Computer Nerds - BREAK This Industry

[alexkuzmov]

Hosting and managing an email list is not cheap. You have to pay for an expensive server that can handle a big volume of emails so they are sent fast, then manage all the infrastructure related to sending emails and support dedicated to make sure the server is not compromised by spammers... I can see it costing more than 500 a month for a list of 100k subscribers just by sending an email a week.

You are way way of on the numbers.

 

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[Vigilante]

Fine. So based on what I've read, you want to make your own developer account, and then give the access token to the SaaS, and finally get UI-represented options regarding auto-posting, is that correct?

Also,
What are you going to look for in that SaaS other than bulk posting?
How many times a month are you going to post/broadcast a post?

I don’t need to have the developer account because I would just use the service like any other subscriber. The developer would want to own the linkage to Facebook so they could use it for more than just my account. We would post to Facebook only and unlimited times per month.

The app needs to be able to put postings on a timer, so they don’t flood Facebook with a batch of posts simultaneously.

 

[Vigilante]

I get what you mean, and its really a niche that can be exploited.
The main issue I see is that you nees slighlty different content for each group and social platform, based on the following.
Which makes it so any mass media distribution system comes with a major drawback.
Now if there is case where the same post can fit perfeclty into 50 FB groups I can totally see a SaaS for that.

I think that’s why the services got complicated in terms of the existing platform pricing. They give you the ability to cross post to multiple platforms. I imagine that is because once they set up the API it is easy for them to handle from a replication standpoint, however, for my purpose is all I need is Facebook integration.

 

[Vigilante]

I was able to find a service that meets my immediate needs here. I won’t disclose it publicly because I’m using their service in a way different than the way they designed it. Eventually once they figure out what I’m doing, they will charge me or prohibit me from using the service the way I’m using it.

In short several times a day, I am able to post to 50 different Facebook groups that I am the admin of the same message that gets blasted out from the service. I haven’t been throttled yet, but I think that’s because they regulate the drip of the emails to Facebook to make sure that there aren’t too many postings to violate their spam restrictions. The key here is that I am the administrator of all of the groups we are posting to.

There must be a need for this, though, because there are several professional companies that exist in this space, I just don’t like their value proposition in their charge especially for a start up.

And I think the issues that MJ and I are talking about run parallel, and I think they should stay in the same thread. It’s a question of hosting an automation.

Both the email services business, and the post replication business have the same fundamental business flaw. Something that is automated with minimal band with restriction should not be charging thousands of dollars a year.

These businesses are ripe for disruption. In this case, you can do things more simply to meet a need, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to do better what’s already being done.

Take an existing business and make it cheaper and do it in scale. Fastlane as F*ck.

 

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[Vigilante]

One of the challenges in participating in a beta of this, however, is, if you do it wrong, you mess up somebody’s business. I can’t afford to have these businesses jeopardized from a business model that isn’t Facebook synchronized.

The developer would need to test it out by building dozens of Facebook groups and pushing their own data through it first.

 

[ZackerySprague]

The api's cost.

The competition for coders had developer salaries increasing. With recent layoffs, maybe that will change, but I'm sure pricing won't. Many companies like this are also facing increasing costs due to leverage to fuel growth.

@Vigilante is right, these companies got fat and bloated and there is room for someone lean and mean.

Okay cool, I didn't know this. I will be honest, I haven't messed with API's much. I'll have to read upon a little more.

 

[ZackerySprague]

I was able to find a service that meets my immediate needs here. I won’t disclose it publicly because I’m using their service in a way different than the way they designed it. Eventually once they figure out what I’m doing, they will charge me or prohibit me from using the service the way I’m using it.

In short several times a day, I am able to post to 50 different Facebook groups that I am the admin of the same message that gets blasted out from the service. I haven’t been throttled yet, but I think that’s because they regulate the drip of the emails to Facebook to make sure that there aren’t too many postings to violate their spam restrictions. The key here is that I am the administrator of all of the groups we are posting to.

There must be a need for this, though, because there are several professional companies that exist in this space, I just don’t like their value proposition in their charge especially for a start up.

And I think the issues that MJ and I are talking about run parallel, and I think they should stay in the same thread. It’s a question of hosting an automation.

Both the email services business, and the post replication business have the same fundamental business flaw. Something that is automated with minimal band with restriction should not be charging thousands of dollars a year.

These businesses are ripe for disruption. In this case, you can do things more simply to meet a need, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to do better what’s already being done.

Take an existing business and make it cheaper and do it in scale. Fastlane as F*ck.

So then we could use Facebook's Graph API to create a tool that allows you to post on behalf of all those groups if you were the admin correct?





Looks like their's not cost to use Facebook's Graph API, which allows you to access the Facebook Groups.

So if I am understanding this correctly, the idea is to build a SAAS or an APP that allows Facebook Group Mods/Admins post a message to multiple groups simultaneous at once, but with the idea of not posting so much that it would spam your account and charge a fee per month?

The app would access Facebook's API to then post a your message among the groups?

 

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[Vigilante]

So then we could use Facebook's Graph API to create a tool that allows you to post on behalf of all those groups if you were the admin correct?

View attachment 47953

View attachment 47954

Looks like their's not cost to use Facebook's Graph API, which allows you to access the Facebook Groups.

So if I am understanding this correctly, the idea is to build a SAAS or an APP that allows Facebook Group Mods/Admins post a message to multiple groups simultaneous at once, but with the idea of not posting so much that it would spam your account and charge a fee per month?

The app would access Facebook's API to then post a your message among the groups?

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly right

 

[ZackerySprague]

Here some documentation on using the API itself that allows a developer to post within a Facebook Group.

Facebook Groups API Get Started

The Facebook Groups API Get Started guide explains the step to take to get started using the Groups API.

developers.facebook.com

 

[ZackerySprague]

I was looking for a SAAS to automate posting to multiple FB groups that I admin. You can "share" the post from within Facebook, but in the case of an industrial user like me that's an arduous clerical task. There are companies that can do this, but their pricing is based on "per page" or "per group" and I find the pricing egregious for an automation.

Hootsuite, Buffer, OneUp or Sprout Social are examples. I want to create one post and blast it out to 50 groups that my business owns the group pages for. $1800/year. Nope.

This should be $10/$20 bucks a month. It's a one and done automation. Where these companies get complicated is they are charging you to broadcast over multiple channels simultaneously (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.) and I get that but this market is ripe for disruption.

Charge $20/mo, get 1,000 users and you have a $20k/mo business of PASSIVE income. Once you build the API, it's done. Some Fastlane computer geek is just the person to disrupt this industry. You don't need 40 people in an office. You need one great programmer. The UI is easy, the connection to Facebook is encouraged by them (Log into Facebook ) so if you build it, we will come.

I wouldn't mind trying this project. It's not very dependent on another audience. I would give this a swing. It would be a great learning experience for me.

 

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[Andy Black]

For the email marketing...

I've been looking into this for our own projects. When I worked in a startup we were acquiring 15k email signups a day. I'm pretty sure they weren't using MailCheat(Chimp) or ConvertKit to send emails.

I'm trying to build email lists we own now. I'd like there to be custom fields such as location, what they searched for, and various other data we ask via a single or multi-step form.

I'm currently looking at using our own landing pages that have a button to signup. On clicking the button they get sent to a Google Form. Upon completing the form the data is automatically added to a Google Sheet. This is effectively our customer record.

I'd then like to send some onboarding sequence of emails, and then regular alerts depending on where they're located and what they're interested in.

We already use Sendgrid to send leads to clients via email.

My task tonight is to figure out if we can use a Google Sheet as our customer list and then use Sendgrid to send transactional emails, and hopefully automations. The solution may use Zapier.

One thing I like about Google Sheets is being able to see the customer data in a table. I was playing with ConvertKit adding custom fields but can't see those fields when viewing all records from within the interface. I like seeing the data under the hood and being able to create pivot-tables to slice and dice the data.

We use Google Sheets to create Google Ads campaigns for clients. I'd like us to use Google Sheets to create the landing pages too.

Having everything in Google Sheets means we could link up all those different workflows

Whenever I've tried using landing page builders, form builders, and email service providers, I've always ended up frustrated that the basics aren't done brilliantly, and that I also pay for advanced functionality I've no need for.

 

[srodrigo]

Yes, I cancelled them. Same issue, charge by subscriber.

I agree, it's a rip-off. They want to charge me $30/month for up to 1000 subscribers and I don't even have that much yet. I can't even scale it down anymore, lol. Thieves.

Did you find a better provider? I'm browsing too.

 

[Andy Black]

Something like this MJ?

Sendy

Sendy is a self hosted newsletter application that lets you send trackable emails 100x cheaper via Amazon SES.

sendy.co

 

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[ilrein]

View attachment Screen Recording 2023-03-26 at 10.16.17 PM.mov

@Vigilante


Submitting this for review in the app store, will need a few days

This was a fun way to spend my Sunday

 

[alexkuzmov]

Something like this MJ?

Sendy

Sendy is a self hosted newsletter application that lets you send trackable emails 100x cheaper via Amazon SES.

sendy.co

Hmm, this looks promising
will give it a look

 

[ZackerySprague]

View attachment 47972

@Vigilante


Submitting this for review in the app store, will need a few days

This was a fun way to spend my Sunday

Good stuff man! Someone beat me to it. That's cool .

So did you built a server on your home computer and opened it up the internet to post the content on Facebook using it's API?

 

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[ilrein]

Good stuff man! Someone beat me to it. That's cool .

So did you built a server on your home computer and opened it up the internet to post the content on Facebook using it's API?

No, the video was me running the app locally. If I ran the server myself, it would terminate whenever I turned off my computer.

It's deployed to a proper cloud provider and uses the facebook javascript SDK.

 

[ZackerySprague]

No, the video was me running the app locally. If I ran the server myself, it would terminate whenever I turned off my computer.

It's deployed to a proper cloud provider and uses the facebook javascript SDK.

That's awesome, good stuff man . Seriously!

 

[alexkuzmov]

View attachment 47972

@Vigilante


Submitting this for review in the app store, will need a few days

This was a fun way to spend my Sunday

Nice

 

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[ilrein]

Interesting project, been building it most of today as well.

I'm getting to know the facebook SDK in richer detail. They won't let me use the 'publish_to_groups' API without having a registered business. So I've filled for a sole proprietorship today and submitted my documents to FB.

I've been thinking how to approach "scheduling". Looks like the smart approach is to use an 'app access token', whereas my first version relies on a 'user access token', which is temporary. Preliminary research suggests that this would require my app being installed on every group desired to be posted too.

I went a bit further today and polished the UI, and bound it to a domain: https://groupsync.xyz/ (a nice app name courteously suggested by ChatGPT).

@Vigilante I could add your facebook account as a "tester" to my app, and you can take it for a ride and provide some much needed early feedback. Might I entice you into giving it a spin? I'm also interesting in the type of content you want to produce, as I can connect it to OpenAI API and perhaps have your content be generated as well.

 

[Vigilante]

Interesting project, been building it most of today as well.

I'm getting to know the facebook SDK in richer detail. They won't let me use the 'publish_to_groups' API without having a registered business. So I've filled for a sole proprietorship today and submitted my documents to FB.

I've been thinking how to approach "scheduling". Looks like the smart approach is to use an 'app access token', whereas my first version relies on a 'user access token', which is temporary. Preliminary research suggests that this would require my app being installed on every group desired to be posted too.

I went a bit further today and polished the UI, and bound it to a domain: https://groupsync.xyz/ (a nice app name courteously suggested by ChatGPT).

@Vigilante I could add your facebook account as a "tester" to my app, and you can take it for a ride and provide some much needed early feedback. Might I entice you into giving it a spin? I'm also interesting in the type of content you want to produce, as I can connect it to OpenAI API and perhaps have your content be generated as well.

I’m going to be crazy for the next 48 hours but I will come back here in 48 hours to update and discuss.

 

[door123]

Another industry that needs to be disrupted are the ridiculous prices for email list management. If you have a list of 50,000 or more, prepare to pay a mortgage for these companies simply to host your list, and that's before you send a damn email. The "charge by subscriber count" needs to be wiped off the face of the planet.

I have been using sendinblue email automation. They have an unlimited number of contacts and for $25/mnth you can send 25k emails per month, etc.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I have been using sendinblue email automation.

I cancelled them as well. Right now I'm using MailerLite and MailerSend and it looks like it will work for now.

 

[Meerten]

Charge $20/mo, get 1,000 users and you have a $20k/mo business of PASSIVE income. Once you build the API, it's done. Some Fastlane computer geek is just the person to disrupt this industry. You don't need 40 people in an office. You need one great programmer. The UI is easy, the connection to Facebook is encouraged by them (Log into Facebook ) so if you build it, we will come.

Way too low barrier of Entry for my taste.
And it violates Control.

On the other hand.. it's relatively low complexity and could be perfect to sell for a while.
I'd say it's a fine idea for a "lifestyle" type of business if you're not an enterprisey kind of guy.

Either way solving a legitimate need in the world is a worthy adventure.

As such I do really wish you well with this @ilrein, your landing page already looks pretty solid to me!
I think you could definitely improve a lot of people's experience with this and make a ton of bucks in the process.

That being said, for me personally the idea lacks a deeper sense of meaning to motivate me. It would feel like I'm money-chasing instead of leaving a legacy. Also the fact I'm getting into bed with the beast again. Been there done that. Dreams have been shattered. Years of time wasted.

Interesting project, been building it most of today as well.

I'm getting to know the facebook SDK in richer detail. They won't let me use the 'publish_to_groups' API without .....

So you may want to keep that in mind..
For business' sakes you may not want to grow this project so large that it starts to attract Facebook's attention.

And I will tell you why:

You and I both know that from the perspective of Facebook's top-of-the-bill development division this functionality is absolutely trivial to make. So trivial in fact, that it's been my repeated experience that it has been a management/executive decision not to feature it. (straight to the masses, that is)

In which case you're going against how Facebook wants to see things in the bigger picture.
Even if their API currently allows for these things to happen.

If your product were to gain a lot of traction, like.. going pretty much mainstream..
..then I can all but guarantee you that it won't be long until Facebook's tools division receives word of it.

In which case what's going to happen is this:
1. Facebook rolls their own functionality since you've already done the hard work of market validation for them (enterprises don't like to take risks)
2. Facebook sticks with their executive decision not to mainstream mass mailing to groups and will just as blatantly limit its API to reflect that decision

Either way.. BOOM you're out.

Ofcourse all of this won't happen as long as companies charge a stupid $1800 a year so that not everyone and their mother will be mass-posting like that.. so that has been stable so far. But guess what.. you're about to stir it.

Most definitely not wanting to be a doomsayer here (on the contrary! pretty awesome execution so far. you should keep going) .. just don't invest your (proverbial) life savings in it.

Ofcourse if you want to help out evolution by nudging Facebook in the right direction at the cost of your project getting subsumed then I suppose that, from a spiritual perspective, that's okay too. And should you hop from project to project like this then you will essentially be leading Facebook and they will try every trick in the book to get you on payroll roflolmao. It'll be fun I promise.

So anyway.

I will say just keep in mind the Commandment of Control and have a safe Fastlane journey!

 

[ilrein]

View attachment Screen Recording 2023-03-31 at 2.13.21 PM.mov

A new video of the latest design.

Currently the logic doesn't work on production as I'm waiting for FB to approve my business. Then I'll have full API access. Any day now and I can ship.

I don't agree with a single thing you wrote @Meerten

Small projects can be finished. Unfinished projects never compound. There are thousands of Facebook apps and FB doesn't attempt to "take them". It's a baseless concern based on pure speculation.

I've learned more in this last week of building than I have in many months. I've combined Facebook API, Stripe API, cron jobs to execute scheduled functions, and a fully serverless backend architecture to make this a reality. And I just had a hell of a fun time doing it

 

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[Andy Black]

View attachment 48079

A new video of the latest design.

Currently the logic doesn't work on production as I'm waiting for FB to approve my business. Then I'll have full API access. Any day now and I can ship.

I don't agree with a single thing you wrote @Meerten

Small projects can be finished. Unfinished projects never compound. There are thousands of Facebook apps and FB doesn't attempt to "take them". It's a baseless concern based on pure speculation.

I've learned more in this last week of building than I have in many months. I've combined Facebook API, Stripe API, cron jobs to execute scheduled functions, and a fully serverless backend architecture to make this a reality. And I just had a hell of a fun time doing it

Ooo. Cron jobs. I remember them from my good old days as a UNIX SA.

 

[Meerten]

I don't agree with a single thing you wrote @Meerten
It's a baseless concern based on pure speculation.

I don't expect you to agree with me.

Like I said I'm not trying to discourage you.
There is exactly zero reason to be discouraged. Please keep going.

And I'm writing directly from experience not speculation.
But you don't have to do anything with it and actually I now regret sharing it. Good luck!

 

[Andy Black]

I don't expect you to agree with me.

Like I said I'm not trying to discourage you.
There is exactly zero reason to be discouraged. Please keep going.

And I'm writing directly from experience not speculation.
But you don't have to do anything with it and actually I now regret sharing it. Good luck!

I liked what you wrote and I also liked ilrein's response. His eyes are wide open and he's happy getting stuck in.

You reminded me why I don't want to create a SaaS based on Google Ads (something like SpeedPPC). I build campaigns like that but better. If I created a tool and hundreds or thousands of businesses use it then Google can cut me off at the flick of a switch. I'd rather create a tool I use internally and build consumer facing brands.

 

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[BizyDad]

I don't expect you to agree with me.

Like I said I'm not trying to discourage you.
There is exactly zero reason to be discouraged. Please keep going.

And I'm writing directly from experience not speculation.
But you don't have to do anything with it and actually I now regret sharing it. Good luck!

I liked what you wrote and I also liked ilrein's response. His eyes are wide open and he's happy getting stuck in.

You reminded me why I don't want to create a SaaS based on Google Ads (something like SpeedPPC). I build campaigns like that but better. If I created a tool and hundreds or thousands of businesses use it then Google can cut me off at the flick of a switch. I'd rather create a tool I use internally and build consumer facing brands.

I'll second what Andy said. I got value from your post. I saw the truth of it. And I appreciated his response to it.

 

[srodrigo]

It's true that Control is a pretty nice to have. One decision from a stranger and you are wiped out.

At the same time, there are so many people who've made fu money while violating Control that it's not even funny. I'd be happy to take the bet for the right opportunity.