I dislike the “costs me $5 a month”. Seriously, part of the cost of running a service is your own income - don’t discount the value of your own labour
Unclear whether you're joking. OP is charging $5/mo to those 5000 users.
How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
11–20 of 140 posts
Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
#12If the author is reading this, I'm curious about whether you've considered targeting Japanese users and why or why not. :)
Hi, the author of Inkdrop here.
There're already many Japanese users because I've also wrote blog posts in Japanese.
Here is a Japanese version of this article: https://blog.craftz.dog/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-paid...
Cheers
Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
#13This is amazing!
I've built more than a couple of product prototypes equivalent to the size of this app and ended up with the questions "what is the USP other than cheaper pricing? what is your marketing budget?" - And was discouraged to a point where I never did launch the product to acquire paid users. And did launch it for free and has decent number of users. But it is not fun working on a product that does not pay.
This is so fresh and encouraging advice here. Even if it was paying me just half of my freelance pay for a decent period - I would call it a success.
Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
#14This is an interesting perspective on running a SaaS and pricing it for slower paced growth. On the Inkdrop pricing page, it reads:
>We would like to provide good, quick and warm user support. If we got a lot of users, we won't be able to support them all.
Frankly admitting that they want to pace user growth for better quality service is both brutally honest, and enticing.
I hope more bootstrapped SaaS companies achieve this equilibrium where pricing is premium, growth is paced, and quality is high.
Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
#15If the author is reading this, I'm curious about whether you've considered targeting Japanese users and why or why not. :)
Hi, the author of Inkdrop here. There're already many Japanese users because I've also wrote blog posts in Japanese. Here is a Japanese version of this article: https://blog.craftz.dog/how-ive-attracted-the-first-500-paid... Cheers
Oh, thank you! I was a bit confused since I went to your site and couldn't find any evidence of a Japanese version. :)
If you have the time, would you mind elaborating a bit more on the following? I'm always curious (as an American living in Japan) about small/independent developers who split across two or more cultures.
1. How much of your userbase is Japanese vs English-speaking?
2. Do you find that the goals the users work toward are different based on the language/culture? Are there any things that are language-specific?
3. Do you find that one set of users is stickier than the other?
Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
#16This is an interesting perspective on running a SaaS and pricing it for slower paced growth. On the Inkdrop pricing page, it reads: >We would like to provide good, quick and warm user support. If we got a lot of users, we won't be able to support them all. Frankly admitting that they want to pace user growth for better quality service is both brutally honest, and enticing. I hope more bootstrapped SaaS companies achi…
Maybe a little bit too paced?
According to the first graph, it's $30,000 in total sales over the last 2 years which forced him to continue freelancing as his main income. This post is basically announcing ramen profitability. (Of course it's still a great achievement to turn any profit on a side project, let alone supplant his main income)
Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
#17This seems like good advice to maximize personal satisfaction on a side project. Many of the tidbits are the exact opposite of advice for startups that are trying to maximize value.
I disagree with your classification, although I suspect we agree in general.
While these tidbits could minimize startup revenue, they don't minimize "value provided to customers". And it's good advice for anyone who wants to provide a valuable service or technology at a good price.
Some folks want to build a company with the most users. Some folks want to maximize revenue. Some folks want to maximize profit.
An entirely different segment of service providers wants to maximize the value they provide their customers.
Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
#18Very refreshing. Focusing on one's own users instead of being fixated on the competition is something many companies could learn from.
Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
#19I dislike the “costs me $5 a month”. Seriously, part of the cost of running a service is your own income - don’t discount the value of your own labour
I understand the confusion, because I had to read the title twice to understand what was meant by the $5/month as well.
It isn't necessarily wrong, just potentially confusing if you read it the wrong way.
Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
#20> Why Churn Rate is Surprisingly Low
Yeah, you're in your first year. Of course churn rate is low.