Ask HN: Does an open source model work for me?
My service is two parts, an app, and a back-end, that works as a sort of montage / archival tool that fills a gap I felt with other apps out there.
When I show others, some people suggest that it would be useful for them too, and they could even foresee spending money on it.
But I don't want to spin it up as some “startup” - I have work and a family to take care of, and so I need to be able to balance “side money coming in” and “side work going out” - I don't think a traditional startup fits in this requirement.
I want to be able to run this service for people, but it's a non-zero cost for servers and storage space, so I'll have to charge for the service, which is fine. People could also download and run it themselves for free, no sweat off my back..
I'm thinking the best option might be to open up the source and let people do what they like, then just offer the main service as a paid for option, and rely on honesty and branding to say mine was the OG.
Does this make sense? Will it add more work onto myself (managing an open source project as well as the “service”)?
Is there anything that I need to be mindful of if I try and operate this way?
My goal really is to help people (put it out there as open source and run a service) and if I can, I'd like to get a little bit of income from it to help look after the family, but not so much that it becomes a second job..