It seems like delivering webhooks to customer endpoints, handling retries, logs and failures is a common problem every app needs to solve. Would you find an ultra low cost SaaS option that handles URL registration, delivery, logs and retries for you useful?
Thinking about webhooks... do not sell webhook tools.<p>Only coders with no time to spend will want to use that... and they will feel bad because they haven't code the stuff and probably they would be able to code it.<p>If you want to sell to coders, make libraries and sell support and services around (think about Cucumber, or Sidekiq for instance).<p>For other kind of people, sell outcomes instead.<p>If you have a webhook that notifies you someone has unsubscribed from mailchimp, DO SELL that insights to a marketing company. Either as a SaaS or as a one-shot operation.<p>Outcomes sell much better than technologies.
If the problem is important, then "ultra low cost" is not a requirement. If you build something that solves the problem, don't be afraid to charge meaningful money. 10 customers at $10,000 per month is better than 10,000 customers at $10 per month. Less support, fewer transaction fees, easier to talk to and get feedback...and a business model viable in a smaller market.<p>In general, customers who want to pay $0 tend not to be good for business.<p>Good luck.
This could be a positive or a negative, but… from personal experience selling to savvy developers and engineers, a very small percentage of customers actually use a custom webhook. Think 1%, not 10%. Also, that percentage trends down as the product gets better.<p>The downside: that’s reason not to offer webhooks at all (that “every app needs to solve” them is not accurate), and certainly not to put much effort into them - maybe not even enough to migrate to your product. That’s a low ceiling on the amount of value you can add.<p>The upside: prospective customers aren’t likely to seriously consider building an equivalent, so their choice is not offering them, offering them with relatively little visibility, or using your thing.
Thanks everyone, some useful thoughts there. The "ultra low cost" comment was just recognising that the value of the tech here would be compared to the staff expense of building it yourself. It would just be saving some precious dev time, but not enough to charge $1000s for it.<p>I think it's a fair point though that only a small percentage of customers actually use webhooks, so the value is further constrained by that.