As you may have read, I have created a “hosted syncthing” pre-registration page in 11sync.net. The 1-sentence pitch for the service is:

11sync.net is a Hosted Syncthing peer. Designed for Syncthing users seeking reliable backups and resilience.

Over the ~6 months sign-up page was live, 46 people¹ signed up. This sign-up activity signals this will unlikely be a sustainable business, so I am halting all activity and will terminate the sign-up page soon. Thank you for your interest if you have signed up, I appreciate that!

If you are interested, find a brief retrospective below.

Retrospective: timeline

• 2021: start thinking about this idea, pitch to whomever will listen.
• 2022: put together a PoC of the service: I would be comfortable offering it to non-malicious technical friends.
• 2022: following Avery Pennarun’s suggestion, read Geoffrey A. Moore’s Crossing the Chasm. Stop all development, but occasionally bug my family, signalling the idea is still there.
• 2024: my precious wife gets tired of me bringing the start-up idea up, urges to make a real move.
  • Come up with a name, purchase a domain, create a simple pitch.
  • Create a registration page in about a week (it’ been lots of fun, since I haven’t touched Django in about a decade; it felt like meeting an old friend).
  • Start donating $128/month and get an 11sync.net logo in syncthing page. I guess this is where my sign-ups come from, as I have done no other reach-out.
• Now: I am shutting down the registration page, 11sync.net, until expires, will redirect here.

All in all, the sign-up page, logo, reach-out to syncthing maintainers was a very valuable exercise. I almost avoided the trap of creating a service that barely anybody wants! If you have comments or strong feelings about this post, you are, as always, welcome to contact me.

Some sign-up analysis

Sign-ups by country:

+-----------------+-------+
|     country     | count |
+-----------------+-------+
| United States   | 12    |
| Germany         | 10    |
| Russia          | 3     |
| Lithuania       | 2     |
| Canada          | 2     |
| Bulgaria        | 2     |
| The Netherlands | 1     |
| Sweden          | 1     |
| Spain           | 1     |
| New Zealand     | 1     |
| Mexico          | 1     |
| Malaysia        | 1     |
| Japan           | 1     |
| Italy           | 1     |
| Ireland         | 1     |
| Hungary         | 1     |
| France          | 1     |
| Denmark         | 1     |
| Colombia        | 1     |
| Brazil          | 1     |
| Austria         | 1     |
| Argentina       | 1     |
+-----------------+-------+

By continent:

+---------------+-------+
|   continent   | count |
+---------------+-------+
| Europe        | 26    |
| North America | 15    |
| South America | 3     |
| Asia          | 2     |
| Oceania       | 1     |
+---------------+-------+

Those are consistent with syncthing stats, no surprises here.