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How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

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Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

#81
post #34
post #22

> "You don’t have to care about competitors. It’s a waste of time. Because you know where to go. You can ignore even if they stole features your product has. Because you are the person who most understands your product, how it works and why it works." I enjoyed this article, but this bit I'm not entirely convinced by. The saying does go that competition leads to innovation. Instagram Stories were a great business mov…

Ignore the competitions, does not mean you do not know the competitions. Follow them and know what they are doing. But do not adjust your plan easily for just what your competitors are doing.

Taking this further, ignore what the competitors say they do, but take into account what your market and potential customers do with those competing services.

e.g. A competitor may have launched a bunch of new features that nobody needs or uses. You follow what they do to compete. You then focus on things that don't work when actually, all competitor's customers buy the service for a few core features that they don't shout about, or aren't actually improving (mistakenly).

You can be better at listening to competitors' own customers then they do.

Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

#82

Roadmaps are really important to me. When I'm evaluating a new service, I first look for a published roadmap. Specifically: * When the next version will be released (specific date, not just bullshit stuff like "Q1 2019") * What new features it will have If I can't find anything like this, I'm less likely to sign up.

I prefer looking at a changelog. Who knows how accurate a roadmap is?

Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

#83

Meta comment: I miss the time when there were many more stories like this one on HN. I'm sure that one reason why there aren't as many now is that lots of low hanging fruits for niche tech/online/mobile businesses have already been picked, as many people write from time to time, but I also think another reason is that the stories of hypergrowth and unicorns have raised expectations and standards too much. Incredibly…

A lot of these types of posts seemed to have moved to indiehackers.com

Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

#84

Meta comment: I miss the time when there were many more stories like this one on HN. I'm sure that one reason why there aren't as many now is that lots of low hanging fruits for niche tech/online/mobile businesses have already been picked, as many people write from time to time, but I also think another reason is that the stories of hypergrowth and unicorns have raised expectations and standards too much. Incredibly…

A lot of these types of posts seemed to have moved to indiehackers.com

Interesting... thanks for the link!

Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

#85
post #41

I think I'm too cynical to do these kinds of side businesses... I look at this and am confused why anyone is paying for it. I often find it hard to step away from what I would do compared to what others will do.

Well what’s the alternative to taking good notes for a developer? Markdown on git? You still have to pay for github if you want it to be private and you have the hassle of setting it up. $5/month is irrelevant if you use it a couple of times a day

BookStack: https://www.bookstackapp.com/

Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

#86
Great article. I run a small SaaS on the side that’s about this size and a lot of these points resonate with me. A few thoughts:

1. 100% agree with ignoring competitors unless you’re in a field with heavy network effects. Most niches can have many successful companies, and worrying about your competition will add a lot of stress and encourage you to build things your users don’t care much about. Listen to your customers!

2. Churn is probably low partly because the pricing is low. I charge 10x - 20x this much and my post-trial churn is more like 10% (working on reducing). People are a lot more motivated to cancel if it’s costing them $1000 per year.

3. I should really, really do the support forum thing.

4. Strongly disagree on roadmaps. There are much better ways to make people feel like the service is alive and maintained enough to feel comfortable signing up. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve added unnecessary guilt and stress to my life by promising some future feature to users and then priorities or timing changed. Stupid to put yourself in a box like that for no reason.

Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

#87

Meta comment: I miss the time when there were many more stories like this one on HN. I'm sure that one reason why there aren't as many now is that lots of low hanging fruits for niche tech/online/mobile businesses have already been picked, as many people write from time to time, but I also think another reason is that the stories of hypergrowth and unicorns have raised expectations and standards too much. Incredibly…

A lot of these types of posts seemed to have moved to indiehackers.com

wow you aren't wrong[1]. they even have a sort by top capability right out of the gate which you don't get on hackernews. i guess i'm shifting there from now on, seeing as how lots of highly upvoted hackernews submissions are essentially fluff/self promotion nowadays

[1]https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/i-launched-finally-heres-...

Re: How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

#89
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well what’s the alternative to taking good notes for a developer? Markdown on git? You still have to pay for github if you want it to be private and you have the hassle of setting it up. $5/month is irrelevant if you use it a couple of times a day

BookStack: https://www.bookstackapp.com/

But I have to install this and run my own server- the cheapest one I can find is 5usd/month, so I’m paying for that and the time to set it up + maintain it. Inkdrop still looks like better value for money
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