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Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

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Re: Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

#31

Post by newlyretired »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #21
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affiliate marketing might work, depending on your SaaS. e.g. this is what drove convertkit to 600k MRR > Once we hit about $20,000 MRR (through direct sales and word-of-mouth) we added an affiliate program. That worked exceptionally well because bloggers — our target market — are used to using affiliate programs to generate revenue. Also, if a small business owner loves your product they might tell 2-3 friends. But i…

Thank you for the suggestion. > "Once we hit about $20,000 MRR" Interesting. I wonder why the $20k MRR... I have $50 MRR (dollars... not thousands). But I don't see anything about affiliate marketing that would prohibit starting early.

I doubt it was specific to the exact MRR number. More likely their growth stalled using the methods that were taking up all of their time (direct sales, word of mouth).

For some $N MRR (magic point where you look for scalable channels), N should be large enough that you have a product that your market wants and will pay for, and the market is large enough that you were able to manually scale it to N.

The heuristic is something like "if you can get big enough doing low-efficiency/manual marketing, you've likely gotten close enough to the important things* and can move on to testing scalability".

* things like product/market fit, market size, clear communication, well defined value prop, etc.

Re: Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

#32

Post by jajern »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #21
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affiliate marketing might work, depending on your SaaS. e.g. this is what drove convertkit to 600k MRR > Once we hit about $20,000 MRR (through direct sales and word-of-mouth) we added an affiliate program. That worked exceptionally well because bloggers — our target market — are used to using affiliate programs to generate revenue. Also, if a small business owner loves your product they might tell 2-3 friends. But i…

Thank you for the suggestion. > "Once we hit about $20,000 MRR" Interesting. I wonder why the $20k MRR... I have $50 MRR (dollars... not thousands). But I don't see anything about affiliate marketing that would prohibit starting early.

This is going to be dependent on a few factors (market, product, etc.) but I'd rather be an affiliate for a product with a proven track record of conversions unless I really love a product and just want to promote it. If I know a product already has a high conversion rate and $20k+ MRR then I feel better about the prospects of sending 20k people there and getting a hefty percentage than I would about a new product bringing in $50. Maybe my thinking is wrong though.

Re: Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

#33

Post by chrisan »

ballenf wrote: post #18

Be careful what you measure, because you will get more of it. I don't think # of seconds editing a file is a good proxy for measuring bug free and understandable code. But if you want more # of seconds with files open and being edit, this is your tool it seems. Am I missing something about this product in that it measures anything related to code quality? If a company relies heavily this tool to measure its devs prod…

> Am I missing something about this product in that it measures anything related to code quality?

I think it is just a tool to be used as you desire. It can certainly be misused, like any tool or method, and promote bad results. If you have someone wanting to measure you by time alone you have bigger problems with that decision maker than just this specific tool being put in place.

I was in a fitbit group challenge where one guy found himself in the hospital after going to extreme measures to "win". Yet, I don't feel fitbit is a bad entity. Used correctly it promotes good habits.

Re: Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

#34

Post by Jtsummers »

j45 wrote: post #8
khaledtaha wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that makes for a great anecdote, there are action-oriented people should not be heeding that advice. An appropriate balance between rational ignorance and analysis paralysis must be struck. Otherwise, it's left to others to deal with your predisposition towards an extreme.

It can also be taken as you will read what you need to when you need to be solving it - instead of reading in advance.

Lean learning. Just-in-time education.

Re: Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

#35

Post by muzani »

ballenf wrote: post #18

Be careful what you measure, because you will get more of it. I don't think # of seconds editing a file is a good proxy for measuring bug free and understandable code. But if you want more # of seconds with files open and being edit, this is your tool it seems. Am I missing something about this product in that it measures anything related to code quality? If a company relies heavily this tool to measure its devs prod…

I use it to test out other productivity habits - sleep, exercise, meditation, nootropics, etc.

Yes, it's possible to have some false flags, like working on an easy project will produce a lot more hours. But if you cater for such things it's a great tool.

Like LOC, it should not be your sole metric, just things that you track along with everything else.

Re: Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

#37

Post by rubidium »

ballenf wrote: post #18

Be careful what you measure, because you will get more of it. I don't think # of seconds editing a file is a good proxy for measuring bug free and understandable code. But if you want more # of seconds with files open and being edit, this is your tool it seems. Am I missing something about this product in that it measures anything related to code quality? If a company relies heavily this tool to measure its devs prod…

My read is that this isn't a productivity tool at all. It's a way to capture who to bill for your work (Billable vs. overhead time).

"generate and send PDF invoices pre-filled with your coding activity." is in the future roadmap. And the pain of keeping track of billable hours is what drove him to write it to start with.

Keeping track by program used is a nice-to-have, because then someone on the team could notice "hey we spend a lot more time with tool X then makes sense, maybe there's a way to improve that?"

Re: Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

#38

Post by badminton1 »

Problem with productivity is that at some moment it becomes a zero sum game. e.g: let us say you code 18 hours a day. you are eating into your sleep, your physical well being and eventually you will end up producing less... if not in the short term, in the long term.

Re: Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

#39

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Jtsummers wrote: post #34
j45 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can also be taken as you will read what you need to when you need to be solving it - instead of reading in advance.

Lean learning. Just-in-time education.

Agile learning.

Re: Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project

#40

Post by cabaalis »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #21
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affiliate marketing might work, depending on your SaaS. e.g. this is what drove convertkit to 600k MRR > Once we hit about $20,000 MRR (through direct sales and word-of-mouth) we added an affiliate program. That worked exceptionally well because bloggers — our target market — are used to using affiliate programs to generate revenue. Also, if a small business owner loves your product they might tell 2-3 friends. But i…

Thank you for the suggestion. > "Once we hit about $20,000 MRR" Interesting. I wonder why the $20k MRR... I have $50 MRR (dollars... not thousands). But I don't see anything about affiliate marketing that would prohibit starting early.

I don't know at what MRR you set the threshold, but you would want to have an understanding of actual costs, growth cost estimates, customer retention, etc. before you start promising commissions to affiliates.
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