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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

#221

Post by mthoms »

thesmileyone wrote: post #198
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…

This is what happens when you direct link. Ie FB ad - conversion. Instead you want a showy FB ad that takes them to a landing page that looks like your website (native) to build trust, maybe have them answer some questions to get qualified etc. There's numerous ways to filter out "bad traffic".

Can you give an example?

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

#222

Post by ngngngng »

jmstfv wrote: post #115
ngngngng wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My open source repo was inspired by conversations in the subreddit, and open source software doesn't do much besides provide value.

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

#223

Post by XCSme »

thdrdt wrote: post #116
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…

PHP is great :)

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

#224

Post by cafard »

rohan1024 wrote: post #213
kumarvvr wrote: post #181

To be fair, I would re-phrase the author's thought as "I wrote an SaaS product because I believed it would get me rich and I went and scoured the internet for a well that echos my thoughts" The author speaks about exactly one example, that,I guess I can say inspired him to get going with his idea. No, The internet did not convince him. He convinced himself using the internet to find evidence for a conclusion he alrea…

Offtopic: The Internet is the place where one can always find well that echos one's thoughts. I wonder if that is the reason our society has become so polar. It's not even limited to specific country, this can be observed throughout the world.

I think you would find it enlightening to read a history of radio, notably but only talk radio, or if you can't find one, write it. And before there was radio, many or most newspapers had a particular axe to grind.

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

#225

Post by mthoms »

dragandj wrote: post #192
probably_wrong wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I can't post my FOSS to the linux subreddit then what in the world am I allowed to post? There is not enough information in your comment to judge correctly, but I would like to point out that it's not black and white. You know what I hate about Hacker News lately? The green accounts that show up, post a link to their product (sometimes even making it to the front page), do not reply to comments, and exist only t…

The thing is that most of these submissions go nowhere on HN. So, what is actually the problem? Lousy submissions don’t get upvoted and no one is bothered. The problem on Reddit is that even legitimate submissions are taken down by nay-sayers despite being positive and getting legitimate upvotes, while submissions of links that lead to big companies’ websites don’t get nearly the same level of scrutiny.

It seems the best way these days is to get creative - Write a blog post that is interesting to the target audience and mention your product as an aside.

Exactly like this HN submission did.

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

#226

Post by cheez »

mettamage wrote: post #97
cheez wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best indie launch I've seen was the initial launch of Balsamiq. It was played off as "meh" by Peldi but it was masterful. I had launched a product 2 years before and until then, I couldn't understand what I did wrong. I obsessed over what he did. Every single thing. Trying to find where he got "lucky". There was no luck.

Is it in here? I just Google searched it, but the article is too big for me to read at the moment. https://blog.balsamiq.com/startup-marketing-advice-from-bals...

This is probably a good start.

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

#227

Post by nonines »

stets wrote: post #65
rodolphoarruda wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vue.js was part of the architecture -- no kidding! But hey, thanks for the encouragement.

Fuck vue.js. Launch your thing. EarlyBrd only used jinja2 templates with Flask. Now I'm migrating to laravel and only use Blade templates. Prove your thing out first because most users don't really care unless you're making some kind of real-time data analytics bs (in which case inqtel or other prob wants to send you some money)

Great work. I'm curious though. Why Flask and not Django? Seems like you wanted a heavyweight after all.

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

#228

Post by sct202 »

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?

Facebook serves ads on other apps thru their Facebook Audience Network.

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

#230

Post by stets »

yoshyosh wrote: post #143

Grats on shipping! Highly recommend testing positioning this as a B2B product for monitoring companies that I could use as sales leads. For example it would be great to get alerted from all the diff job boards when different companies are trying to hire for what our product solves, similar to how Reilly is using your product.

Solid idea. I think he mentioned that to me and I didn't take it in fully that other people could monitor WHAT people on Upwork wanted without wanting to work for them.
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