Today, I want to share a business idea that I’m currently testing. It’s quite straightforward: supporting and updating a long-discontinued open-source project. In my case, that project is CRUDBooster.

How It All Began

About six years ago, CRUDBooster was popular among developers, and I managed to create five projects using it. Over time, new versions of PHP and Laravel were released, but simply running composer update on these projects wasn’t feasible. In particular, PHP 8 became much more demanding in terms of code quality.

I had to fork CRUDBooster, fix critical compatibility issues, and make my projects work again. Even then, unexpected bugs appeared in special use cases, consistently consuming my time and resources.

That’s when the idea came to me: if I was facing these problems, other developers who used CRUDBooster were likely encountering similar issues as well. Many of them probably don’t have the time or resources to rewrite their projects using other solutions or to continuously fix bugs.

What I Did

Upgraded CRUDBooster to PHP 8

I took the original CRUDBooster, set it up from scratch, switched to PHP 8, and started manually testing the entire system. Over the span of a month (part-time), I fixed all compatibility errors.

Finding distribution channels

I considered several options for sharing the updated version:

• Private Composer Repository – Convenient, but expensive for me.
• Private GitHub Repository – An interesting idea, though it requires manual administration.
• Patreon – The simplest, fastest option. It already has a billing system and the ability to publish articles and files (artifacts for new versions). In just a couple of days, I set up and launched a Patreon page. The description is open to everyone, but the artifacts are available to subscribers only. The result was this: https://www.patreon.com/c/crudbooster_upgrade_support/about

Promoting the Service

The most challenging part was getting the word out to potential clients. I added a link to my offer in the footer of a few pet projects (hoping this would help with SEO). I also created a README.md in the CRUDBooster fork to notify users of the updated version.

Conclusions

As of writing this, I haven’t yet gained any active subscribers. However, the update was necessary for my own projects, and the whole experience has been fascinating. I believe ideas like this have potential, especially when it comes to LTS (Long-Term Support) for older solutions—this is often a niche that needs its own set of “heroes.”

Have you had a similar experience? Or have you already launched a similar business? I’d be glad to hear your thoughts and advice in the comments!