I think it's a laudable goal, but to be honest it would be hard to convince me to switch to a new service.
I think most established services are already quite developer-friendly with a lot of available plugins and different ways to integrate their service. For example, I use SendGrid's SMTP because it's easy to configure Ruby on Rails that way. There's also built-in support for ActionMailbox which lets me process incoming email.
For me an HTTP API would actually make things more difficult as I'd need to somehow configure Rails to use that instead. It would also make it harder for me to switch from or to another service.
SendGrid also has a great deal for startups ( wip.chat/deals ) where you basically get 12 months premium for free.
I think you're getting into a very crowded and competitive market. I wonder if there's a specific niche that's currently underserved you target instead of developers as a whole.
It's hard to convince anyone to switch unless they're having difficulties with their current provider (I do think that is an ongoing problem for even the larger players, e.g. Sendgrid were getting heat recently: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=…)
An integration with Rails is something I am considering, but I don't want to maintain lots of integrations so I will be selective about which frameworks to target. There's also something to be said about reducing library dependencies for a lot of app developers.
Obviously buying into the market by e.g. offering 12 months free could help but I would prefer to choose customers that are looking for quality service, performance etc. over the cheapest deal.
Thanks for your last comment especially - looking for and finding the right niche, figuring out how/when those developers/companies make their email provider choice and then influencing that choice is going to be my main focus for the immediate future.
I think it's a laudable goal, but to be honest it would be hard to convince me to switch to a new service.
I think most established services are already quite developer-friendly with a lot of available plugins and different ways to integrate their service. For example, I use SendGrid's SMTP because it's easy to configure Ruby on Rails that way. There's also built-in support for ActionMailbox which lets me process incoming email.
For me an HTTP API would actually make things more difficult as I'd need to somehow configure Rails to use that instead. It would also make it harder for me to switch from or to another service.
SendGrid also has a great deal for startups ( wip.chat/deals ) where you basically get 12 months premium for free.
I think you're getting into a very crowded and competitive market. I wonder if there's a specific niche that's currently underserved you target instead of developers as a whole.
Thanks Marc, indeed this is spot on.
It's hard to convince anyone to switch unless they're having difficulties with their current provider (I do think that is an ongoing problem for even the larger players, e.g. Sendgrid were getting heat recently: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=…)
An integration with Rails is something I am considering, but I don't want to maintain lots of integrations so I will be selective about which frameworks to target. There's also something to be said about reducing library dependencies for a lot of app developers.
Obviously buying into the market by e.g. offering 12 months free could help but I would prefer to choose customers that are looking for quality service, performance etc. over the cheapest deal.
Thanks for your last comment especially - looking for and finding the right niche, figuring out how/when those developers/companies make their email provider choice and then influencing that choice is going to be my main focus for the immediate future.
👍 Sounds like you're on the right track. Digging through customer feedback about SendGrid, etc might reveal an unserved niche.