Table of Contents
The Story Behind
Those of you who follow me will know that I'm currently building stomod.com - a Notion to blog platform which is now live and is generating MRR.
While pitching Stomod to prospective customers, one of the common questions I got was: does it support building knowledge bases?
The answer was no.
Stomod is a purpose built tool for blogging using content from Notion. You write in Notion and it publishes those posts as a blog. I built it to scratch my own itch where I blog about my adventures at traveladventures.stomod.com and hirve.sh
Taking the incessant requests about knowledge bases as a cue, it occurred to me that the demand for a Notion to knowledge base platform is more than a Notion to blog platform.
It makes sense to be honest and I kind of feel stupid not realising it earlier. People use Notion mostly as a way to organise information - brain dumps, second brains, documentation, knowledge bases. Moreover, several companies use Notion as their repository for company information: policies, handbooks, product documentation, etc.
With my already intricate knowledge of how to process Notion content to build blogs, I felt there was an opportunity to tap into the knowledge base/help center/documentation kind of sites.
The next question which came up in my mind was: Should I build this into Stomod (minimal effort) or build this as a whole different product?
My gut feeling said to go with a different product. Upon thinking more deeply about it, it reasons out pretty well.
Building a different product allow Stomod's core message not to be diluted.
Right now, the message is simple: Build beautiful blogs effortlessly, with Notion.
I felt if I tack on another value proposition built into Stomod, the marketing message would become less clear.
Build beautiful blog/knowledge bases/documentation sites/help center effortlessly, using Notion? Nah.
In my opinion there's something more appealing in purpose-built tools where there's a feeling that if it does only that one thing, it will do it better than a more generic tool.
Idea Conception
Hence the idea of creating a sister product: AssistFlare.
AssistFlare will probably share 90% of the codebase with Stomod but it will be a totally separate product with a more knowledge-base focused experience.
With that in mind, I decided to go ahead with a 15 days MVP challenge for building out AssistFlare.
Previously I have been guilty of drawing out shipping a product. This time around, I'm cutting out the cruft and building the bare minimum to launch as soon as possible.
You can follow my updates on Twitter/X here: https://twitter.com/hirvesh. You can also join the AssistFlare waitlist here: https://assistflare.com
What do you think about my thought process? Does it makes sense to you or is there something I am missing?
Want Your Own Blog, Just Like This One?
If you enjoy this blog, why not make one of your own? With Stomod, transform your ideas into a blog directly from Notion. It's fast, simple, and effective. Begin your blogging journey today!
HM
Hirvesh Munogee
View ProfileHirvesh is an indie hacker from the beautiful island of Mauritius currently working on his two SaaS products: stomod.com and assistflare.com
He’s passionate about solopreneurship and blogs at hirve.sh about his learnings on setting up a business!