We want JDF to become Mehashi’s first customer.
JDF is effectively the company behind Mehashi. It is the business I started five years ago, and up until now, it has covered all of Mehashi’s costs. The next step is to change that and have JDF start paying for Mehashi properly based on usage.
That matters for two reasons. First, it means Mehashi starts getting used by a real business in day-to-day work. Second, it lets us begin separating Mehashi’s costs from everything else and see what the business looks like on its own.
Right now, JDF has around 30 people. Under our pricing model, that would mean 5 free users and 25 paid users, so Mehashi would bring in around £25 per month from JDF. It is not a lot, but it is a real starting point.
So far, the costs of setting things up have been fairly small, although they are starting to increase as the project becomes more real, especially on the AWS side.
The first formal cost was setting up the company. We used Tide.co, which made the process of creating a UK company very straightforward. They also partner with Hoxton Mix, which provides a virtual office. That was important because it lets us keep a personal home address private. Setting up the company through Tide cost around £250, and that also included a basic business bank account. It is an annual cost, but it gives us a clean and practical setup from day one.
We also started the trademark process, which cost £265. Once completed, it gives us protection for ten years. This was my first time dealing with trademarks, and I handled it directly through the UK government website with help from ChatGPT.
Individually, these are not huge costs. But I think it is worth documenting them early, because this is what starting a software company actually looks like in practice. It is not just product ideas and design decisions. It is also company formation, banking, trademarks, infrastructure, and the basic admin needed to turn a project into a real business.
The cost that is starting to matter most is AWS.
That part is a bit harder to measure cleanly at the moment because we currently run several projects in the same AWS account. At the moment, that account costs around 350 USD per month in total. We still need to break that down properly and add better tagging so we can track Mehashi separately, but my current estimate is that Mehashi accounts for around 250 USD per month.
That is still manageable for now. But we will need to create a couple more environments for testing, and when that happens, the cost could easily double in the near future.
So at this stage, the numbers are still small, but they are starting to become real.
Mehashi so far
Setup costs: £515
Infra costs: ~$250/month
Clients: 1
Revenue: £25/month
Still early. Still small. Still moving. We have a long way to go, but this is how it starts.