Introducting OpsTuts - Server and Cloud Support Services

Show Bootstrapped
#1

Hi there,

First of all let me introduce myself. I’m a long time lurker around here, self taught system administrator with about 10 years of experience, trainer, and until now a wantrepreneur. I tried to build a few startups in the past, but they all failed. I tried to learn something from each failure and I hope this time I’ll get it right :slight_smile:

Recently I bought a copy of the 7 Day Startup book and, while reading it, I realised that I should use my best skill to build the startup I dreamed about - system administration.

opstuts.com is completely bootstrapped and I followed Dan’s steps on building it. I’m the solo founder right now, but there’s a chance I’ll bring in a co-founder. I know that many parts of the copy are similar to exactly the same as on wpcurve.com. Copywriting is something I have to and I want to improve…

I haven’t really got any feedback, except from my friends, and this is why I’m posting here. Also, if you have any advice on how to attract the first customers it will be great :slight_smile:

#2

Link - https://www.opstuts.com/

Good luck with your project. There are quite a few people following Dan’s model in different (and sometimes the same) niche.

Whos your target market - I am assuming its people like me who know just enough sysadmin to be dangerous (on linux) and therefore knows what they want to do, but also knows they really shouldn’t be doing it themselves?

A few thoughts :-

A large part of Dan’s success seems to be the content marketing. Can you replicate that - or maybe even better target something that might be directly applicable to your target market? If first assumption holds then maybe things like “Bash for beginners”, “Apache quickstart” things that I might need to reference when faffing around on a server then see your add and wonder why am I doing this myself.

On the operations side I would assume that its going to be harder to get competent staff than for Dan who’s targeting a narrower skillset.

I personally would be much happier letting some random staff member of a company I really don’t know faff around in a wordpress site than have the sort of access to a server needed to do anything useful. This would be a real biggie for me.

And finally - I really don’t like the name! I just spent 5 mins trying to figure out how to say it and wondering it might mean. Personal preference though!

#3

Hi Rhino,

Thanks a lot for the feedback. I was actually thinking about content marketing, as this seems to be one of the least expensive ways to gain some trust and attract potential customers.

I would focus on getting developers and small businesses on board, they know something, but not enough to get the job done, just like you said, and getting a full time system administrator doesn’t justify the cost.

Yes, finding qualified staff will be harder, or at least it will cost more, so the profit margins will be lower than wpcurve, but I still believe it can work.

From my point of view, letting some random guy working on your website can be as dangerous as working on your server. If being online is crucial for your business, breaking something up can have similar effects in both cases.

Regarding the name, I bought this domain about a year ago and it was just parked before starting this. The original designation was for a devops tutorials site, hence the name (tuts was inspired from tutsplus.com). I might change it in the future, but so far I have nothing better that has a .com available. I also have devops.pw, but I’m not really sure what to say due to the extension… What do you think?

#4

Ouch. I clicked on the site looking for something similar like Cloudacademy (tuts and step by step guides about devops!), kind of confusing :confused: