywin
And what would be really cool is to allow people to sell the resale rights. So, if I buy the rights I could make all future profits of the eBook, template, photo etc.
mattmanser
Show HN is what you'd normally use. https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

Your homepage doesn't really tell me what this is, apart from it uses Git somehow. You told us ^^there, but not on the homepage.

Is it a RAD tool? A new alternative to something like meteor? What's it got to do with Sketch plugins?

zschuessler
Thank you for taking the time to submit feedback to me! I appreciate it, and agree, the homepage really does kind of suck.

I hesitate to put this up on Show HN for reasons you outlined. Mostly I am interested in finding authors until I have time to redo the layout. Being a one-man show is very taxing!

BUT, again, very happy you said this and have added "Make a better homepage" to my task list because of this message :-)

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kumaranvpl
Hi @zschuessler,

I am interested to collaborate. Please ping me at kumaranvpl@gmail.com

waterside81
I'm not sure who your target end-user is, but I think the focus on "git" both in your branding and explanation leads people to focus on that aspect rather than the (great) idea of having easy-to-use revision management for digital assets. How that's implemented (in this case, git) is irrelevant to a marketing manager or a creative who is supplying the content.

If developers are a large part of who you see as your end user, then sure, keep as is. But if they're not, I'd consider re-evaluating the use of git as your main selling point and highlight the "history tracking" aspect of the product.

siddharthdeswal
I'm a "product marketer", and this was difficult for me to understand. I don't know what this is for (after reading your opening comment), and I can't figure out what should I be doing. If you receive similar feedback from other marketers, maybe consider making it easier to understand?
carussell
This violates the Git trademark, which the team announced they would begin enforcing this year due to a proliferation of products and services naming themselves after Git. If you're going to move forward with this, you need to apply for permission to use the Git mark.
brett40324
Please just let me scroll down to some content first without choosing one of the 'im a' s.

Edit: To ask,

What prevents me from distributing products by allowing others to use my paid copy's machine as a remote? Am i missing something?