Hi,
I’m Thomas Wanschik. My co-founders and I are building an analytics service for Braintree users. Simply put, with just one click mainmetrics gives you valuable SaaS metrics like MRR and revenue churn. Currently we finished developing our MVP and are searching for customers / reviewers. In the future, we’ll extend the service and will give you email reports, and many more insights into your SaaS business.
We appreciate any help, advice or review.
Thanks,
Thomas
Hi Thomas and welcome!
It sounds like an interesting idea, but I think to get a bit more out of this online forum it would be helpful if you give some more information so we can give more specific advice. E.g. is there a website already online? Are there screenshots available? What separates you from others doing something similar? What kind of advice or review do you need?
Any more specific data will surely be of help.
Regards,
Oliver
Thanks Oliver,
yes we have a website: https://www.mainmetrics.com/
There exist some other analytics tools but as far as I know, none of them provides one-click metrics specifically for Braintree users.
We would like to get feedback of potential customers. So we can improve the product and go into the right direction.
Cheers,
Thomas
So, basically you have cloned https://baremetrics.io/ for Braintree. Even the landing page is cloned 
. Atleast there you could have put some original idea 
I don’t know … some people don’t have problems with copycats, but I would not use your service. God, even the name sounds cloned… baremetrics vs. mainmetrics.
And yes, there are others who do the same thing for Braintree: https://chartmogul.com/ (which I’ll probably end up using).
Hi Jeff,
thanks for your answer. We know about chartmogul and other tools for Braintree but none of them seems to have a usable (or at least testable) MVP right now. Our service can be used now.
Just to be sure that I understand you correctly: instead of using our service that already gives you insights into your business you’re more willing to wait for chartmogul just because mainmetrics looks to much of a clone? Would changing the design change your opinion?
Without wishing to answer for Jeff…
I think that while ‘baremetrics for Braintree’ is a very good idea for a business, you’ve definitely been perhaps _over_inspired by their landing page and from (what I can see in) the screenshots, their whole interface.
I can see the advantages of taking a successful model, pricing, layout and then using that a base for your own metrics business. For me, although there is nothing technically wrong with taking inspiration from Baremetric’s site, visually it seems much too similar and leaves me with a bit of an ‘icky’ feeling.
Yes, I am perfectly ok with waiting. You have to consider this - your service falls into the “nice to have” category. It’s not essential or critical to my business in any way. It’s no problem for me to get some of the basic and most important stats right now as it is.
Would I pay ~150$/mo for such services?
Yes, I would, it’s convinient.
Am I in a hurry? Absolutely not :).
Here the issue for me is about principles - I am instantly put off by copycat projects.
But hey, maybe it’s just me 
Not just you! Also a huge turnoff for me. I’d love a baremetrics alternative for Braintree to recommend to clients, but it won’t be this one.
I’m not your target market, but honestly:
As long as you don’t break any laws, I’m fine with following an established strategy/copying a similar product.
You’re bringing a new service to an underserved audience - that is a good thing.
I assume that people here will be more critical of copycats than your target audience will be.
Exactly my thoughts. I don’t understand what the freak out is about.
I think many technical types fail to see beyond the technical part of a website.
Brilliant. I also think people here are more sensitive to “copycatting” than actual customers will be.
It might not hurt to at least hit up Josh to see if he’s cool with it. I would probably do that personally if it were me.
I’m a Braintree user and will probably check this out. I was also thinking that a baremetrics for the niche that I’m in (magento) would be huge. But alas I have other projects to work on right now.
Well, Josh has already said what he thinks about copycats in his recent AMA:
If
anything, it just bums me out that people who clearly have the ability
to build something are choosing to copy instead of solve real problems
they’re interested in.
I’m not worried about any of them…it’s just that from one
entrepreneur to another, I wish they’d go out and try to think of
something original.
And
I’m talking about motivation
more than anything here. There are so many interesting business
problems to solve across all sorts of industries and yet people still
get stuck in the rut of seeing someone else’s success and trying to copy
it instead of going out and pursuing something they’d actually be
interested in.
It just seems like a sad existence to go that route.
I didn’t mean that copying the idea is a problem - that’s perfectly fine and normal. I actaully was really excited when I read the first post that there was a baremetrics alternative for Braintree, because I have hoped for one. Then I opened the site and was immediately put off.
The problem I am talking about is 1:1 copying the landing page, the slogan, the UI… This is a real put off for me. Just as Josh put it - no original idea whatsoever.
I wonder if any of you would feel the same way (be ok with it) if someone copied your work like that.
Thanks Jeff. Couple clarifications. I would feel completely differently if this was a copy of baremetrics for stripe.
That’s obviously a dbag move and I’d imagine is mostly what Josh was responding to.
Since baremetrics likely isn’t going after Braintree and he’s not competing with them, for me that takes it out of the dbag territory.
I will say though that he really probably should have checked with Josh first though just to get his thoughts. Heck, if anything maybe josh would have helped if he liked the idea.
I agree that having zero “original thought” isn’t exactly promising. And to be fair I haven’t even really looked closely at the two websites to compare them.
But I think that a lot of times we overcomplicate things. I feel like many times the simplest business model is the best one.
And I’m also a big believer in niches. I think that if someone copied my product for another niche in a way that didn’t compete with me and never would, I’d just be flattered.
But I would have wanted them to check with me first. I think the checking with the creator first part is really important.
Then again there’s always the possibility that one might expand to adjacent niches in the future so it’s hard to say that they would never compete with you.
Another thing that I think is that it’s one thing for this to be a starting point.
If all he ever does is copy baremetrics 1:1, then most likely his heart isn’t really in it and at the end of the day he’s not going to be passionate enough about the business to carry it through the hard times.
But I don’t think we should necessarily all smash him for this being his starting point. As starting points go, I think it’s a pretty decent one - despite the fact that it’s lacking in originality. Good business model, good value prop, good niche.
I’d much rather that he start here rather than coming up with some interesting spin on the whole idea to try and make it more original and more unique. I’d rather he start with a business model that makes sense and figure out how to make it his own from there.
And another thing that Josh has talked about a lot is that one of the keys to reducing churn for them has been to talk with customers and really educate them about what the analytics mean for their businesses, and ultimately how to grow their business.
So if Thomas isn’t really diving deep into this business model and wrapping his head (and heart and soul) around it, he’s never going to be able to do that part of the business.
Let’s all jump on and beat the OP, because his website is slightly similar to another website’s in roughly the same domain.
Boy, moral outrage feels so good. Now, where did I keep my pitchfork?
Obviously your definition of slightly similar is different than some other peoples’.
First of all, thanks to all of you for your comments.
kalenjordan’s comment is exactly what we are trying to do. This is a starting point. We think that speed is an essential component to success in this niche since there seem to be a couple of teams that are trying to get into this market right now. So we created the MVP as fast as possible. It was never intended to stay a one to one copy. And we have a lot more ideas / plans for Mainmetrics which go far beyond what baremetrics offers right now. But again, we didn’t expect such a negative reaction.
That said, we’ll definitely put the redesign of Mainmetrics on the top of our tasks.
Thanks again
I’d really recommend that you not put a redesign at the top of your list.
Have you run this idea by Josh privately to kind if get his blessing? I’d definitely do that and put a lot of weight towards anything he suggests.
Other than that I would say don’t worry about a redesign until you start talking to actual customers. If actual customers push back on the design then go ahead and change it.
The big thing is to make it clear that you’re not affiliated with BareMetrics – say by similarity in page design, logo, etc. Not only is that the part most likely to piss off Josh, it’s also the most likely to be actually illegal.
For instance, you’re not allowed to create a cola with “cola” in the name, the red can and the Coca-Cola font. That’s considered their look, and they have legally protected it, long since.
By using a different page design, color scheme and/or logo, you’re making it clear (and legally you must make it clear) that you’re not “Baremetrics for Braintree” in the sense of being the same company’s Braintree product.
That’s the legal requirement. The rest is, y’know, not pissing off random geeks, which you can put as high or low on your task list as you like. You only care if your customers feel the same way.
I don’t think you’re currently quite confusing enough that you could be sued for it, but it doesn’t help that you and Baremetrics both have very “generic current web” looks. A different color scheme could help a lot with minimal work.
That’s the part that has stood out to me during this whole debate – it looks like it could be a generic template purchased from any template site on the Internet. It doesn’t seem that special of a design. It’s using a very similar design to someone else in the same industry, which isn’t ideal, but it’s not like the design was that specialized in the first place.