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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

#141
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7% on hosting revenue sounds like a great accomplishment but what's relatively a good ratio to look at?

So what is normal in the SaaS world? I am at 5% today, and I try but not focus on costs. Around 5% it seems hard to care TOO much...

Adding a data point: we're at 1.5% for 6 figure monthly revenue.

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

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you opened John_Doe_health_information.txt - would something like this be a HIPPA violation?

With that filename in majority of cases you're violating HIPAA even within your internal network. The thought processes usually goes, does every person that potentially sees that file name require to know the patients first and last name? Also, even those that do require it should only be accessing it on an as-needed basis (eg. at the time of claim submission, etc) which means it shouldn't be floating around on your…

[deleted]

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

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as the person who responded above me noted, that's not a small margin at all. That's a huge relative change.

I'm not talking about the previous posters 30% drop being a small margin. I'm saying that 1% paying customers is a risk and it's likely to get lower than that, the more exposure it gets.

First, why is 1% paying customers a risk? That's actually a fairly average/normal conversion rate for a freemium product. Trello, I wager gets way less than that.

Second, why is it likely to get lower the more exposure it gets?

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

#144
A user emailed to tell us that the ownership of this project and this story of its founding are disputed and there's a legal process going on. A quick check shows a bit of supporting evidence for this, so I think it's best if we bury this post for now. We have no way to tell who's right, and it doesn't seem fair for HN to implicitly take a side by featuring one side of the story.

Incidentally, we invited this submission as a repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546345. We do that when we run across a good submission that didn't get much attention the first time around, and we think the community might find it interesting. We wouldn't have done that if we'd known the story was disputed. The principle remains the same, though, so if any of you know of a good submission that fell through the cracks, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll consider putting it in the queue.

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

#146
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.

Lazy learning. Information is getting as it needed

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

#148
post #144

A user emailed to tell us that the ownership of this project and this story of its founding are disputed and there's a legal process going on. A quick check shows a bit of supporting evidence for this, so I think it's best if we bury this post for now. We have no way to tell who's right, and it doesn't seem fair for HN to implicitly take a side by featuring one side of the story. Incidentally, we invited this submiss…

I've emailed about this, but can respond here too. I'm the sole-founder of WakaTime and there is no ongoing legal dispute.

Priyanka Sharma and I worked on a massage on-demand startup which didn't take off. We decided to see if investors would be interested in my WakaTime project, and Priyanka asked to be listed on the WakaTime "About" page to build her confidence when talking to potential investors. I also agreed to pitch WakaTime on TechCrunch with her, although they listed her incorrectly as CEO! She was CEO of the massage startup, Kneady, but never WakaTime!

It's unfortunate that Priyanka Sharma now uses the WakaTime TechCrunch article to charge early-stage startups for advice through Heavybit. It's also unfortunate if HN caves to her threats of ownership without asking for any proof. If she was a founder of WakaTime, she should be able to produce a stock purchase or other agreement, or even documentation about an "ongoing legal dispute". I've already reached out to HN via email offering proof of ownership, so hopefully HN unburies this post.

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

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about the previous posters 30% drop being a small margin. I'm saying that 1% paying customers is a risk and it's likely to get lower than that, the more exposure it gets.

First, why is 1% paying customers a risk? That's actually a fairly average/normal conversion rate for a freemium product. Trello, I wager gets way less than that. Second, why is it likely to get lower the more exposure it gets?

I'm not an expert. I've never ran a SaaS business with a freemium model (I have ran SaaS businesses with other pricing models).

But, everything I've ever read on the subject indicates 1% is either bare minimum or too low. [1,2]

>Second, why is it likely to get lower the more exposure it gets?

In my experience the more hype you get, the lower your conversion rate all other things being equal (in my case conversion rate after free trial, vs freemium) because people who had to search you out to find you are more likely to convert than people who are just checking out the hottest new thing they saw on HN.

That's obviously not always true, and it may not be true in their case, but if I were the CEO, I'd be very focused on increasing my conversion rate.

1. https://hbr.org/2014/05/making-freemium-work 2. https://techcrunch.com/2012/11/04/should-your-startup-go-fre...

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

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is normal in the SaaS world? I am at 5% today, and I try but not focus on costs. Around 5% it seems hard to care TOO much...

Adding a data point: we're at 1.5% for 6 figure monthly revenue.

That seems very good. Are you on a popular cloud (AWS/GCE/Azure), colocated, or running your own servers?
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