In this post I am going to briefly describe the week-long period over which I got the idea, chose the name, did some initial education, and created these first few blog posts. I will also be documenting the initial expenses I’ve encountered so far.
Coming up with the idea
The idea to build a digital asset management (DAM) tool which served the lower end of the market was not mine. I encountered it one evening while watching 8 Niche Problems To Solve with Your Next SaaS Idea, which was published on Rob Walling’s MicroConf YouTube channel.
As a quick aside, I recently discovered Rob’s incredible Startups for the Rest of Us podcast and have been consuming it like a maniac. Check it out if you are interested in building a SaaS — it’s one of the best resources out there!
The video presented someone on Twitter lamenting being unable to find affordable DAM software for their smaller business. Although I was able to find a couple affordable options with some effortful searching (primarily the nice-looking option Filecamp), it immediately seemed likely that there was room for competition.
Why was I even looking for an idea? And why did I choose this one? Until the night last week when I saw the YouTube video, I had never even heard of DAM.
Well, for several years I’ve been dreaming of starting my own SaaS business and becoming financially independent. Earlier that very day, I had just pulled the plug on a different SaaS I was attempting to build. This idea intrigued me because (for my previous SaaS attempt) I had built some rather nice cloud-based file management software. Although that alone is a far cry from being a DAM tool, it was my favorite part about the previous SaaS. Eager to repurpose the technology, and curious about the DAM ecosystem I had just discovered, I went with a gut feeling that I should pursue this space.
Choosing a name
As I stated in the first blog post, my intention is to build leveeware.com completely in the public. Almost everything (except the source code, private communications, etc.) will be made public for as long as I can.
So I wanted to start documenting the process immediately. I also wanted to avoid needing to change names (and domains) in the future and taking an SEO hit. So I made choosing a name one of my first priorities. Ultimately, it took me about two days. I used the following criteria to make my decision:
- The .com must be available
- It needed to have some creative association with the DAM industry, even if subtle
I originally thought “Hmm… DAM… maybe there is something with there with beavers or fish?” Thankfully my wife dismissed that quickly. I decided to look for related words and came upon “levee”. A levee is “an embankment built to prevent the overflow of a river”. Perfect! It is a nice sounding word, and it has the connotation of preventing floods. I think this subtly suggests that our software could help prevent the flood of digital assets from drowning your business. The levee.com domain was unfortunately unavailable, and I did not want to go with something like leveedam.com (which is both redundant, and ties the brand to a single product type where otherwise there may be room for future expansion).
I asked ChatGPT to give me about 50 different potential business names which started with “levee”, and leveeware.com was the winner.
Making it real
With an available domain name in mind, I went to work setting up the very website you’re reading now.
Web Host
I decided to use WordPress for the blog/marketing site. I had previous experience with A2 Hosting, so I checked their current offers. Uptime and load speeds were the main criteria I needed in a web host, and A2 Hosting does a great job at this for a reasonable price. I purchased the three year StartUp Web Hosting plan in order to lock in the introductory rate for as long as possible.
Costs
$70.20 – initial three years of web hosting (renews at $395.64)
$11.99 – initial year of leveeware.com domain (renews at $19.99, but will probably transfer to AWS later)
Google Workspace
I won’t wait long to begin reaching out and establishing contacts in the DAM ecosystem. So I knew I needed to setup a proper email inbox immediately. I decided to use Google Workspace, which will also allow me to use Drive for file storage (until the DAM tool is ready!) and Google Meet for online video calls.
Costs
$7.20 / month / user – this cost will begin accruing after the trial in 12 days
Logo
Eventually I will commission a designer to create a proper logo, but for now MS Paint and I will have to get the job done. I spent about 20 minutes creating the logo you see below. I like the simplicity and connotation (notice how the “L” in “levee” keeps the flood at bay?).
Costs
About 20 minutes, and a decent chunk of my pride :’)
Education
As I mentioned, until last week, I had no idea what DAM was. How can I possibly expect to build a tool that I hope the DAM community will embrace?
I did some research on available books and decided on this one for my first splash into the world of DAM: DAM Survival Guide: Digital Asset Management Initiative Planning by David Diamond. David is a well respected member of the DAM community and this was an amazing resource to begin my education. It is written to help guide an individual who needs to champion a new DAM solution at their company. I devoured it in two days, and will continue to return to it for the life of this experiment.
Costs
$9.99 – DAM Survival Guide, Kindle Edition
Next Steps
Where to from here? My plan is to continue learning as much as I can about the DAM industry. I will do this by reading books, news, purchasing training, and hopefully developing relationships.
I will also begin the technical development process. I will go into more details in a future post, but it will be some time before any usable code is written. For now I plan to understand the fundamental systems of a DAM tool and begin designing a flexible and powerful architecture.
Until next time!
Derek
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