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I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

blog.stetsonblake.com

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Re: I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

#111

Post by puranjay »

craze3 wrote: post #9

I thought this was a pretty good article that didn't over-sensationalize SaaS products, while still explaining how they can lead to success. It sucks that the OP's website didn't "blow up", but then again, most micro-SaaS's are not meant to go viral like that. One point I would add is that there should be more promotion other than just posting on HN + PH. If that's where your launch stops, you may not be realizing yo…

I've come to the conclusion that if you want to be a successful indie SaaS developer nowadays, it's better to start off as a marketing/sales person than as a developer. So many small SaaS products suffer from the same problem: no traffic, no customers, no market mindshare. The dev is definitely not the problem. The marketing is.

Re: I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

#112

Post by stets »

fxtentacle wrote: post #109
MathCodeLove wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are facebook ads really viable forna SaaS product? How should a lone founder organize a better launch than the OP?

In general, paid ads can easily become too expensive because they have bad ctr, low engagement, and lots of spam mixed in. So unless your average customer spends $100+ with you, it will most likely not work. A common trick is to offer upfront paid annual plans, to convert $10 monthly into $120 now.

Maybe...maybe not. I'm not a paid ads expert but how much poor conversion can be blamed on a genuinely bad ad?

Re: I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

#114

Post by tpxl »

triyambakam wrote: post #30

> Go for B2B if you can. Freelancers aren't rich. I don't understand this... can anyone explain?

It's easier to sell to one client for 10000, then it is to sell to 10000 clients for 1.

In my startup we're currently courting a company and if we get the deal we'll have all our costs covered + enough for another engineer + some leftover profit.

Re: I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

#115

Post by jmstfv »

ngngngng wrote: post #93
stets wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bummer. Yeah, my idea was more along the lines of find my audience hanging out online and gently, subtly mention my product. Niche specific subreddits, forums (they still exist), Slack rooms, creating YouTube videos and others work pretty okay for initial traction for free.

I get so frustrated marketing like this. I've put weeks of my life into FOSS projects just to post them on reddit and have them immediately deleted because "self promotion". If I can't post my FOSS to the linux subreddit then what in the world am I allowed to post?

Well, that largely depends on the subreddit and the context.

Always read the wiki before posting. When in doubt, ask moderators if they're OK with self-promotion.

Self-promotion doesn't mean you spam links left and right. Try to provide value first, and maybe at the end of your post/comment, link to your website.

Re: I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

#116

Post by thdrdt »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #19

I was following this same path until yesterday, when I gave up. I have the mock-ups and all the notes with me, but I won't go ahead because I know it would be too much of an effort. Web dev has become rocket science for those who started in this business in the late 90's, at least IMHO.

As someone who also started in the 90's I think I understand what you mean. It used to be: write HTML -> upload via FTP -> done.

Therefore I think you should start with PHP. Write PHP -> upload -> done.

If PHP is unpopular advice, maybe this is even more unpopular: you might want to check out the ProcessWire CMS. Yes, this is a CMS, but since the front-end and back-end are separated it can be used as framework for a lot of things. It has a lot of (free) addons, like support for Twig, making developing even complex systems very simple.

And ofcourse you can use frameworks like Symfony and Laravel.

But to get rid of the rocket science I believe PHP is the way to go because it makes deployments so much easier.

And if the time comes your product is a success you can always hire rocket scientists who can help you to move on.

Re: I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

#117

Post by unnouinceput »

Qoute: "In the Fall of 2017 I'd done a ton of freelancing on the (garbage) website Upwork. Upwork is a bit of a grind. User's can search for a skill they'd like to freelance in ( Cisco Networking, Python programming, Painting Dogs, whatever) and apply for job's via proposals. The crappy thing about Upwork is that once a job is posted, the heat is on to apply. The longer you let the job sit, the more likely that other freelancers will apply for it and get the work. Being early was an extreme advantage, even if you are the best.

After googling around a bit, I found that Upwork had no way for user's to get alerts on new jobs, even though many user's requested it. "Hmmm, I thought, a market need". There were, though, countless forum posts and low-quality YouTube videos explaining how to set up alerts via IFTTT and Upwork's RSS feeds feature. "

As a long time Upwork freelancer (12 years now) - short answer would be that you're not cut for freelancer's market. Long answer is harder to stomach, so skip next paragraph:

1 - Being early is disadvantage actually. Being early means your bid gets dumped in job poster's email along with the others. You want to be 1st (hard to be and you'll never have the guarantee even with a fast notification) or let it sit for 24 hours.

2 - Rant about not having notifications then answering yourself about using RSS. If RSS is hard for you to make it work then I'll have to wonder about the rest of your skills as programmer. Personally I didn't like any RSS feed apps out there so I wrote my own, customized to my needs. You could've done the same, instead you made a Saas out of it thinking you'll strike gold.

Re: I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

#118

Post by wiradikusuma »

nmfisher wrote: post #76
dvt wrote: post #39

This is a pretty good atticle, and the product is actually quite solid (maybe a tad overpriced), but this right here is a rookie mistake: > In January, 2019 I launched to HackerNews and some subreddits ... Really? That's a "launch" these days? At least scrounge up a few hundred bucks and throw up some Facebook ads. Reddit and Hacker News have some of the most cynical and thrifty readers out there. Networking and gett…

> Really? That's a "launch" these days? At least scrounge up a few hundred bucks and throw up some Facebook ads. Reddit and Hacker News have some of the most cynical and thrifty readers out there. Networking and getting the word out is half the battle. With such little effort put into the launch, OP could have been selling a dollar for fifty cents and no one would've cared. Eh, I tried exactly this for a "thought bub…

Do you know why they do that? I understand for ads (maybe your ads are shown at their property, so they get a cut). But what's with Firebase/Google Play?

Re: I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

#119

Post by smt88 »

jmknoll wrote: post #92
nmfisher wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really? That's a "launch" these days? At least scrounge up a few hundred bucks and throw up some Facebook ads. Reddit and Hacker News have some of the most cynical and thrifty readers out there. Networking and getting the word out is half the battle. With such little effort put into the launch, OP could have been selling a dollar for fifty cents and no one would've cared. Eh, I tried exactly this for a "thought bub…

I know there’s a lot of this, but what is the angle? Who is running the bot farms to click on Facebook ads and sign up for random services? And what are they hoping to achieve?

This kind of fraud benefits Facebook's competitors in the ad space by increasing the cost per customer acquired.

If someone clicks, signs up, and never pays, the conversion rate on the ad looks worse, and Facebook's targeting looks less valuable.

Re: I wrote a SaaS product because the internet made me believe it'd make me rich

#120

Post by cercatrova »

onion2k wrote: post #106
dvt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I get some insight into this? What did Balsamiq do? I'm not familiar.

It was an early wire framing tool for prototyping UIs. The clever bit (that seems obvious now) was that it looked intentionally rough so that clients would focus on the overall UI layout instead of the minor details. It was a great app.

That's funny because the actual value proposition of using Balsamiq to create apps is that they themselves are intentionally rough. So it looks like the founders used Balsamiq to create and pitch Balsamiq. Very cool example of dogfooding.
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