We have a lot of teams using HelpSite.io [1] for this sort of thing. Originally designed for customer-facing FAQs, we also support the same format for internal knowledge bases. We didn't originally intend to support such use cases, but it turned out a lot of people really like our format for internal company docs as well.
- Keep your product really simple. The more complex it is, the more you need to teach and sell. If your product does one thing well and can communicate its value clearly on a homepage, it requires a lot less work from you.
- Tactically: you don't need to respond to emails M-F 9-5. Yes, that's when many B2B customers are working, but they don't know what timezone you are in, and it's not uncommon to have a delay in answering emails. Just be sure to answer emails before work and after work.
- Create lots of FAQs (using https://helpsite.io – shameless plug) so you aren't answering the same questions over and over.
- (Actually you'll still have to answer many of those questions, but at least you'll have a quick link you can send them)
- Focus more on inbound marketing (creating blog posts, SEO, AdWords, etc.) rather than outbound sales, which requires a much higher amount of active work that you can't do with a full-time job.
For people who value full control and self hosting, Raneto looks like a good starting point to build from.
After having had to build knowledge bases in each company I worked in or go through the pain of implementing something bloated like Zendesk, I built a SaaS version of what I really wanted: the simplest knowledge base out there that stays out of your way.
The cost of SaaS apps can really start to add up. What's interesting is that there's a very similar "stack" that almost all SaaS apps need to buy from other SaaS apps, and many of them don't have a free alternative.
There exists a whole class of apps/services that could gain a lot of traction by providing a freemium model. By becoming one of the best solutions AND having a free version (for limited use), I think you have a better shot of becoming part of a new bootstrapped SaaS business' "default stack".
This is why we gave HelpSite.io [1] a free version that includes features that I consider "necessary" for any business no matter how small, even when most of our competitors are charging for some of them. The more you can align with a startup's own business model (e.g. they need lots of light services up front even when they have no revenue; later they will have revenue and use those services more heavily) the better off you will do.
I started HelpSite.io because I was tired of choosing between always reinventing the wheel when it came to building out a support center website manually, or having to use a bulky tool like Zendesk that focuses on a million different features, when all I care about is the hosted knowledge base software.
A few nice things:
* Really fast search, powered by Algolia
* An intelligent contact form that auto-suggests articles
* A generous free plan which even supports custom domains (via CNAME).
Since our contact form just sends regular email to whichever address you want, you can already achieve this! Slack has a "Send emails to Slack" feature [1] that should do what you want.
Naturally, I just created an FAQ article [2] to describe how to do it :)
Maybe one day, but our current target market is people who just want a very easy to use tool to get a job done well. So far we just haven't heard much demand for self-hosting.
The contact form submission limit is purely a soft limit for now and you'll know long before messages stop being delivered [1]. (To be honest, we might get rid of those limits completely since it doesn't seem to be a driver of upgrades compared other other features, and just introduces friction.)
Compared to Help Scout, we have a generous free plan, our paid plans are much cheaper ($15/mo compared to $100/mo for 5 users), and we focus exclusively on docs rather than having it be an add-on. We also have nice little features such as the auto-suggesting Contact Form, that I don't think they do.
I started HelpSite.io because I was tired of choosing between always reinventing the wheel when it came to building out a support center website manually, or having to use a bulky tool like Zendesk that focuses on a million different features, when all I care about is the hosted knowledge base software.
A few nice things:
- Really fast search, powered by Algolia
- An intelligent contact form that auto-suggests articles
- A generous free plan which even supports custom domains (via CNAME).
> I'm curious if there are any good hosted knowledge base solutions where it isn't an afterthought
I started HelpSite.io exactly because of this. Knowledge bases with the big guys are always bundled with a million (https://help.helpsite.io/articles/5-comparison-with-help-des...) other things. I always just wanted a simple way to create a public facing help site / support center / KB.
[1] https://helpsite.io