I think the right pricing model for this one is freemium. People start using it, get addicted, then you charge them for extra storage once they go over a limit, like Dropbox and Workflowy.
Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
31–40 of 88 posts
Re: Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
#32This was the biggest take-away from this article, one I've learned after wasting much time building my own SaaS "products". Launching without an audience means nobody shows up. It's a very true statement. One of my favorite sayings now, from Jason Cohen, is to get 30 people to fully commit to pay for your product before you even start coding it.
get 30 people to fully commit to pay for your product before you even start coding it. I can't think of any valuable product that was created this way.
Well Jason Cohen wasn't talking in the abstract, he's talked about how he got checks up front before starting WP-Engine.
Re: Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
#33This was the biggest take-away from this article, one I've learned after wasting much time building my own SaaS "products". Launching without an audience means nobody shows up. It's a very true statement. One of my favorite sayings now, from Jason Cohen, is to get 30 people to fully commit to pay for your product before you even start coding it.
get 30 people to fully commit to pay for your product before you even start coding it. This seems like sound advice, but I'd like to hear more on the execution of it. Do you actually get these people to sign contracts, or is it more of getting people to say "yeah, I'll pay you for that"? Do you let them know you haven't written any code, or just say it's "in development"? Etc., etc.
I wrote a post about how we got 8 commitments to pay before writing my current SaaS app. It has made well over 6 figures and counting:
http://blog.reemer.com/how-to-get-paying-customers-before-yo...
Re: Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
get 30 people to fully commit to pay for your product before you even start coding it. I can't think of any valuable product that was created this way.
That's quite the sweeping dismissal of Kickstarter.
The level of work to do a successful Kickstarter is way in excess of "before you even start coding it." I can't imagine anyone who could do a successful kickstarter on a project that hasn't even begun (not even a line of code).
Re: Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
#35The Idea is nice but I wouldn't pay for it mainly because of the reasons stated by Pete Keen and another reason:
When I have free tools to be doing the exact same things, why would I want to pay?
If I had to launch a SaaS product, I would definitely create a buzz about it amongst my peers and give free subscription for a limited period enough to get the user used to the new idea.
Re: Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
#36This was the biggest take-away from this article, one I've learned after wasting much time building my own SaaS "products". Launching without an audience means nobody shows up. It's a very true statement. One of my favorite sayings now, from Jason Cohen, is to get 30 people to fully commit to pay for your product before you even start coding it.
Just this weekend, I started coding up a tiny "saas product" that I thought about last week. Nobody knows about it, and that certainly has no launch page or audience. I got most of it done over the weekend, and really enjoyed putting it together in my favorite stack (sinatra, roots, marionette) and doing some design work, which I don't often get a chance to do. I'll probably launch it late this week or next week. I h…
Because so many developers want to build a business. You've aimed your sights at making $5/month.
Re: Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
#37I apologize in advance if I sound snarky, but I (and I suspect many others here) hadn't heard of Marginalia until today. How much did you spend on ads and where did you advertise?
Re: Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
#38This was the biggest take-away from this article, one I've learned after wasting much time building my own SaaS "products". Launching without an audience means nobody shows up. It's a very true statement. One of my favorite sayings now, from Jason Cohen, is to get 30 people to fully commit to pay for your product before you even start coding it.
Just this weekend, I started coding up a tiny "saas product" that I thought about last week. Nobody knows about it, and that certainly has no launch page or audience. I got most of it done over the weekend, and really enjoyed putting it together in my favorite stack (sinatra, roots, marionette) and doing some design work, which I don't often get a chance to do. I'll probably launch it late this week or next week. I h…
What you've made is just a hobby then, not a business. (Not that there's anything wrong with programming being a hobby - it's more about managing expectations)
Re: Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
#39I apologize in advance if I sound snarky, but I (and I suspect many others here) hadn't heard of Marginalia until today. How much did you spend on ads and where did you advertise?
Don't be silly. When he said he spend a lot on advertising he didn't mean that put up a superbowl ad. He probably spend it on Google Adwords for people who where searching for related terms.
Re: Post-mortem of a Dead-on-Arrival SaaS Product
#40This was the biggest take-away from this article, one I've learned after wasting much time building my own SaaS "products". Launching without an audience means nobody shows up. It's a very true statement. One of my favorite sayings now, from Jason Cohen, is to get 30 people to fully commit to pay for your product before you even start coding it.
I disagree with this statement on the basis that this assumes all products are made with monetary profit in mind. I'm working on a product right now that is for myself and my spouse to solve a money management issue we have, it is something I will use even if nobody else does.
I will be adding the ability to purchase it as a subscription so that if others want to use the product they can too, but ultimately I'm building something I want to use.
Jason Cohen's statement is based on the idea that all software is written with profit in mind, and there are a good number of years in Open Source that prove that to not be true.