As a founder of raster.click, I was passionate about providing rostering systems for restaurants that were easy to use and affordable. I worked hard to build a functional product that our users loved, and I was proud to have three paying customers (eg restaurants) and around 90 active users (employees).

Despite initial success, I realized that growth was not fast enough to become economically viable. I was unable to attract enough paying customers to cover costs. As a self-bootstrapped startup, I did not have access to significant funding, which made it challenging to scale the company and invest in marketing efforts. I also struggled with balancing time between product development and customer acquisition, which slowed growth even further.

In 2019, I put in a lot of effort and remained dedicated to Raster.click. However, I eventually had to make the tough decision to discontinue my work and return to contract work. It was a heartbreaking decision, as I knew my product was loved by my users. They continued to use it until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and practically all usage stopped. The restaurant industry was severely affected by the pandemic, rendering rostering completely useless during that period.

Although I still have an appreciation for the tech stack I chose - reflex + servant + beam - I’ve come to realize that a cool tech stack alone doesn’t matter to users. While it may result in faster product development, it ultimately doesn’t help if I can’t gather user requirements or attract new users. In hindsight, I could have been more productive by using yesod and relying on browser defaults instead of creating a single page app. However, the decision to end my startup was not based on the tech stack. Despite rolling out new features, I simply wasn’t gaining enough customers to make it a viable business.

While I am proud of what I accomplished with Raster.click, I learned valuable lessons about the challenges of building and growing a startup without significant funding. Such as:

• The importance of having a clear and viable business model: It’s essential to have a solid plan for how your startup will generate revenue and grow sustainably.
• The need for effective marketing and customer acquisition: Even if you have a great product, you need to be able to effectively reach and convince potential customers to use it.
• The importance of balancing product development and customer acquisition: While it’s important to create a great product, you also need to be able to attract and retain customers.
• The value of having access to funding: Without significant funding, it can be challenging to scale your startup and compete effectively in the market. Not to mention the stress caused by seeing your life savings slowly drop to zero.

I will take these lessons with me as I move forward with future endeavors.

Although I stopped working on this project, it’s still operational. It costs very little money for me to keep this operational. That’s because it runs next to this site, videocut, and massapp on the nmm approach. Yes, it’s sad I stopped working on this project, but if anyone is interested in using it, it’s right there.