Selling Self-Hosted Developer Tools: How Did You Get Your First 5 Customers?

#ai #webdev #productivity #opensource

Hey developers!

I'm an indie developer building CodeGuard AI, a self-hosted AI-powered GitHub pull-request review tool built using Java 21 and Spring Boot.

Unlike SaaS products, CodeGuard AI is distributed as source code. Buyers download it and deploy it in their own infrastructure.

I've listed it for sale, but I'm still at zero sales.

I'm now trying to figure out the best way to get my first few real users.

One idea I had was to offer free evaluation licences to the first few engineering teams in exchange for honest feedback. But that brings me to a concern that I haven't figured out yet.

The source-code licensing problem

If I give someone the complete source code for a free evaluation, they can:

Clone and retain the entire repository.
Continue using it after the evaluation period.
Potentially redistribute or resell the code.

Even if I revoke their repository access, I cannot revoke a copy they've already downloaded.

I know piracy is a risk with downloadable software, but I don't want fear of piracy to prevent me from getting my first customers either.

I'd love to hear from people who have done this before:

How did you get your first 1–5 paying customers for a self-hosted or source-code product?
Did you offer free trials, discounted licences or early-access programmes?
Did you share the complete source code or provide compiled binaries/Docker images?
How do you handle licence expiry when customers deploy software on their own infrastructure?
Do licence keys and activation systems actually work for self-hosted products?
Have you ever faced piracy or unauthorised redistribution? How did you handle it?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from founders selling developer tools, self-hosted software, boilerplates, libraries or source-code products.

I'm not expecting a foolproof anti-piracy solution. I want to understand how people balance customer trust, product exposure and getting those first few sales.

Project: CodeGuard AI

Product page: CodeGuard AI on Gumroad

Would love to hear your real experiences. Even a story about how you got your very first buyer would be incredibly helpful.

Thanks!!!!!!

Top comments (1)

Gligorco Gligorov • Nov 14

I sell a small dev tool too, so a few honest answers from the trenches:

Don't ship source code for evaluations. Ship a Docker image with a license key that expires (30 days is common). Teams that want source access can get it under a paid license later.
Don't worry about piracy yet. At 0 customers, obscurity is a bigger risk than copying. The teams that would pirate it were never going to pay.
Free evaluation for honest feedback is a good deal, but make it time-boxed and ask for one specific thing back (a call, or a written review).
The best first buyers are people already complaining about the problem in public: GitHub issues and threads where teams ask for self-hosted or private AI code review because they can't send code to a SaaS. Replying there with something useful works much better than posting about your launch.

If it helps, I can run a search for people publicly asking for self-hosted AI code review and send you the list, free. Happy to.