Indie Ignitor: Growth stats + alerts on software platforms and plugin marketplaces

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#1

Hey there,
if you are interested in the plugin & extension space I’d love to get your feedback! Or maybe you know somebody who wants to develop his own plugin and might find this useful…

We created Indie-Ignitor as a list of software platforms and plugin marketplaces where you can sell your product on. Famous examples are Wordpress Plugins or Shopify Apps. But there are more… We collected additional stats like “count of developers, apps, downloads, ratings, etc.” as well as required skills and programming languages. So you can find the one platform which fits your skills too.

indie-ignitor.com

As a bonus we offer historical data, growth charts and growth alerts to give you a head-start when building your next product.

What do you think?

Patric

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#2

Interesting, though I guess you’re focused specifically on the marketplaces / stores? For Photoshop plugins, there’s a lot of us who don’t go through Adobe’s marketplace at all & sell direct from our website. (Photoshop plugins actually work in other programs like Paint Shop Pro, Photoimpact & Affinity Photo - if you only focus on Adobe, you miss a big chunk of the market.)

You’re also missing Audio / VST plugins, which seems to be a relatively lucrative market. But there’s no real central marketplace that I’m aware of, it’s also direct to consumer. A lot of the marketing there still happens through print media, of all things… there’s half a dozen monthly audio magazines that review VST plugins.

Interesting idea though!

#3

Hey there,
thanks for your feedback! Interesting point about the “Adobe” Plugins. Yes its the case for some other platforms too. For example Wordpress Plugins are also often sold outside of the official “directory”.

What additional data / info would you like to have about the “Photoshop-Platform”?

Patric

#4

Hmm, it’s tricky… if I was starting out, I’d need more info than just “Photoshop SDK & C++” to get started. I’d probably want example code, maybe some tutorials. (And it would probably help a newbie to know that many of us aren’t actually using the Photoshop SDK. We’re off making our own frameworks.) Oh, and a newbie would need to know how to create an installer for their plugin as well.

It would be really useful to know where to announce your new plugin. Which magazines review Photoshop plugins, how do you get your demo on their cover DVD, which forums do people go to, what email newsletters are those customers reading etc. Even if you’re listed on the marketplace, how do you drive people to find your plugin in the marketplace to buy it from there.

As a more experienced dev already in the market, I’m more interested in finding niches that haven’t been filled, gaps in each specific marketplace. It might be useful to be able to see keywords that people are searching for that only get a few results, and then to see how many people are looking for those keywords. But I’m not sure how you’d get that data, and to be honest I’m not sure that data changes very much anyway. Some of us already get insight into that from searches on our own website.

On the VST audio plugin side, I’d try taking a look at sites like KVR and DontCrack. But they’re not specific centralized marketplaces (eg DontCrack only accept plugins they have distribution deals with).

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#5

Hey patrics,

I love this idea! Launching your app on a marketplace gives you an advantage to create more growth in the beginning.

However, I wouldn`t pay for your stats as they are to general and do not give me an initial advantage as entrepreneur in the beginning. The value of your website is currently, that you are providing a real good overview of possible marketplaces.

Btw on which platform have you build indie-ignitor.com? What is the backend of your app?

-Gregor

#6

Hey Gregor,
exactly. Marketplaces (however much they take from your revenue) are an awesome way to automate a lot of the business side of things. Discovery, Marketing, Charging, Refunds, Installation, etc. etc.

What would you say could give you an “initial advantage as an entrepreneur in the beginning”? What should we add / which direction would be more interesting for you personally?

Kind Regards
Patric

PS: Indie-Ignitor.com is build with React and Reactstrap (Bootstrap 4) and hosted on Firebase - we wrote about the story how it came to be here on IH: https://www.indiehackers.com/@patrics/the-story-how-we-met-on-indiehackers-built-a-quick-mvp-and-made-millions-eh-got-some-interest-263b08b9dc

#7

Hey,

I would love to see:

  • Gaps in the marketplaces - Which plugins are listed on multiple marketplaces? Which are listed only on one marketplace?
  • How to leverage the marketplace for me as entrepreneur?

Furthermore, I think it might make sense from your perspective to focus only on 1 vertical!

I also think it might make sense for you to rethink the business model. There are multiple of ways, which come to my mind how to tackle this.

I am happy to discuss this also over skype.

#8

Sure, you can add me by searching for patric@enziano.com in Skype