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SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

indiehackers.com

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Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#71

Post by vacri »

paulsutter wrote: post #64
fiatjaf wrote: post #45

The guy had a very successful music blog and used that to kick off the network effect needed to make SubmitHub work. There is zero chance SubmitHub would work without the music blog, so unless you have a very successful blog yourself this article will not help you in any practical manner.

Or maybe the lesson is to develop a following first before developing a product. The music blog didn't happen by random chance, and his overall approach seems better than developing a product and hoping for a following.

Building a following over 7 years doesn't seem to fit into the title's '10 months'...

Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#72

Post by nickpsecurity »

swedish_coder wrote: post #68
godzillabrennus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively you can partner with a community and build a product for them on revenue share.

Interesting take on the concept. Do you have any experience with this? Know where I can read more about this sort of thing? :)

Facebook might qualify with their third-party apps leveraging the social netsork and FB targeting.

Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#73

Post by nickpsecurity »

jason-grishkoff wrote: post #20
0898 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great project. How do you make sure the other blogs give people who've paid $1 feedback?

Simple, really: they earn the majority of that $1 for providing feedback :) To build on that, for most of these blogs this is the first time they're earning any mentionable revenue from running their websites. Not only is it making their lives easier -- it's actually rewarding them for their passion yada yada.

"To build on that, for most of these blogs this is the first time they're earning any mentionable revenue from running their websites."

So, you monetized websites that previously weren't with product their users will enjoy. Sounds like a nice design pattern for bootstrapping businesses on non-profit organizations or sites. One to remembet. I especially like you keep it win/win.

Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#74

Post by petercooper »

wyc wrote: post #32

Kudos! I get really excited when I learn about people working hard at creative and useful things like this. I also think it's important to note that, while this is surely no small feat, it sounds like this is the fruition of the author's accumulated experiences, network, and reputation "[over] the course of my ~7 years running a blog", and probably even longer with a strong passion for music and the people in music.…

while this is surely no small feat, it sounds like this is the fruition of the author's accumulated experiences, network, and reputation

True for most success stories. Overnight success is so rare (and often fleeting - all of the rapid online successes I can think of are underwater now - all the best things were slow burns, including this very site). It's about accumulating bricks here and there and building the wall over years. People who never lose hope and who keep building those bricks will reap the rewards in the end.

Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#75

Post by nickpsecurity »

edoceo wrote: post #38
dwightgunning wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I thought this was a strange and irrelevant fact to include in the article. There's no indication that his role at Google had any bearing on the success of the business. Perhaps if he'd worked on Google Music (or other music related area of the business) or the referenced exposure to "top brass" opened some doors... but it seems unlikely this is the case. There's certainly correlation between Google…

After working at BigCo and saving steady pay while nurturing your startup at night for a few years. You have a visibility to traction. And a cushion against failure. So you can take the "risk". It's easy to take a "risk" when it's not really there. It's not like this founder started with $100 and made an ongoing business employing a few others. Started on second, scored on as RBI and media talks about your Grand Slam…

That's actually a really good point if it's what he did. The common approach to employment is placing it safe using one job's revenue to get to higher-paying one. Or even savings. Many startups or bootstrappers go all in with different incentives and cost structure. Plus time available.

So, it's worth learning things like that in these stories in tracing the bigger picture of how the success story played out with what ingredients that might work next time.

Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#76

Post by muse900 »

fiatjaf wrote: post #45

The guy had a very successful music blog and used that to kick off the network effect needed to make SubmitHub work. There is zero chance SubmitHub would work without the music blog, so unless you have a very successful blog yourself this article will not help you in any practical manner.

True that, I find it that literally if you are famous or have some sort of following crowd you can easily do things others wouldn't.

I watch a bit of twitch and the famous streamers in there literally could be considered millionaires already.

Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#77

Post by erikpukinskis »

muse900 wrote: post #76
fiatjaf wrote: post #45

The guy had a very successful music blog and used that to kick off the network effect needed to make SubmitHub work. There is zero chance SubmitHub would work without the music blog, so unless you have a very successful blog yourself this article will not help you in any practical manner.

True that, I find it that literally if you are famous or have some sort of following crowd you can easily do things others wouldn't. I watch a bit of twitch and the famous streamers in there literally could be considered millionaires already.

Why don't you pitch one of them on a plan to do just that, and make yourself rich too?

Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#78

Post by abrookewood »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #66
paulsutter wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe the lesson is to develop a following first before developing a product. The music blog didn't happen by random chance, and his overall approach seems better than developing a product and hoping for a following.

Alternatively you can partner with a community and build a product for them on revenue share.

Both this and the parent's approach are good options.

Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#79

Post by notgood »

fiatjaf wrote: post #45

The guy had a very successful music blog and used that to kick off the network effect needed to make SubmitHub work. There is zero chance SubmitHub would work without the music blog, so unless you have a very successful blog yourself this article will not help you in any practical manner.

What a quickly way to dismiss his blog post, what if the time scheduling he writes about is practical advice? What if being part of the target audience is practical advice? He talks about lots of things, how much they help in a "practical manner" depends on many things; disregarding it all because he used a prior successful related blog it's just gratuitous negativity and what I dislike most about HN

Re: SubmitHub: how a solo founder built a $46k/mo SaaS business in 10 months

#80

Post by wallace_f »

csallen wrote: post #70
jstandard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not his point. From the article's headline: "did it in under a year" The author is being very disingenuous with his headline.

SubmitHub as a product is 10 months old, and Jason's only been charging for the past 7 months. So saying that "under as year" is a "very disingenuous" timeline is... very disingenuous. Yes, having a successful blog helped Jason identify and understand the problem, and it saved him from having to partner with someone else's blog. But learning to code was probably pivotal, too. Where do we draw the line?

Headline would be more precise had it claimed to have built an app in 10 months, not a business

Still impressive, but not the same thing

Edit: just to be extra clear, the reason why this is true is because, the customer base he generated was not in the 10 months he used to build his app, that was done over the years of blogging

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