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My experience releasing failed SaaS products

mmartinfahy.medium.com

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Re: My experience releasing failed SaaS products

#2
This is a great writeup and thank you for sharing with so much candor. You are light years ahead of everyone who has ideas and has not tried them and learnt the lessons.

You learnt experientially what most either never learn or a rare few learn from books like The Mom Test. Even compared those who read the book and get it, I fear it does not translate to a lived earned experience.

Take some time to rest, recuperate, recharge and go build #4!!

Re: My experience releasing failed SaaS products

#4
I have been building and failing multiple websites/mobile apps since 2006. To this day, I don't think I could ever be in that situation of creating something that somehow takes off.

Theres gotta be a place for failed web/mobile app developers to get together and figure out a way to make it, anyone know of such a place?

Re: My experience releasing failed SaaS products

#5

I have been building and failing multiple websites/mobile apps since 2006. To this day, I don't think I could ever be in that situation of creating something that somehow takes off. Theres gotta be a place for failed web/mobile app developers to get together and figure out a way to make it, anyone know of such a place?

It's not targeted at failed founders explicitly, however Indie Hackers is probably the community you're looking for!

https://www.indiehackers.com/

Re: My experience releasing failed SaaS products

#6

I have been building and failing multiple websites/mobile apps since 2006. To this day, I don't think I could ever be in that situation of creating something that somehow takes off. Theres gotta be a place for failed web/mobile app developers to get together and figure out a way to make it, anyone know of such a place?

https://www.failory.com/

Re: My experience releasing failed SaaS products

#7
> If you want to actually create a business you need to realize coding is both the easiest of all the things that needs to be done and also the least important.

I don’t agree. I understand the sentiment, though. In my experience “the importance” of coding depends on the business.

Like the author says, if you just want to code - go do it, you don’t have to have a business! But what they are missing is the compliment: if you just want to business, you don’t have to code!

Re: My experience releasing failed SaaS products

#8
Much of this seems like useful lessons learned, but this particular section jumped out at me:

> To my credit at this time I would learn and do anything to get more users to my site, to the point where I was getting banned from multiple forums for posting after people told me to get lost.

How is this "to your credit"? If, as you say, the success of your product depends on getting niche users to buy in and trust that you can provide value, maybe it's a bad idea to antagonize those same users by behaving in ways that violate their community norms.

Re: My experience releasing failed SaaS products

#10
It seems that there is a product/market fit problem that the author keeps hitting. Or simply, building something that the people who would find it useful actually want.

I have had the same problem. One way of overcoming this is to have a co-founder that has experience in a particular market, and knows the problems that need solving and the people who are affected by the problem. Another way is to do more thorough market research.

It seems to be a common problem for technical (only) founders.

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