Comment by hoistbypetard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hoistbypetard | Hacker News Reader

The price is expensive, but not eye-wateringly so. The non-preorder price gets closer to eye-watering territory, but it’s still in the range of things I’d buy if I was confident they’d save me quite a bit of time.

Your site does not inspire that confidence so far. Here are some things that leave me disinclined to purchase your book even though I consider the price reasonable and am interested in the topic:

1. I don’t know who you or your co-author are, and I don’t know of any SaaS you’ve built that I’ve used or contemplated using. Have I used something you’ve made? If so, tell me!

2. Show me an example of the SaaS that the book teaches me to build. If I could experience what result I might produce, it’s easier to spend the money to learn how.

3. In light of points (1) and (2) not being satisfied, your terms of purchase are really scary. I can’t download a copy of the book to keep? You can revoke my access at any time? No refunds? I know I can reliably get my credit card company to issue a chargeback within a month or two if something’s not as promised, but I tend to read this kind of content more slowly than that. I want to make sure that I can continue to have it as I make my way through it at my own pace.

I hope none of that sounds like hostile feedback. It’s not... I’m someone who’s actively looking for this kind of resource. The price itself isn’t a problem, except that I can’t see what I’m getting, I don’t know your work well enough to know I’ll find this work useful, and you say you won’t offer a refund if I don’t find it useful. Plus you say you might revoke my online access and refuse to offer offline access.

Thanks for feedback.

Each chapter has ample of free excerpt (10-20% of total content), all code is public under MIT license: https://github.com/async-labs/saas

This worked well for us so far. We received less than 10 refund requests out of 850 purchases. Not sure what else to add here.

Code speaks for itself, I am just no-name guy in the cabin in the middle of the forest, with hotspot and generator. I have early-stage SaaS business with few paying customers but nothing to brag about it: https://async-await.com

If I were you I would not buy this book. At least one author is not a celebrity =)

I saw the code. If I knew enough to judge whether the book was worth purchasing just by reading the code, I wouldn’t need to buy the book.

(I’m glad to hear you’re not receiving many refund requests. Are you refunding those requests you receive? The terms page makes it look as though you are not. That would be the relevant thing to add there, relative to my questions.)

The code might speak for itself if I were already an expert. I’m not. I’m a good programmer who wants to learn more about the details of building a service offering, and I’m trying to figure out how effectively your book will teach me what I want.

The link to your SaaS business is part of what I was asking about. Is there a way for me to explore that without paying to see what it’s all about? Is that a typical example of what the book is helping me build?

> If I were you I would not buy this book. At least one author is not a celebrity =)

I’m smiling at that, but it’s not at all what I meant when I said I don’t know who you are. I didn’t mean I literally need to know who you are; I meant I was hoping to see an example of the end state your book is purporting to guide me towards. SaaS is kind of a big space.

I’m really glad it’s working well for you so far. I hope that continues, and a cabin in the middle of the forest with a hotspot and generator sounds like a great place!

Sorry if I misunderstood. I cannot and I don't want to convince every potential buyer individually to buy a book. Imagine a farmer's market, you ask how much is a bundle of garlic, seller says $20, you don't like a price or seller and you move on.

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I see many are unhappy about price. How much time would you need to build subscription API with Stripe in your SaaS project? Few hours at least if you are good and know where to look. How much is your time worth, $50 an hour? So here you go $100-$200 saved. The book paid itself. And that's just one feature out of few dozen.

I totally get that. And I'm not asking you to argue with me about the price for a head of garlic. You're saying "I wrote a book on how to build a boilerplate SaaS application." I'm thinking "I have a couple application ideas I'd like to sell as services. I wonder if this book could help me. Are my ideas like what this author has built before?" And I'm finding nothing to guide me on your page.

For example, one of the things the application I'm imagining needs to do is send people text messages to remind them about appointments. That feels like a very "boilerplate SaaS" thing. But I can't tell if that's part of what you're selling here or not.

For another example, my app would need to send mobile push notifications. That also feels like boilerplate SaaS and I can't tell if your book covers it or not. It could break either way based on the outlines you list.

Your terms page just says "(5) We use Stripe to securely process payments. We do not offer refunds."

If I spent $200 on your book and learned what I wanted, it'd feel like a wonderful purchase. If I spent $200 and it didn't teach me the things I was seeking to learn, it'd feel like a terrible purchase. Since I don't want a refund to enter the picture anywhere, I'm trying to figure that out in advance :)

I apologize if this discussion is unwelcome. I'm mostly engaging it because I am actively seeking to purchase reading material on this specific topic, so talking about it in detail seems relevant and helpful here, as you are, at least superficially, seeking to sell what I am seeking to purchase.

How about the access question from GP?

What is GP? We had under 10 refunds, in all cases we refunded people. There are zero cases when access is taken away without refund. Terms say no refunds because we have no time to refund but we always did in a past since we got request in less than a week after purchase.

This is a useful discussion - we should update terms to allow refunds within 48 hours and no refund after that. To be updated later today.

I meant the question from the parent of my parent comment - they asked how they could access the book if the website ever went down? Seems to imply it’s only available as a webpage while your server is up.

For me, books are really useful as pdfs as I can load them into eink readers. Easier on the eyes.

Based on conversation in this thread, we updated our Terms to include:

"If you are unhappy with a book purchase, you can request a refund by contacting team@builderbook.org. We will grant refunds within 48 hours of book purchase, no questions asked. After that point, we cannot guarantee a refund."

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