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How and when to acquire SaaS users

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Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#71

Post by timjones »

justiceforsaas wrote: post #63

I think you've gone from one extreme to the other. Yes, building a product with no distribution sucks. So does doing distribution without having anything to show for it. Take this from a guy who spent 2 years studying distribution channels [1]. There's nothing wrong about spending a week or two developing a MVP before focusing on distribution. I think the key is to start with 1) The minimum thing you can do and call…

I agree that there's nothing wrong with spending a week or two developing an MVP first.

I don't plan on spending more than 3-4 weeks building an MVP, which I'll start within 2 weeks.

An advantage that my current approach gives me is a few dozen low-commitment (but qualified) waitlist users that have shown some initial interest.

I obviously have some close friends that will try it out with their teams. But going distribution-first allows me to easily expand beyond that close circle to a more unbiased group of people.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#72

Post by d_burfoot »

Most startup ideation follows the following sequence:

1. invent a bold new product

2. figure out how to market it

In other words, the "Eureka" moment is in the product ideation step, while the marketing step is basically a schlep. But the inverse approach might actually be better:

1. invent a bold new marketing strategy

2. figure out a product to sell with it

Don't assume that marketing is somehow a lower form of intellectual activity than engineering. It requires a strong aesthetic sense, a deep understanding of human psychology, mastery of technical tools, and the ability to be self-critical.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#73

Post by satvikpendem »

Nice to see that you're transitioning from the developer mindset to the founder mindset, from building first to selling first. Many people don't understand that development is just one part of a successful company. They think that if you build it, they will come. I too have fallen into this trap multiple times until I had my latest startup idea (todo list + calendar for project management, https://getartemis.app). I simply made a landing page, used Figma and an animation tool called Principle to make a nice video, and put it on the landing page. Now I have over 1200 singups to the email list while I'm working on building the product.

Doing this has allowed me to do so many things, such as figuring out that there is indeed demand for the product, and directly talking to these potential users by setting up a call with them. Having a distribution channel is a powerful thing. It would be even better if I cultivated my Twitter audience, but an email list is a start, and it has some distinct advantages such as owning your distribution channel.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#74

Post by meghido1 »

There's this upcoming trend of "building in public". Founder/Developer sharing their journey to their audience while trying to get traction. I agree that launching your product to an engaged and consolidated audience give a boost but I also think that depends on which type of product you are building. For sure you need at least to have an MVP to show to your users.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#75

Post by b20000 »

elcomet wrote: post #44
b20000 wrote: post #26

I applaud your success. To me it seems that by putting distribution first, or focusing on problems to solve, that you typically end up with markets or problems you are personally not really excited about. I've done this exercise many times. I can either work on something I think is cool and there is a niche market for, but does not really "solve" a problem but addresses a "want", or I can work on something I have zer…

> Niche market, [...] , probably a big market Which one is it then?

I think niche market / big market is always subjective and very poorly defined in general leading to confusion. When chatting with a VC, "niche" probably means "not worth investing into, too small" in their simplified language even though you could mean simply that it's a subsection of some huge industry which is in itself huge. Like first person shooters in the game industry.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#76

Post by b20000 »

legerdemain wrote: post #35
b20000 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where do I sign up?!?!? marketing today costs money just like it did years ago, you are still paying for visibility and there is no "free" traffic anymore like there was in the late 90s.

Here are the steps to success: 1. Go to http://www.twitter.com . 2. Click Join Twitter today. 3. Type in this Tweet: "I have the perfect product! Email me for quote. #Growth #Product #MVP"

1) make website 2) send newsletter 3) ??? 4) profit!

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#77

Post by bird_monster »

I've found that my side projects are very rarely about completing anything. Usually a side project is about chasing a curiosity in a piece of tech or a workflow change or something. "Could I build a faster CI pipe in Terraform?" "Could I write this Kafka consumer in Java?" "Can I containerize this?". Things that aren't really about "completing" or "shipping."

I think that people like me often forget that one of the biggest drivers for working on projects past when they become interesting is the money I receive for working on them. If I'm not being paid, it becomes difficult to fathom struggling for 10 hours on building something past when it's particularly interesting. Once any personal project would require basically any UI work, that's about when I bail (as I have no interest and actively dislike pretty much every UI-based technology I've ever encountered).

Getting paid to work is important to me.

Re: How and when to acquire SaaS users

#78

Post by elboru »

maxekman wrote: post #70
satvikpendem wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you mention Dropbox because they did exactly what you say not to do, provide a video demo that doesn't actually work, it just looks like it's working [0]. Their Show HN thread has more details [1]. In general though, you definitely should work on figuring out if customers want your product without building it if at all possible, and most times it is possible. I run a SaaS that's a project management tool (todo…

It was really inspiring and grounding to see a “Show HN” thread with Dropbox, pre-fame. Thanks!

The first comment is also legendary in the HN community.
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