Fortrabbit PHPipeline 2013
In spring 2012 i joined the Fortrabbit team – namely Frank and Uli. Both guys are highly skilled in their fields and very passionate about moving their hosting company to the next level. I became a kind of man-in-the-middle to connect the tech and the marketing/product world – as a person and as a coder (i write the glue code between the frontend and our infrastructure API). It was a great experience to build a hosting platform from the scratch, a product that is still beyond a MVP or buggy prototype.
Current Traction
During BETA and the first weeks after launch PHP developers from all over the world were paying attention. Early adoptors, some of the Top of the PHP Pops, web agencies and even competitors tweeted, signed up, played around and gave valuable feedback. But what's most exciting: People love the product we've build, they pay money for the service and use it in production. We know that PaaS is still under the radar of many PHP developers. But in 2013 developers, organizations and enterprises will start to rethink their current hosting situation and take advantage of managed cloud environments.
The Road Ahead
The awesome feedback of our customers is the best inspiration for us to build and develop a service that solves real world problems. They ask the right questions and give us hints to make the platform better. So, please don't stop to ask and tell us your ideas. Here is a short list of out upcoming features:
Company Building
Our line-up of three self-motivated guys worked very well to ramp up a very solid core product and we know now it takes time to form a company. Building a team that allows us to make bigger steps and to keep the support on a high level, without losing the fun will be the biggest challenge. It's a shift from a hacker to an entrepreneur. Bootstrapping the first development cycle was a great way to start, but we know that good staff expects a solid salary, so we have to bridge the gap until being profitable. Company funding is a kind of unknown territory for us (we are engineers/designers). Fortunately there are different options we can explore and there are some advisors around guiding us. As you can see, there are many things that will keep us busy in 2013. Let's go for it!