Making your first dollar from a SaaS project • Hacker News Board

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#81

Post by imhoguy » Sun, Aug 27, 2017, 10:54 AM UTC

I like the product. But I wouldn't invest in automation of all the stuff upfront. I would just process the upload/order manualy for a couple of first users just to validate an idea financially.

From my experience people fear more of success than failure therefore overdo the product to survive an imagined scale explosion. But there wouldn't be much outrage from users that once flooded you have just raised the prices or temporary suspended the service. I guess queue with bucks in front of the door would boost your motivation to finish up the process implementation in half of the time.

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#82

Post by efdee » Sun, Aug 27, 2017, 12:16 PM UTC

jameslk wrote: post #38

robodale wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That "Zero to One" customer is a big deal. You can now ask that customer why did they buy it in the first place? Why did they take their credit card out of their purse/wallet, type their info in, and click buy? What would keep them as a customer, etc. The next step is to get to 10 customers, then 100...

This is consumer product with a really low profit margin, which means he'll need a lot more than 100 customers paying $1 each to have a sustainable business. At $1, the product might as well be free. Imagine if this article was retitled "What actually goes into getting your first user." Would anyone care then? Regardless, it would be much more interesting to hear why the customer took out their credit card and entere…

I think that alternative title would catch my attention a lot better, actually.

Re: Making your first dollar from a SaaS project

#83

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:17 AM UTC

mjnaus wrote: post #33

dangero wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first dollar is usually the hardest though. This is a true account of one person's experience and I think a lot of people don't understand what that feels like. 200+ hours to cheer for $1 and some people don't even get to the dollar.

The first $1 is easy.... If you're struggling to attract a single customer you seriously need to re-evaluate what you're doing. As mentioned earlier in the comments; doubling from MRR from $40,000 to $80,000 is a way bigger challenge than making that first buck.

[deleted]