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How not to SaaS.
Lessons from 2 years of building a SaaS as an @IndieHackers which now makes $3k in MRR -
1. Don't get into a space that you don't know of. Solve a problem in a domain you are familiar with so you know what value you provide and who the target customers are.
Lessons from 2 years of building a SaaS as an @IndieHackers which now makes $3k in MRR -
1. Don't get into a space that you don't know of. Solve a problem in a domain you are familiar with so you know what value you provide and who the target customers are.
It's a very painful feeling to not know how valuable or not valuable your solution is when a customer subscribes. If you don't know the value you'll find it extremely difficult to market and sell the product and will be in fear as to when a customer might cancel.
2. Make sure you build for the right type of people. In other words, choose your customers carefully because this matters more than you think. Watch @patio11's talk - - build for people who you enjoy having conversations with and who can afford to spend!
In our case building a product for writers was a mistake because 1. we didn't know anything about them, we were not writers, and 2. we didn't know about their budget constraints. Since our product didnt really help their business grow, it was very hard to charge them $
So, aim to build products for customers who have the capacity to spend eg; folks at companies who have budgets and don't mind paying a $50, $100 or more to products because they are not spending out of their own pockets, they are spending from the company's budget.
3. Don't build nice to have products. You need to deliver solid business value to build a long term sustainable business. When we started out, we provided a solution where writers, publishers and content businesses could create and add audio versions of their blog posts ...
..this was a "nice to have", and although we got paying customers we had high churn as providing "listens" is not really a business value. Look at products like @cannyHQ , @ConvertKit , @SimpleAnalytics - these products provide real business value. Aim to build such products.
4. Do not start building without research. I can't emphasize this enough. If you are even remotely interested in building a real SaaS business then do the research before starting to build. What does research include? It's mostly commonsense things like ..
check for keywords on Google Adwords to get an idea of the demand, make a google search for the product you want to build and see what results show up (I use a VPN and switch countries to see different results), have a look at the products, their pricing ..
and the type of customers they have, look for reviews on Capterra and Trustpilot, etc. search Twitter, and most importantly talk to potential buyers about the idea. You'll learn a lot by just discussing it!
5. Don't start a SaaS business *just* for making money. I made this mistake and I deeply realize how important it is to set your motivations right. If you only build for the money you'll spend an awfully long time being anxious and frustrated and you'll not be satisfied.
The thing I've come to learn is there's a different level of satisfaction that you get when you know your solution actually helps people and you know that the money they've spent on your product is totally worth for them.
Initially, I was too focused on getting subscribers. And since I never related to the problem myself, I never thought about making them successful with the product. This always made me anxious about getting more subscribers and when any one of them canceled I doubted the product.
6. Don't build a business that "seems" like a good business. This goes to my #4 point. I used to think that a business needs to be unique - a solution that nobody's ever built it. This is a fantasy and can cause you a lot of painful time and wasted effort if you have this mindset
The reality is, there is nothing new under the sun. The products and businesses out there exist for a reason - people need them. There is a demand for them. And it's okay (in fact it's good) to build products in an existing space than to build something entirely new because..
building in an existing space guarantees that the problem exists and there is a market for it. If your solution is indeed new and solving a problem then you are going to spend a long time educating the market first rather than making sales. So, build for a market that exists.
7. Don't think of the product first, think of the market. We all know "product-market fit" - that makes us think of the product first, which is wrong especially for us builders. We like to build. We just need an idea to get all pumped up and start building. Instead...
think 'market-product fit'. Putting the market before the product forces you to think the same way. Always start with the market (problem). Your product is only a means to solve that problem. In his post, @bbalfour explains this concept beautifully - https://brianbalfour.com/essays/market-product-fit
8. Spend more time marketing, less time building. The reality I've come to learn is, you as a founder, cannot keep your head down and keep building things. To be successful you need to make money. And for that, you need to sell. Your product is not going to sell itself.
How to sell? This is what I do - run paid ads and learn how they perform. Reach out to prospects and pitch them the solution. Come up with ways of using the product itself to drive traffic (using "powered by" link) Write content. Reach out for partnerships.
9. Measure the right metrics. It's easy to focus on the wrong metrics and fool yourself that things will work out. In our product, we used to focus on 'listens' and the number of people 'adding audio' to their blog posts.
We thought, if more people add audio, we'd get more listens and if we get to a point where we'd have hundreds and thousands of listens per day we'd be able to monetize the product. Seemed plausible, but it didn't work out.
10. When building the product get the basics right and keep the tech simple. Follow standard practices when it comes to sign up, trial, password reset, etc. Add an FAQ section. These things will build trust and make the product look professional.
Don't reinvent things, use existing solutions wherever possible. A lot of the things can be done manually early on so don't build things that are not critical. Remember, simple software = fewer bugs = easy to maintain == less customer support === huge time saving.
