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I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

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Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#31
post #3

This post resonates a lot with me! I've got a side project that's current bringing in around ~2-3K MRR ( https://buttondown.email ). I spent a long time daydreaming about having it hit four-digits in recurring revenue — it felt like such an accomplishment that if I were able to crack it, it'd be a dream come true. It's certainly not enough to live off of (especially living in Seattle), but it's a non-trivial amount o…

Can I ask - how do you send emails programmatically? Every time I've done this for personal projects, I run into issues. Whether it's auth blocking from GMail or whatever. Seriously would appreciate even just a nudge in the right direction.

Not OP but I've spent a lot of time setting up email sending for SaaS apps. It shouldn't be too difficult, just use a third party provider like sendgrid and make sure your DKIM and SPF records are setup properly and you should be good to go. I've also used stuff like Amazon SES and it's not worth the trouble for side projects (or even medium sized, real businesses, honestly). If you have specific questions feel free to ask.

Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#32
One of the things I have observed over the years is that some people are motivated to build technology because they like building things, and some are motivated by the fact that builders of technology make money.

People who like the 'art' of building this stuff, are (again in my experience, not an exhaustive study or anything) generally much better programmers and engineers that the purely financially motivated folks.

Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#33

One of the things I have observed over the years is that some people are motivated to build technology because they like building things, and some are motivated by the fact that builders of technology make money. People who like the 'art' of building this stuff, are (again in my experience, not an exhaustive study or anything) generally much better programmers and engineers that the purely financially motivated folks…

I don't disagree, but this romanticized view of the selfless visionary engineer/designer/founder is counterproductive.

the truth is that moderation is important. you need both. do both. be flexible. pay attention. know when to shift focus. getting stuck on one thing at the wrong moment is how you go out of business. don't go out of business.

going out of business is decidedly the most anti-user thing your company can do.

Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#34
Congrats to authors and good luck.

Have a question. I do pay for few things (netflix, amazon prime and couple of others). Their services are natural candidate in my opinion for being billed monthly.

Now everyone my cats included are trying to sell their wares however small they are as a service. If I've paid monthly fee for every notepad sized program I use I'd be out of commission.

How does this business model manage to survive is puzzling to me.

Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#35
post #34

Congrats to authors and good luck. Have a question. I do pay for few things (netflix, amazon prime and couple of others). Their services are natural candidate in my opinion for being billed monthly. Now everyone my cats included are trying to sell their wares however small they are as a service. If I've paid monthly fee for every notepad sized program I use I'd be out of commission. How does this business model manag…

I agree, it's ridiculous! Not to mention that many app developers (as mentioned in the post) can't grind along on a single app for 10 years, so you most likely are not getting $5/mo (or more!) of value out of the product for 10 years.

Sublime did it best, IMO. Charge a non-negligable amount ($70) for an individual, but pennies to a company. That's how many of us got our licenses. That $ should be enough to run their business if it's a good product, and when the $ dries out because of competition, make something new! Seems greedy that everyone who writes a note-taking app thinks they deserve a subscription in perpetuity.

Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#36
Thank you for sharing! I have exact same experiance and I'm very uncomfortable talking about it. I guess one has to experience it first hand to be able to comprehend in full. Once I tried to explain, but I guess others mistook me for either being arogant or plain stupid. Not wanting more money is beyond their imagination. Thanks again, all the best in future endaveours!

Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#37

Thank you for sharing! I have exact same experiance and I'm very uncomfortable talking about it. I guess one has to experience it first hand to be able to comprehend in full. Once I tried to explain, but I guess others mistook me for either being arogant or plain stupid. Not wanting more money is beyond their imagination. Thanks again, all the best in future endaveours!

Your comment reminds me of the fisherman and the business man:

> There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish. The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?” The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.” “Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished. “This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said. The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?” The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.” The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman. “I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.” The fisherman continues, “And after that?” The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.” The fisherman asks, “And after that?” The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!” The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”

Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#38
Awesome write-up and this post resonated with me as I have run saas companies in the past and while revenue was great it became a lot emailing customers, marketing, sales etc. I now am working on https://mattebot.co where I am following the "Make it 'better” rather than “bigger”' motto.'

Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#39
post #3

This post resonates a lot with me! I've got a side project that's current bringing in around ~2-3K MRR ( https://buttondown.email ). I spent a long time daydreaming about having it hit four-digits in recurring revenue — it felt like such an accomplishment that if I were able to crack it, it'd be a dream come true. It's certainly not enough to live off of (especially living in Seattle), but it's a non-trivial amount o…

Can I ask - how do you send emails programmatically? Every time I've done this for personal projects, I run into issues. Whether it's auth blocking from GMail or whatever. Seriously would appreciate even just a nudge in the right direction.

I'm using a combination of Mailgun and Postmark to send emails, and heartily recommend them both.

Re: I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

#40
post #3

This post resonates a lot with me! I've got a side project that's current bringing in around ~2-3K MRR ( https://buttondown.email ). I spent a long time daydreaming about having it hit four-digits in recurring revenue — it felt like such an accomplishment that if I were able to crack it, it'd be a dream come true. It's certainly not enough to live off of (especially living in Seattle), but it's a non-trivial amount o…

Do you worry that Substack is going to eat your userbase here?
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