Kora CLI: Business & Revenue
1. Investment Tracking
1.1. Time Investment
| Phase | Activity | Estimated | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|
Phase 1 |
Foundation + ISE + GitHub |
80-100 hrs |
— |
Phase 2 |
Core vendors + distribution |
100-120 hrs |
— |
Phase 3 |
Plugin system + community |
80-100 hrs |
— |
Phase 4 |
Revenue features |
60-80 hrs |
— |
1.2. Financial Investment
| Item | Cost | Status |
|---|---|---|
Domain ( |
~$12/yr |
Not purchased |
GitHub Pro (for Sponsors) |
$4/mo |
Already have |
Sigstore/Cosign |
Free |
— |
Homebrew tap hosting |
Free (GitHub) |
— |
2. Revenue Model
2.1. Pricing Strategy
| Tier | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
Kora CLI (Free) |
$0 |
All vendors, all commands, ? discovery, beautiful output, credential management. Forever free, open source. |
Kora Pro |
$29/mo or $290/yr |
Scheduled queries (cron), report templates (XLSX/PDF), workflow automation (chain commands), priority GitHub issues, early access to new vendors. |
Kora Enterprise |
Custom |
On-prem deployment, SSO/SAML integration, audit logging, SLA, dedicated support channel. |
2.2. Revenue Projections
| Timeline | Users | Revenue | Milestone |
|---|---|---|---|
6 months |
500-2,000 |
$100-500/mo (sponsors) |
Launch, first community vendors |
12 months |
2,000-5,000 |
$1,000-3,000/mo |
Pro tier launch, 30 vendors |
24 months |
10,000+ |
$5,000-15,000/mo |
Enterprise customers, conference talks |
36 months |
25,000+ |
Full-time viable |
Team of 2-3, sustainable business |
3. Risk Assessment
| Risk | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation | Contingency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Low adoption — no one cares |
Medium |
High |
Solve real problems (auth, discovery, output). Ship to Hacker News early. Get feedback fast. |
Pivot to niche (network-only) or integrate as library |
Vendor CLIs improve and close the gap |
Low |
Medium |
Unification IS the value — no single vendor will unify competitors. Focus on multi-vendor UX. |
Double down on cross-vendor workflows |
Time investment too high vs. revenue |
Medium |
Medium |
Set hard cutoff: if <500 stars at 6 months, reassess scope |
Reduce to library + ISE-only tool (guaranteed audience) |
Go skills insufficient |
Low |
Medium |
Go is simpler than Rust. Cobra examples are abundant. Start with netapi patterns translated to Go. |
Use existing Python CLI, distribute via PyPI/pipx |
Burnout — too many projects |
High |
High |
Dedicated 1-hour blocks, not marathon sessions. Kora IS the priority project — others support it. |
Pause non-essential projects. Kora + CHLA only. |