Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#11

Post by system2 » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:27 PM UTC

cweill wrote: post #6

dangrossman wrote: post #4

I've been living off solo SaaS products my entire adult life -- almost 20 years. These are the only services I pay for: * AWS and Cloudflare for hosting * Rackspace for incoming email * Sendgrid for transactional/outbound email * Namecheap for domains * A merchant account and Spreedly for payments * ShareASale to run an affiliate program and pay a percentage commission for referred sales * Facebook and Google ads All…

Can you please write a blog post or book about your experience? I'm trying to get into solo SAAS, and this kind of post is pure gold for me!

He has a blog: dangrossman.info

He is an active HN'er. You can also find out more about users by clicking their name. Seasoned ones have some sort of profile.

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#12

Post by constantinum » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

Chargebee for subscription/recurring revenue billing. Set it up and it runs on autopilot. They do have a "launch" plan to help support new startups. https://www.chargebee.com/launch/

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#13

Post by system2 » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

webscout wrote: post #9

— Netlify + GCP for hosting — Twilio for anything Messaging — Stripe + Paypal for payments — Biztoc.com for finding content to post — Plausible.io for analytics — Paperform for forms — Bear.app for documentation

You are using very new platforms. Have you had issues with more established ones?

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#14

Post by ericpauley » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

mrwnmonm wrote: post #8

I was searching for something like Zendesk + CRM, because Zendesk's is a little expensive for me. If you know one, please mention it. If I can send it important events from the app like (creating a project, subscriptions) it would be perfect.

We use Teamwork Desk for our small business. It works great for 2 or 3 people handing tickets (I'm sure it would do fine for me), and the new Stripe/custom integrations they offer make it easy to use for billing.

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#15

Post by rawoke083600 » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #4

I've been living off solo SaaS products my entire adult life -- almost 20 years. These are the only services I pay for: * AWS and Cloudflare for hosting * Rackspace for incoming email * Sendgrid for transactional/outbound email * Namecheap for domains * A merchant account and Spreedly for payments * ShareASale to run an affiliate program and pay a percentage commission for referred sales * Facebook and Google ads All…

>* Sendgrid for transactional/outbound email

All good recommendations ! I would advise/caution AGAINST SendGrid. They have a quite the terrible reputation and my n=1 experience is that over a weekend they suspended my production account without cause !

1) I've been sending the EXACT same mails and number (less than 200-300 a month) to the exact same ppl on their free-tier.

2) I asked to upgraded to a PAID account to get better statistics (opens etc) They came back with saying I'm not a good fit for their org and boom disabled my account which is used in production ! Was a fun weekend switching everything over.

So they were willing to send my mails for 5 years for free and after I wanted to give them money to KEEP sending the EXACT same mail, they basically said bugger off and my production systems were left without an email service !

EDIT1: After searching SendGrid on HN - seems I"m not the only one !

I can recommend PostMark - Brilliant service.

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#16

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

rawoke083600 wrote: post #15

dangrossman wrote: post #4

I've been living off solo SaaS products my entire adult life -- almost 20 years. These are the only services I pay for: * AWS and Cloudflare for hosting * Rackspace for incoming email * Sendgrid for transactional/outbound email * Namecheap for domains * A merchant account and Spreedly for payments * ShareASale to run an affiliate program and pay a percentage commission for referred sales * Facebook and Google ads All…

>* Sendgrid for transactional/outbound email All good recommendations ! I would advise/caution AGAINST SendGrid. They have a quite the terrible reputation and my n=1 experience is that over a weekend they suspended my production account without cause ! 1) I've been sending the EXACT same mails and number (less than 200-300 a month) to the exact same ppl on their free-tier. 2) I asked to upgraded to a PAID account to…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#17

Post by ianberdin » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

I do this things for 10 years. Right from the start of commercial development. I suggest to read SEO books and use this as a main source of customers as I do. You will get what you want: better focus on the product.

- Crisp (best website chat, email campaigns).

- Namecheap.

- Cloudflare (speedup website loading around the world).

- Postmark (transactional emails).

- Uploadcare (come on, save days on image uploading/cropping features).

- AWS/DO.

- Amplitude analytics - the best of the best thing for SAAS products.

- UI libraries like bootstrap, but better use something well integrated with your framework. Don't reimplent.

- Use boring tech stack, which you are know as your five fingers (it'll keep you months).

- IDE by JetBrains.

- Stripe (save days on connecting billing for fair price).

- Books: Lean startup (foundation), Think and grow rich (don't give up), Steal like an artist (a vision).

- Forum: IndieHackers (it'll motivate you).

- Notion for docs, tasks, plans, ideas.

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#18

Post by altdataseller » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

ianberdin wrote: post #17

I do this things for 10 years. Right from the start of commercial development. I suggest to read SEO books and use this as a main source of customers as I do. You will get what you want: better focus on the product. - Crisp (best website chat, email campaigns). - Namecheap. - Cloudflare (speedup website loading around the world). - Postmark (transactional emails). - Uploadcare (come on, save days on image uploading/c…

How does Amplitude compare vs MixPanel?

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#19

Post by gondo » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

Paddle.com mostly for taxes. Seriously, how are you guys dealing with taxes (US or/and global)?

Re: Ask HN: Great tools for solo SaaS founders?

#20

Post by ianberdin » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

altdataseller wrote: post #18

ianberdin wrote: post #17

I do this things for 10 years. Right from the start of commercial development. I suggest to read SEO books and use this as a main source of customers as I do. You will get what you want: better focus on the product. - Crisp (best website chat, email campaigns). - Namecheap. - Cloudflare (speedup website loading around the world). - Postmark (transactional emails). - Uploadcare (come on, save days on image uploading/c…

How does Amplitude compare vs MixPanel?

1. Mixpanel is super expensive.

2. Mixpanel is slow as a hell in a real world apps. I'm not joking. You can wait by 15 seconds to load one page.

3. Amplitude is 10 times more flexible and intuitive.

4. Amplitude is free completely. 100 000 000 events included. Mixpanel gives about 5000, maybe a bit more, just for testing purposes.