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Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

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Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#51

Post by Untit1ed »

alexpetralia wrote: post #25
dangero wrote: post #2

I've crashed and burned on SaaS enough that I'm very into the landing page approach -- don't build the product, but convince people you have so that they can click the "buy now" button. That way you feel more confident that the market exists while you're actually building it. After all the projects I've failed at, nothing is harder for me to do than spend 200+ hours on something without having a clue whether it will…

Any recommendations for quick and effective landing page solutions? I assume something like MailChimp for email sign-ups?

I'm building something to do exactly this at https://nichetester.com - I should note that I used the method described in the OP to validate it and it worked really well :).

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#52

Post by Untit1ed »

zeptomu wrote: post #21
dangero wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually just do believable screenshots and a call to action like, "Request a trial" or "Buy now" it depends on what it's for. I never take any money I just log the actions people took on the site. If it's a buy button, then you can just say, "Thanks for your interest. We are launching soon."

But it can also have the opposite effect: people get put off as they think the product is vaporware (rightfully).

My experience in doing this has been that a surprising number of people who click the buy button still put their email address down afterwards, and none of the people I've talked to who did were remotely miffed about the deception.

It probably depends on the audience, but people are more understanding than you'd think about the need to look before you leap, especially when they know you're just a solo entrepreneur.

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#53

Post by grwthckrmstr »

crispinb wrote: post #45
dangero wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually just do believable screenshots and a call to action like, "Request a trial" or "Buy now" it depends on what it's for. I never take any money I just log the actions people took on the site. If it's a buy button, then you can just say, "Thanks for your interest. We are launching soon."

If I clicked on that button and received that response, everything I could find connected with you and your domain would go on my blacklists. Misleading people is a poor way to build trust.

Yes you're right on your count, but you have to consider this scenario (which involves thinking beyond yourself) - - it's only you, and 20 others - - who would be mildly mislead (considering you actually didn't pay anything)

Now the dev can go build a working version putting in 200-500 hours into the MVP and find the next set of 20 people who are ready to use that software, with validation at hand.

However, I agree that better messaging can be used instead of straight up misleading people. Since if it does become widely practiced, people will generally become mistrustful (again, the odds of that happening is low).

~ 2 cents

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#54

Post by logicuce »

crispinb wrote: post #45
dangero wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually just do believable screenshots and a call to action like, "Request a trial" or "Buy now" it depends on what it's for. I never take any money I just log the actions people took on the site. If it's a buy button, then you can just say, "Thanks for your interest. We are launching soon."

If I clicked on that button and received that response, everything I could find connected with you and your domain would go on my blacklists. Misleading people is a poor way to build trust.

Exactly. Don't think of people landing on the site as an infinite stream of people. There are influencers who land first and you don't want to be in their bad books.

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#55

Post by hashmal »

MediumD wrote: post #11
dangero wrote: post #2

I've crashed and burned on SaaS enough that I'm very into the landing page approach -- don't build the product, but convince people you have so that they can click the "buy now" button. That way you feel more confident that the market exists while you're actually building it. After all the projects I've failed at, nothing is harder for me to do than spend 200+ hours on something without having a clue whether it will…

If I understand you correctly: You whip up a bootstrap page that describes the product with a 'beta sign-up & pay' button, and if enough people sign up and pay, you build it? - What sort of demo do you have on the website? Or is it just a basic description of the product and a list of features? - Does this mean you get payment processing setup before development every time? - How do you manage returning money if you…

You don't have to make people pay, when they click on "buy" or "prices" you just display a page that explains the project isn't ready, with a newsletter form. Search for "buffer MVP" to see a classic example of this.

The demo can be extremely simple, a sentence describing the concept and a (fake) screenshot.

Be aware that presenting the same product in different ways to different people lead to very different results, so you can run multiple tests like this to find the approach that has the better chances of working.

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#56

Post by csallen »

jameslk wrote: post #47
grzm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first dollar is metaphorical. Substitute first sale/income if that makes it easier for you to think about. (As an aside, I've seen many businesses frame and display a single dollar representing their first sale. http://framebiz.com/index.php?products_id=187 )

Yes, I understand that it should be metaphorical but in this case it's quite literal. This story demonstrates more of a user acquisition exercise and dresses it up as a SaaS business exercise. You will have different problems charging $1 once versus $10 per month. This story is really not about SaaS products.

I really think you're missing the point of the article and why people appreciate it. It's extremely straightforward: "Hey everyone, here are some interesting stats + an entertaining story about what went into making the first sale at a SaaS business." It's not pretending to be anything more than that.

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#57

Post by tomcam »

dangero wrote: post #6
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, if you're willing to share, what were the projects you worked on that failed?

I built a competitor to Reddit and Digg (at the time) called RatherGather that had some differentiators that ended up not mattering to people. I wish I understood Metcalfe's Law better at the time. I built a mobile game called Roaring Racers where you had to use your voice to make your car move (roar louder, go faster). I built a stickers app for iOS stickers launch that allowed you to import anything. This one wasn'…

I absolutely love your creativity and persistence. Thanks for sharing. You're totally going to hit one out of the park.

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#58

Post by ageyfman »

lefstathiou wrote: post #17

To share our experience (we sell SAAS in financial services): our first solution took us 6+ months of development (one person) to get our MVP launched and another year to get people to use it actively without active outbound selling (that is to say it was sold but we had to hold your hand the whole way through). Some thoughts: internally we consider the "V" in MVP to encompass not just what is the minimum you need to…

Thanks for sharing this. I'm by no means successful in SaaS, but I've been running a niche healthcare SaaS for a few years, and our experience is similar. Especially when you're talking about higher-priced SaaS offerings - the buyer sophistication goes up and ability to bullshit goes down.

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#59

Post by Pavelcz »

Untit1ed wrote: post #51
alexpetralia wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations for quick and effective landing page solutions? I assume something like MailChimp for email sign-ups?

I'm building something to do exactly this at https://nichetester.com - I should note that I used the method described in the OP to validate it and it worked really well :).

I absolutely love that the website that promises to build a testing decoy is a testing decoy. Perfect. (img idontknowwhatiexpected.gif)

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#60

Post by roel_v »

TwelveNights wrote: post #36
hoodoof wrote: post #22

In 1998, before people had much of clue about what represents success and how big things can get given time, I built a software product and posted it to the net. Within a week or so there had been a handful of sales at $100 each. That looked like failure to me at the time - "that's a trickle of money - extrapolating maybe $25,000 per year? Not enough to pay my bills. I need to get a job". Today that sort of start loo…

The internet is becoming a bigger and bigger playground. Even getting that first bit of attention is extremely meaningful now. There are so many different services and other attention-suckers out there at this point that everything really does matter. What type of software product did you make back then that warranted $100 sales?

Back then, every software product cost that much. Well OK maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but certainly anything that was B2B focused. 'Personal' sales would be $25 for something really simple, $50 for something established that people would use a lot.

Car expense tracker for Palm - $19.95. Today if you even want to charge $1.99, you'll be competing with several free (ad-supported) ones.

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