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Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

mattmazur.com

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Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#71

Post by MrOwnPut »

PentelicoMarble wrote: post #64
MrOwnPut wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the latter half of my sentence you ignored. It's easy to highroad everyone when you sit back reaping the benefits of what others have done.

I’m not high roading anyone, I’m merely saying I prefer products not built by war criminals. I certainly don’t reap any benefits from what Matt and his fellow soldiers did in Iraq during their illegal war, and even if I did - does that mean I can’t talk about it?

Please lookup the definition of high roading.

But yes, you certainly can talk about your misguided views! And people can call out your misguided views as well!

All because of the 1A which is protected from outside forces with the strength of the US military.

Soldiers have little to do with policies such as the endless Middle East wars.

Your moral crusade should be aimed at the defense contractors and their congress buddies.

It's not the soldiers choosing proxy wars in Ukraine or the Middle East, it's congress.

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#72

Post by matt1 »

bambax wrote: post #47

Congrats on going full-time! I remember using Lean Domain Search in the past and that it was in fact "lean" and pretty well made, super fast and easy to use. As for Preceden, how did you come up with the idea, and where do customers come from? That there are enough users of a tool like this to support you sounds amazing -- and I hope I don't sound dismissive: envious would be a better word! Testimonials are actually…

Glad you found Lean Domain Search useful!

Regarding the idea for Preceden: it was a combination of seeing a lot of coworkers struggling to create timelines while I was in the Air Force plus an interest in visualizing the life stories of some family members.

And for better or worse, that's why it's a general purpose timeline maker tool, not one focused just on project managers or just on genealogy or any of the other myriad of use cases people find for it. In retrospect though, I should have focused because it would have simplified a lot of things (copywriting, features, marketing, and much more).

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#73

Post by drewda »

matt1 wrote: post #46
drewda wrote: post #44

This looks like a very nicely polished marketing website and SaaS product. If the creator would be open to sharing, I'd be curious to hear more about whether he's engaged contractors or firms to help with specific types of design over the years. Any lessons learned on that front? I know there are many services that claim they'll sell you a "custom" logo for $100 or whatever... but assembling a nicely polished marketi…

My design skills are alright (see the 2019 screenshot in the post), but it took hiring a designer a few years ago to take it to the next level (see the site today). I found him on Tailwind Discord and have been very fortunate to work with him. In retrospect I should have found someone much sooner given how important aesthetics are for a visualization tool like Preceden.

Makes sense. Would you be able to share a bit more about how you started off with the designer?

(Background: I'm asking because our SaaS business is at a point where we know it's ready for more polish for both marketing site and web app, but are unclear how much we should budget and whether we should go "all in" by hiring a designer who takes everything as far as CSS, or start with a couple targeted improvements that would be lower risk/budget first.)

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#74

Post by matt1 »

mustafabisic1 wrote: post #35

I love this story and I wish you all the best. It goes to show that everybody has their own pace and journey. I feel like a lot of people are happy in their work even without a side gig, but it's kind of not cool to say. I'm totally happy with my role and couldn't be happier and more committed to my current job. The beautiful thing is that I have my own pace as well on a side gig. After 10 years of thinking and plann…

Congrats on starting the newsletter and for your progress!

Here's a link to his site for anyone interested: https://thursdaydigest.com/

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#76

Post by rwalling »

matt1 wrote: post #54
rwalling wrote: post #50

Congrats, Matt. I've enjoyed watching your journey for the past decade and am very excited that you're able to go FT on Preceden.

Thanks Rob! I have you, Mike, Sherry, and the Microconf community to thank in large part for showing me that this route is possible. I also have a copy of Start Small Stay Small, The Single Founder, and Keeping Your Sh*t Together on my bookshelf next to me (all highly recommended for anyone here interested in this approach to building a software business).

Awesome!

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#77

Post by matt1 »

drewda wrote: post #73
matt1 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My design skills are alright (see the 2019 screenshot in the post), but it took hiring a designer a few years ago to take it to the next level (see the site today). I found him on Tailwind Discord and have been very fortunate to work with him. In retrospect I should have found someone much sooner given how important aesthetics are for a visualization tool like Preceden.

Makes sense. Would you be able to share a bit more about how you started off with the designer? (Background: I'm asking because our SaaS business is at a point where we know it's ready for more polish for both marketing site and web app, but are unclear how much we should budget and whether we should go "all in" by hiring a designer who takes everything as far as CSS, or start with a couple targeted improvements that…

I was lucky to find someone who can both design well and implement the changes in the codebase (using Tailwind CSS which I'd highly recommend). You can obviously have two separate people (one to design, one to implement), but if you can find someone who can do both it will simplify things.

For Preceden, we kind of just went page by page converting the old design over to Tailwind, making improvements along the way, and gradually ripping out all of the old CSS that had accumulated over a decade of me working on it. As I built out new features he would help with the design, but he spent the majority of his time improving the existing design.

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#78

Post by geph2021 »

congrats, and a great story. Inspiring to see you stick with it for so long while dealing with the competing priorities of a young family.

If only there was a timeline tool that could easily create an appealing, succinct graphic of the Preceden story. ;)

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#79

Post by matt1 »

user3939382 wrote: post #69

This is pretty inspiring. I had a startup and system in 2005 that was so ahead of its time that many of its features still haven't been implemented by its contemporary competitors, it's tough when I think about it.

It's never to late to start something new. In a decade you'll wish you did.
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