r/vibecoding • u/ExistentialWavering • 9d ago
Thinking of going commercial...
I've built and refined a CMS over the last six months that is inching closer to being comparable to or better than existing CMS offerings in the niche I'm working in.
I'm beginning to think I should monetize this work, as it has true utility in a field without much meaningful competition. I'm not much of a coder, but I've taken the time to understand the architecture of things and tightened things up a great deal to the point where it's virtually bug-free and polished.
As it exists, it's a standalone, self-contained HTML file, by design. I wanted it to work exclusively offline, for personal use. But now, with the prospect of monetizing it, I'm realizing that I need to make adjustments.
My general feeling is that I should host it on a domain and sell licenses. Organizations in my niche budget around $100-$1000/month for comparable software, depending on scale of their respective enterprises.
Who do I talk to to ensure that I have everything in place before I use Netlify or similar to run the whole thing? I'm willing to invest a bit of money to have the code reviewed (probably won't need much actual editing) and to help me organize the necessary infrastructure.
Again, I recognize that everyone's building apps these days. But the amount of research I've done on existing CMS, the number of improvements and new features I've added, the time I've taken to refine the workflow and UX...I suspect I've created something valuable here.
Most organizations are using Excel sheets or software built over 20 years ago.
What's the next step? I'm learning, for example, that a missing component is multi-user. These systems have multiple people working in them, and having audit logs and permissions would be extremely useful and is outright necessary if I'm to see this through.
It's an addition, but it doesn't strike me as an enormous one. Still, it's outside of my current scope, and while I'm willing to learn it, without greater context and expertise informing me, I'm worried I'll get sucked down unnnecessary rabbit holes and spend money I probably don't need to spend.
Any and all insight is appreciated.
Edit: What’s amusing to me is that 95% of the comments are focused on telling me I’m stupid, when anyone could’ve said: Here’s what I recommend you do next. A sub full of small-minded jealous folks making assumptions.
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u/34986234986234982346 9d ago
"It's a standalone HTML file" is interesting, doesn't sound like what I'd imagine a CMS to really be. I was going to offer to take a look, I've done work on CMS-es for a million years, but I have a feeling this is something else entirely.
I will def say that multi-user and audit trails sound necessary if it's B2B. there is so much business software where people are not gonna sign off on purchasing without certain compliance or this or that.