Working on a SaaS startup my self, realized marketing is very important, i recommend you read the book “the mom test” it will give you tools to speak with users and get to product market fit
Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
41–50 of 98 posts
Re: Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest I think most small saas are not compliant. When you are doing low revenue numbers like this guy under 100-200K per year its hardly ever relevant. A lot of countries and states don't claim sales tax to international countries under a certain treshold: 30 - 100K per year. (if you are selling to consumers would actually be a waste to charge sales tax) The EU is different, but if you are in the EU relatively…
it's not easy, it's a nightmare for both you and your accountant (which is happy to charge you for that) Use paddle or revin instead of stripe or use stripe with quaderno or with stripe tax. Stripe tax doesn't work too well yet imho but it may end up getting there
In EU it's easy if you have their VAT numbers, otherwise you just have to charge it. If you have EU VAT nr it's actually work for your EU customers, they have to pay for it without it being on the invoice.
Re: Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
#43as a dev and made few software/services as product, but don't know how to market them with good results.
How do you market your software-product? with small budget..?
Re: Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
#44> Don’t pick something that needs a pretty UI For frontend engineers, should the advice be the opposite: "Pick something that needs good UI/UX"?
I think generally you should pick something where you have that unfair advantage and you like to do. If you are good at sales of course you should pick something where you need lots of sales, same to UI if you are god like designer of course you should pick something where nice UI is advantage.
I agree with this. The harder the thing is you're doing, the bigger your moat. Ideally it shouldn't be too hard for you though of course, e.g. because you have prior knowledge about it.
Re: Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
#45Strongly disagree about talking to people. You've got to talk to your customers and non-customers. It's a skill, you can learn it.
I'm a ~30K MRR indie hacker, and 10y backend developer. I 100% confirm everything he said, but I too agree the most important features all came from talking with users/prospects/customers. I'm shit at it, but the mantra I tell to myself is: "remember when you were a kid? These are other kids that play with the same toys as you. Just talk about the toys and how to make toys more fun. Same enthusiasm!". Just stay away…
> I'm shit at it, but the mantra I tell to myself is: "remember when you were a kid? These are other kids that play with the same toys as you. Just talk about the toys and how to make toys more fun. Same enthusiasm!".
The problem is: this kind of "nerd talk" that you are enthused about often comes across as awkward in particular to business-minded people.
In other words: I can perfectly understand why many developers have bad experiences with talking to people: too different interests and thus quite a lot of bad experiences in the past.
Re: Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
#46Strongly disagree about talking to people. You've got to talk to your customers and non-customers. It's a skill, you can learn it.
You can make more money in a five minute face to face conversation than you can in 6 months of internet marketing in some industries. edit: example: one such industry is selling big expensive machines and/or software to run them.
But big expensive machines and software sales usually involves a lot of customer research and pre sales intelligence and rocking your sweet lone self (allowing you might be able to fake the roles and personalities necessary to mimic a remote team) to a enterprise closing meeting, isn't going forwards. Possibly you could look for interim executives from among the growing pool of experienced management exiled by industry ageism. But this(and my other suggestions) do require a broader professional ability. Enterprise software sales seems to have suffered something akin to job title inflation in IBs and start ups. And I can buy a lot of enterprise software directly online even in single digit seats. If you can do any of what I just pondered, almost certainly you're better off using your energies to hone your customer product fit, Steve Blank style or any which way.
The only thing I'll differentiate in my thinking from the OP advice is consider thoughtfully how well you are served by diarizing your development process and how much more can come from thinking in reverse from the customer perspective.
Re: Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
#47I dunno. I call bullshit on almost all of these tips. Not all developers are awkward, socially-inept, and incapable of designing their way out of a paper bag. I find that to be a really tired stereotype these days.
I’d say: if you want to be successful, push yourself. All of these things are skills that can be learned.
Re: Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
#48This Proxies API service seems to be using AI-generated "This Person Does Not Exist"[1] style profile pictures for its positive customer reviews near the bottom of the page: https://www.proxiesapi.com/assets/img/steve.jpg https://www.proxiesapi.com/assets/img/customer1.jpg https://www.proxiesapi.com/assets/img/customer3.jpg https://www.proxiesapi.com/assets/img/customer4.jpg Makes me question if the customer reviews…
I read the "How to recognize an image of a fake person" section on the site you linked and I'm curious how did you spot that the pictures are fake?
Re: Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
#49This Proxies API service seems to be using AI-generated "This Person Does Not Exist"[1] style profile pictures for its positive customer reviews near the bottom of the page: https://www.proxiesapi.com/assets/img/steve.jpg https://www.proxiesapi.com/assets/img/customer1.jpg https://www.proxiesapi.com/assets/img/customer3.jpg https://www.proxiesapi.com/assets/img/customer4.jpg Makes me question if the customer reviews…
I think this is actually quite common now - where you get permission from a person to use their review of your product but they don't want you to use their likeness.
Maybe sometimes it feels a bit much to ask to use someone's review and also ask for a photo of them.
It is somewhat disingenuous but I don't think I mind too much if they are legit customer reviews.
Re: Tips for Developers Who Want to Build a SaaS Startup
#50I would also add that you shouldn't worry too much about whether or not people want what you're building. Just solve problems.
Also, be prepared to fail a lot before you succeed...your first solution might not go anywhere...your tenth one might not either...but your eleventh product...who knows?