The Story

After I taught myself how to code, the first product that I built was helpdesk software. I built it with google apps script and google sheets for one of my clients. It was not a great looking application but did the job perfectly well, and to my surprise the client’s IT team used it religiously. 

To me as a budding engineer this was a sweet success. Seeing someone using the product we built is every engineer’s delight. 

This is when I wanted to launch a proper customer support/helpdesk software. It was the year 2014 and I purchased Hilfedesk.com and started writing code. I was bootstrapping this activity and hence it was just me writing code. 

In three months a basic version of Hilfedesk was ready. I spoke to a few of my friends and requested them to use Hilfedesk free of cost. 

One of them agreed to use it and I quickly set things up for him and emailed the login credentials. It was amazing to watch them create the first few tickets. In those days I would query the tables time and again to see if users were creating tickets and get excited when I could find a couple of new tickets. 

I pushed things hard and started selling Hilfedesk aggressively. I knew nothing about identifying the target audience or finding my niche. Instead I went all in and tried to compete with companies like Freshdesk and Zendesk. 

I vividly remember exhausting Rs.10,000 credits in my google ads account by competing on keywords with these giants. It was stupid of me. I can never forget how I paid that Rs 10,000 in two installments. 

This is when we met an old client who gave us a new requirement. We had the pressure to earn money so we accepted the work. On further analysis we figured out that Hilfedesk did most of what the client wanted and only needed minor changes. We did it and Geedesk was born. 

Life got busy with Geedesk. A couple of months later when Geedesk needed a customer support tool we went back to Hilfedesk. I checked out the code from the repository and updated a few packages and internally launched Hilfedesk. It has been our customer support software for almost three years now. 

Other than the man hours that we spent building Hilfedesk we did not spend a penny for our customer support software. 

I have to do something

My co-founder always tells me that we need to have a razor sharp focus on Geedesk, and I agree with him. Nothing much can be achieved without focus or consistent effort. By focusing on too many things we spread ourselves thin and end up achieving nothing.

However the developer in me who built Hilfedesk keeps nudging me to do something. It often tells me to let the source code out of the repository. Put it on the internet and let the internet decide if it wants to use it or not. I know very well that this is not how a saas product should be launched. Things have to be done properly in a systematic way. 

 

Zammad is the way to go

Being in the field for a long time I have used almost every meaningful helpdesk software, right from open source to paid ones. 

I have been impressed with Zammad which has an open source version and a saas version. Though the application is stacked with features and is complicated to set up and use, I like their strategy of also having an open source version. 

So if companies who cannot afford the hosted cloud version or for some reason are not willing to subscribe can simply use the open source version on their own servers. This is super cool as Zammad does not force you to buy a subscription. 

The one thing that I do not like about Zammad is how difficult it is to set up and begin using. Both the users and the administrators will find it difficult to get accustomed to it. 

What’s wrong with existing options

The need of the hour is a lightweight customer support/helpdesk software that has all the features that a small business needs. Nothing more nothing less. No unwanted stack of features. It should be simple to use like an appliance. You login and start using it without much training or effort. You should be able to fiddle with it and figure out how to use it. 

It should also be free or affordable for small and bootstrapped businesses. Customer support is one of the aspects of the business. It should not suck up a considerable percentage of the revenue. 

The existing applications fall short of this promiseland. The open source ones are very difficult and have a bad UI. One needs to be a programming wizard to customise them. 

 

The paid ones

The paid ones are stacked with complicated and mostly unnecessary features which are oftentimes built to increase the brand value and not to help the poor customer. Investor led companies also have a pressure to go upmarket and target the enterprise segment while leaving the small and bootstrapped businesses in limbo. 

An entrepreneur sets out to solve a business problem but ends up making himself and the investors rich while the poor customer is left with a hefty invoice. 

Look at the pricing of any paid product right Freshdesk and Zendesk to anyone the pricing has more than doubled in the past few years. 

The open source ones

The open source versions do not cost any money but end up wasting a lot of man hours in terms of setup, training and loss of productivity during the initial adoption phase. I have used Request Tracker, osTicket to name a few. 

They are wonderful applications but the difficult part is an entrepreneur needs to build a business not customise a product to suit their needs. Also an average developer like me would find it difficult to to interpret the source code and start making changes. 

No doubt they are written by some of the most experienced and talented developers. But as a business tool they fall short. They are like one size fits all kind of products and in today's complex business world they are just a compromise. 

In most cases the user interface is not intuitive and feels outdated. 

How is Hilfedesk different? 

Hilfedesk comes from two words, Hilfe + Desk. Hilfe means help in German. Why German? To be honest the domain was available and Hilfedesk was easy to remember. 

Hilfedesk will be first launched as an open source product. Right now our team is building some important features like user management (as it was an internal tool we inserted users directly in the database). 

The open source version will have all the features required to deliver a remarkable customer experience. I have provided a list of features below. 

1. Ticket management
2. Multiple channels
3. Email integration
4. Escalation policies
5. User management and use roles
6. Basic filters
7. Docker support for self hosting
8. Setup guide and documentation
9. APIs
10. Basic reports

It will be enough to effectively manage your customer support. We will also make sure that the source code is well documented so that the folks out there can make their own changes. 

Anyone is free to take a fork and add new features. 

How will we sustain ourselves?

Me and my team have to sustain ourselves as well. At the end of the day everyone needs to get paid. Following are some of the ways we will be sustaining our open source efforts. 

1. A one time setup and configuration for $199.
2. On going support for $99 / month

 

A commercial version

We will also have a commercial version of the product which will be a typical saas application. It will be competitively priced and feature rich. There will be a flat pricing so no pressure to upgrade to a high plan for more features. It will have all the features that are required to run a successful customer support operation. 

I would like to recollect that we have built Hilfedesk to solve our problem. We are its biggest users. So similar businesses will find it to be the right fit. 

Our promise

There will be a clear split between both the versions. The open source version will be owned by a not for profit organisation and the commercial saas version will be owned by a private for profit company. 

The open source version will be open source forever. That’s our promise. 

 

The ongoing journey

Right now we are cleaning the source code and getting it ready for public release. We are a bit nervous as for the first time the whole world will be seeing our code. But that is something we are willing to go through with. 

Till now Hilfedesk was an internal product some aspects of it have been hard coded so we are clearing it and building use features. We have set a soft deadline for open source release as 31st July 2025 and are hopeful to meet it. 

The source code for the open source can be found on Github. We have not yet put up a landing page for the open source version. It will soon be done and the website will be live at open.hilfedesk.com. 

The commercial saas version will be close sourced and you can find more information about it at www.hilfedesk.com.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you would like to point out any mistakes I might have made. 

 

Related links

• Hilfedesk SaaS
• Hilfedesk Open Source
• Hilfedesk Sourcode

 

Please note

The hilfedesk websites are not yet ready so you might see a coming soon or empty page. We are working on it so in the coming days the websites should be live. 

 

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