Ask HN: My SaaS idea was bad, need alternative part time job

#1

Post by adrian_pop » Sat, Feb 16, 2013, 12:47 PM UTC

Hello,

Yesterday I submitted a topic on HN about a possible SaaS product, my own product. As suggested by a few HNers, I started to send some emails to possible customers, explaining them what am I up to, what would they like to have, how are they doing now, what issues do they have and if they would like a service that does all the work in an automatic way, not manually.

The answer was: NO. Out of about 37 emails and PM on forums I got: - 25 NO replies, 3 YES, 9 nothings (until now)

The ugly truth is...my idea was bad, and I wish I knew this 24h ago.

Now, straight to the point: I need work for extra income.

Areas of expertise: PHP & MySQL - 3 to 4 years, Wordpress - 2+ years (private plugins and theme development), Javascript & jQuery (Twitter Bootstrap lately) - 2+ years, Web Services & APIs - 2+ years, Git/SVN/Hg - 3+ years

I am opened to the following kind of proposals: hourly paid job (mon-fri: 2-4 hours, sat-sun: 8-12 hours), project based job with milestone payments

Contact me on skype: "adyp.eu" or by email "contact [@] adrianpop.com" (remove brackets).

Re: Ask HN: My SaaS idea was bad, need alternative part time job

#2

Post by RahCom » Sat, Feb 16, 2013, 1:46 PM UTC

3 Yes's out of 37 is not a bad metric to go off of, unless you're in a micro-niche and 37 customers is all there is. What is the market as a whole? By yes, are they bringing out a checkbook and saying "can I get it now"?

As for work, I'd suggest checking out the several freelance sites out there: guru, freelancer, etc. Hope this helps!

Re: Ask HN: My SaaS idea was bad, need alternative part time job

#3

Post by adrian_pop » Sat, Feb 16, 2013, 2:01 PM UTC

RahCom wrote: post #2

3 Yes's out of 37 is not a bad metric to go off of, unless you're in a micro-niche and 37 customers is all there is. What is the market as a whole? By yes, are they bringing out a checkbook and saying "can I get it now"? As for work, I'd suggest checking out the several freelance sites out there: guru, freelancer, etc. Hope this helps!

There are many more possible customers, but those 37 is all I could find since yesterday. "Yes" means: yes, I would buy such a product...

Freelancer.com is full of cheap asian programmers, and I really can't work at such low rates ($3-5/hour).

Re: Ask HN: My SaaS idea was bad, need alternative part time job

#4

Post by redspark » Sat, Feb 16, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

adrian_pop wrote: post #3

RahCom wrote: post #2

3 Yes's out of 37 is not a bad metric to go off of, unless you're in a micro-niche and 37 customers is all there is. What is the market as a whole? By yes, are they bringing out a checkbook and saying "can I get it now"? As for work, I'd suggest checking out the several freelance sites out there: guru, freelancer, etc. Hope this helps!

There are many more possible customers, but those 37 is all I could find since yesterday. "Yes" means: yes, I would buy such a product... Freelancer.com is full of cheap asian programmers, and I really can't work at such low rates ($3-5/hour).

Were you trying to start a conversation to discover their pain around the problem you think they have?

It sounds like you were pitching a solution already. You should have a problem and a "customer" in mind, but not be sold on your solution, yet. More than likely your solution isn't right, but talking to customers will help you refine your solution into one that will solve their "pain".

Re: Ask HN: My SaaS idea was bad, need alternative part time job

#5

Post by timjahn » Sat, Feb 16, 2013, 9:48 PM UTC

We're always looking for solid developers with API experience at matchist (http://matchist.com/talent).

Re: Ask HN: My SaaS idea was bad, need alternative part time job

#6

Post by revorad » Sat, Feb 16, 2013, 11:25 PM UTC

Giving up on an idea which got a ~10% positive response rate in one day of work might be a bit hasty. I doubt you'll find any SaaS business idea easier to validate.

A friend of mine just validated an idea after a lot of research, cold calling, and emailing. He has managed to get 4 customers to pre-pay for the product, and only now is he going ahead with building it. Now this guy is a solid hustler and it took him 2 months of full time work to get to this stage.

Don't give up so easily!