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Comment by wrldos | Hacker News Reader

Quite frankly you're extremely unusual. As much as I sound cynical here, the only reason we use open source stuff in our production SaaS is because we don't have to raise a purchase order to get it or go through the whole onboarding process which is a pain in the ass. The money isn't even the issue; it's there and available but it's a bureaucratic shit show trying to give it to people. And the same is true everywhere I've worked for the last 20 years. Yes I know this is wrong.

Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who would handle all this sitting somewhere we could create a supply agreement with and funnel the cash through to the right people we could probably deal with it. We currently do this via AWS marketplace regularly so we don't have to deal with the paperwork.

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I feel like there is a business waiting to bloom here. Imagine a stripe like company that says “we are the unified B2B transaction company” who takes both sellers of software and buying enterprises as customers and create a easy to use purchase system where a software dev in the US could sell to a company in New Zealand without worrying about 1. Currency conversion 2. Local tax collection 3. Invoicing 4. Any other local formalities

That is totally worth day 10% of the value of the product!

>That is totally worth day 10% of the value of the product!

It won't work: this company will eventually crank up their fees to 30+% of the value.

Sounds like Open Collective.

These companies exist, at least domestically in varying regions of the world.

A lot of software/B2B sales are procured through a channel whose primary purpose is an existing business relationship with the company you're trying to sell to.

They take a % as a transaction fee. Anywhere from 10-30%, depending.

Ah, procurement.

They exist. They suck, they all suck... and I say this as a vendor "procured" by these companies.

It's a necessary evil, one that's ripe for disruption.

I think it's a logical next step for companies like Crossbeam[1]. You have a network of partners, some of which are fulfillment partners. They can be the middlemen to expand your network and take a piece.

1: https://crossbeam.com

> Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who...

Isn't that what tidelift [1] is doing?

[1] https://tidelift.com

I get your point. I'm not too keen on administrative overhead, either.

> Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who would handle all this sitting somewhere we could create a supply agreement with and funnel the cash through to the right people we could probably deal with it.

Isn't that exactly what Github does through its Sponsors program? I think I only handle two endpoints these days: Github Sponsors and Clojurists Together. Github works very well, and they will even fold/consolidate new sponsorships into your existing invoices as you add them over time.

I don't think "overhead" is a valid excuse anymore.

> the only reason we use open source stuff in our production SaaS is because we don't have to raise a purchase order to get it

I'm sure it's not the only reason to choose open-source tech.

At least with open-source projects you can read, patch, clone or fork the source

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