The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Ask Me Anything About SaaS ( I'm building my 7th )

DaRK9

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
213%
May 23, 2014
767
1,634
Two things that we're doing in my project that help are: automatic test coverage, and plugging in a bug reporting tool.

For the front-end e2e tests (end to end), we're using cypress.io. Cypress has a lot to love about it form a developer's perspective... using it seems to actually make recruiting easier. Capybara is another good test automation option, like @csalvato mentioned. Lots of stuff exists out there that is already written... you just need to add your tests, and any time you push new code you have confidence that the things you're testing for aren't going to go wrong again.

For bug reporting and info collection, one thing we're using is sentry.io. Basically if something goes wrong, usually an unexpected situation in the app (we tested assuming you have customers, but you deleted all customers and went to page x), instead of just failing silently in weird ways you get a nice pop-up that says "whoah, sorry we messed up. Can you tell us what you were doing here?" As soon as we put this in a beta user sent us a report... we would not have even known there was a bug without it because the situation escaped our automated and manual testing. Got a bug report, developer was able to respond by email within an hour letting them know we're on it and pushing a hot fix. Ta da.



I agree with this, although I see people get by with redneck engineering bootstrap coding for their MVP and I don't see any problem with that. I've totally done it. But as your project matures and money comes in, it's definitely worth allocating some of that toward automating the tests, improving the code base, putting in bug reporting and other tools to help with users, etc. At least, that's my opinion, but I think it helps scale the business and keep the owner and other team members from getting stuck as career bug-squashers. Currently I'm working on a project where we start with a more mature "done rite" code base, but that's possible because we took the time to do the previous project right (after doing it "good enough" and then reinvesting).
Really liking what I see in Cypress.io

I binge code and it doesn’t always look the best but it works and I’m strict about versioning. Great to see what other polished people are doing.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

csalvato

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
297%
May 5, 2014
2,058
6,106
39
Rocky Mountain West
For the front-end e2e tests (end to end), we're using cypress.io. Cypress has a lot to love about it form a developer's perspective

Paying for a testing framework is a new concept for me. What would you say the key benefits are, from your perspective, over well accepted open source solutions like Capybara (selenium-based) or Puppeteer (chromium-based)?

EDIT: Looks like this is open source too...? I'm interested in hearing your take on this, because when most auto QA test suites get to a certain size, they become flakey. Still valuable, but they often have false positives.
 

Rabby

Legendary Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
319%
Aug 26, 2018
1,924
6,128
Florida
So, as much as I would like to claim genius for knowing about this stuff, my team adopted Cypress on their own. They found Sentry too. I discovered how much other developers love Cypress when I posted a position in a local developer Slack for a temporary e2e test writing pinch hitter to increase our coverage.

So I have not personally written an e2e test for the project. But I do know Cypress helped get us test coverage quickly, and whatever the cost, it's cheaper than hiring good people and giving them kludgey tools. Mr. G and others seem to like the syntax and ease of use more than anything... like how when you go from C to Ruby you just kindof love Ruby for what you can do with it in a few, simple readable lines.

I think Cypress abstracts away asynchronicity, for example, and it supplies an easy way to make http requests directly. I imagine there's nothing it's doing that you couldn't do with another framework, or from scratch, but someone already wrote this and it's an ease of use improvement over older testing frameworks, along with whatever architectural advantages it might have.

If you really want to know about it though, I'm not the one to tell you from a technical perspective. You could talk to one of my team and they could tell you a lot more.

PS: Left to my own devices, I would have been using Capybara. I have no way to say whether that's better or worse, but Cypress makes my team happy.
 

csalvato

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
297%
May 5, 2014
2,058
6,106
39
Rocky Mountain West
So, as much as I would like to claim genius for knowing about this stuff, my team adopted Cypress on their own. They found Sentry too. I discovered how much other developers love Cypress when I posted a position in a local developer Slack for a temporary e2e test writing pinch hitter to increase our coverage.

So I have not personally written an e2e test for the project. But I do know Cypress helped get us test coverage quickly, and whatever the cost, it's cheaper than hiring good people and giving them kludgey tools. Mr. G and others seem to like the syntax and ease of use more than anything... like how when you go from C to Ruby you just kindof love Ruby for what you can do with it in a few, simple readable lines.

I think Cypress abstracts away asynchronicity, for example, and it supplies an easy way to make http requests directly. I imagine there's nothing it's doing that you couldn't do with another framework, or from scratch, but someone already wrote this and it's an ease of use improvement over older testing frameworks, along with whatever architectural advantages it might have.

If you really want to know about it though, I'm not the one to tell you from a technical perspective. You could talk to one of my team and they could tell you a lot more.

PS: Left to my own devices, I would have been using Capybara. I have no way to say whether that's better or worse, but Cypress makes my team happy.
Thank you for this! :smile:
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

csalvato

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
297%
May 5, 2014
2,058
6,106
39
Rocky Mountain West
It’s only me and one other dev. I’ll look into that, so far I have some automated backend QA but nothing to test for breaks in the browser. It’s all direct.

Apologies for calling you a rank amateur then ;)

@Rabby has me over here investigating moving my suites over to Cypress. It looks pretty legit.
 

DaRK9

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
213%
May 23, 2014
767
1,634
Apologies for calling you a rank amateur then ;)

@Rabby has me over here investigating moving my suites over to Cypress. It looks pretty legit.
I’m by no means pro, or clean though. Haha. My internal and external api, db and user functions testing is automated but that’s it.

Yes I played around with it last night and I really like it.
 
D

Deleted58089

Guest
I want to start a project, but I can’t figure out how to deliver my service.

I am going to connect two different parties selling courses, ebooks, software etc in the same niche. I want one of them to include the other one’s product as a part of his offer and take some profit from both sides.
What I can’t figure out is how to setup and automate the payments.

Do you happen to know of any softwares that I could use?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

aeden

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
196%
Feb 28, 2020
113
222
Melbourne, FL
I want to start a project, but I can’t figure out how to deliver my service.

I am going to connect two different parties selling courses, ebooks, software etc in the same niche. I want one of them to include the other one’s product as a part of his offer and take some profit from both sides.
What I can’t figure out is how to setup and automate the payments.

Do you happen to know of any softwares that I could use?

Maybe try Stripe Connect for the payment part? Stripe Connect: Payments platform for marketplaces & platforms
 

eliquid

( Jason Brown )
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
519%
May 29, 2013
1,876
9,731
I want to start a project, but I can’t figure out how to deliver my service.

I am going to connect two different parties selling courses, ebooks, software etc in the same niche. I want one of them to include the other one’s product as a part of his offer and take some profit from both sides.
What I can’t figure out is how to setup and automate the payments.

Do you happen to know of any softwares that I could use?

Besides what @aeden mentioned with Stripe Connect, I was going to say this sounds just like an affiliate setup.

Why not set them up as affiliates of each other, with you being the "affiliate network" making the payout ( and being the middle man ).

You could do this with a lot of affiliate software. One such I can think of is iDevAffiliate
 
D

Deleted58089

Guest
Besides what @aeden mentioned with Stripe Connect, I was going to say this sounds just like an affiliate setup.

Why not set them up as affiliates of each other, with you being the "affiliate network" making the payout ( and being the middle man ).

You could do this with a lot of affiliate software. One such I can think of is iDevAffiliate
Thanks for the reply.

I had thought of that. Still I can’t figure out how to set this up, because there are three parties involved and only one doing the selling.

I referred to some affiliate softwares and they couldn’t help me.

Let’s say, I am the affiliate network. The middleman. And there is a guy selling a product on his website and has agreed to include the other guy’s product in it. Do I make a program to earn a commission per sale from the first guy, and another program afterwards to send a percentage of that commission to the other guy?
Or is one program enough?

Sorry for asking all these questions but it seems rather complicated.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

aeden

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
196%
Feb 28, 2020
113
222
Melbourne, FL
Thanks for the reply.

I had thought of that. Still I can’t figure out how to set this up, because there are three parties involved and only one doing the selling.

I referred to some affiliate softwares and they couldn’t help me.

Let’s say, I am the affiliate network. The middleman. And there is a guy selling a product on his website and has agreed to include the other guy’s product in it. Do I make a program to earn a commission per sale from the first guy, and another program afterwards to send a percentage of that commission to the other guy?
Or is one program enough?

Sorry for asking all these questions but it seems rather complicated.

This sounds a bit like a variation on the bundling concept used in software bundles (like Humble Bundle) except for educational products. It sounds like the difference is you want the bundling to be added to someone else's educational product. Am I reading this correctly? Have you considered testing out bundling directly?
 
D

Deleted58089

Guest
This sounds a bit like a variation on the bundling concept used in software bundles (like Humble Bundle) except for educational products. It sounds like the difference is you want the bundling to be added to someone else's educational product. Am I reading this correctly? Have you considered testing out bundling directly?
Yeah I suppose this is a form of bundling.
The difference is that I want the product to keep being sold to the seller's website (sales channels), to keep its brand identity and marketing.
 

lobo

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
159%
Feb 20, 2019
74
118
For someone looking to build a SaaS , how did you go about finding ideas? I know you mentioned you built softwares in your industry (Dig-marketing), but what if you're not in an industry and are looking for ideas?

I know it would be easy to solve problems in an industry you are involved with, but how do you source out these 'problems' if you're not in an industry?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

banjoa

Present
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
255%
May 7, 2017
85
217
35
Nigeria
For someone looking to build a SaaS , how did you go about finding ideas? I know you mentioned you built softwares in your industry (Dig-marketing), but what if you're not in an industry and are looking for ideas?

I know it would be easy to solve problems in an industry you are involved with, but how do you source out these 'problems' if you're not in an industry?

I don’t have a Saas but general principles apply.

1) Scratch your itch

2) Niche version of existing Saas. Example Shopify for florists.

3) Repeatable freelance & consulting work.

4) Build ontop growing platforms. Baremetrics built on Stripe.
 

eliquid

( Jason Brown )
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
519%
May 29, 2013
1,876
9,731
Yeah I suppose this is a form of bundling.
The difference is that I want the product to keep being sold to the seller's website (sales channels), to keep its brand identity and marketing.
What you do is, the person selling the product you sign them up as the "advertiser" in your affiliate network.

The person that does the selling, is the publisher in your affiliate network.

When the publisher makes a valid sale, you charge the advertiser the set fee commission and give it to the publisher, minus a little for yourself.

Should be pretty easy to set up
 

eliquid

( Jason Brown )
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
519%
May 29, 2013
1,876
9,731
For someone looking to build a SaaS , how did you go about finding ideas? I know you mentioned you built softwares in your industry (Dig-marketing), but what if you're not in an industry and are looking for ideas?

I know it would be easy to solve problems in an industry you are involved with, but how do you source out these 'problems' if you're not in an industry?

Building in your industry is the only sure fire way I know.

Sure, you can find success not building in your industry. Sure you can fail building in your industry.

But lets move away from that....

How do you know whats a good problem?

I eat chili. Lots of it. All the time. Consider eating chili "my industry".

When I taste other people's chili, I know what's good chili and what's bad chili. When I encounter bad chili, I know what's needed to fix it most times because chili is my thang.

But I don't know good Pad Thai.

I don't eat it a lot and hardly anyone around me serves it. Pad Thai isn't "my industry". I have limited to no experience with Pad Thai.

If I encountered bad Pad Thai, I wouldn't know it.

Someone else would have to tell me it's bad and then I would know I have a problem. But I don't know how to fix the bad Pad Thai or if/when I made good Pad Thai since I don't know Pad Thai well and it's not my industry.

While I could still go out and solve problems for bad Pad Thai, I don't know if I actually fixed it since it's not "my industry".

I don't know if there are really "problems to fix" with Pad Thai. Since I don't really know it. I could say based on some limited feedback that customer X or Y said so, but I don't really know. And as a builder of over 7+ SaaS products now, I can tell you that customers DO NOT KNOW what they want and most will not even tell you.

If I solved problems for an industry I am not an authority in, I just end up building a crappy "me too" product with no real UVP.
How can I have a real UVP if I am not in the industry?

Can you still make money and a living serving up bad Pad Thai and being a "me too"? Sure. Look at all the insurance agents, home builders, real estate agencts, bankers, etc of the world. Look at all the copy cats on Amazon and rehashed digital downloads and courses of the world.

If you are looking to get by and never really grow/scale. Go for it. But I guar. you will struggle coming up in it and struggle when things get rough.

Chili though.. I can speak that language and I know just the right simmering temperature and I know when I have made it good, because I'm up in that shit all the time and I know how to fix a bad pot of it. I have built in UVP with chili anytime for lots of different reasons

Something doesn't taste right, breaks, or a customer expects a little more than I originally thought with my chili, I can do it since I know inside and out. I couldn't that with Pad Thai. I would be at the mercy of others to tell me for a very long time while I figured it out, which can cause determental results to me, my business, and my customers even.

It's something I can build a real brand around.

You can do like @banjoa said:

I don’t have a Saas but general principles apply.

1) Scratch your itch

2) Niche version of existing Saas. Example Shopify for florists.

3) Repeatable freelance & consulting work.

4) Build ontop growing platforms. Baremetrics built on Stripe.

Their number 1 is basically what I told you to do, build it for yourself and your industry.

Their number 2, how do you know Florist really need a new niche Shopify solution, or any solution. Are you a florist? How do you know when you have done enough, or not enough to solve their issues? What happens in 6 months when someone copies you, how are you going to handle that and pivot when you don't know Florists needs?

Number 3... This at least gets you closer to an industry, but how are you going to help say plumbers repeatably when you don't know anything about their needs?

Number 4, what are you going to build on top of Stripe ( or any platform? ). You basically back to square 1 again because you don't know what to build and for whom since you have no industry to back up your work, claims, and needs.

You belong to some industry already. You just need to find it.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

NMdad

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
224%
Aug 6, 2017
612
1,370
New Mexico
You belong to some industry already. You just need to find it.
Chili vs. pad thai. That analogy is spot on.

What's your chili?

Also, you might be able to be in a sizable sub-niche. Using the chili example, Texas chili is completely different from New Mexico chile. There are often problems in a sub-niche, and solving those could give you an inroad to the larger niche.

I've worked in my niche (which is a sub-niche of a larger niche) for 20 years, and 2 days ago a client gave me 2 ideas for SAAS products that I'd never considered.

There are ALWAYS opportunities.
 

Kevin88660

Platinum Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
118%
Feb 8, 2019
3,459
4,083
Singapore
Building in your industry is the only sure fire way I know.

Sure, you can find success not building in your industry. Sure you can fail building in your industry.

But lets move away from that....

How do you know whats a good problem?

I eat chili. Lots of it. All the time. Consider eating chili "my industry".

When I taste other people's chili, I know what's good chili and what's bad chili. When I encounter bad chili, I know what's needed to fix it most times because chili is my thang.

But I don't know good Pad Thai.

I don't eat it a lot and hardly anyone around me serves it. Pad Thai isn't "my industry". I have limited to no experience with Pad Thai.

If I encountered bad Pad Thai, I wouldn't know it.

Someone else would have to tell me it's bad and then I would know I have a problem. But I don't know how to fix the bad Pad Thai or if/when I made good Pad Thai since I don't know Pad Thai well and it's not my industry.

While I could still go out and solve problems for bad Pad Thai, I don't know if I actually fixed it since it's not "my industry".

I don't know if there are really "problems to fix" with Pad Thai. Since I don't really know it. I could say based on some limited feedback that customer X or Y said so, but I don't really know. And as a builder of over 7+ SaaS products now, I can tell you that customers DO NOT KNOW what they want and most will not even tell you.

If I solved problems for an industry I am not an authority in, I just end up building a crappy "me too" product with no real UVP.
How can I have a real UVP if I am not in the industry?

Can you still make money and a living serving up bad Pad Thai and being a "me too"? Sure. Look at all the insurance agents, home builders, real estate agencts, bankers, etc of the world. Look at all the copy cats on Amazon and rehashed digital downloads and courses of the world.

If you are looking to get by and never really grow/scale. Go for it. But I guar. you will struggle coming up in it and struggle when things get rough.

Chili though.. I can speak that language and I know just the right simmering temperature and I know when I have made it good, because I'm up in that shit all the time and I know how to fix a bad pot of it. I have built in UVP with chili anytime for lots of different reasons

Something doesn't taste right, breaks, or a customer expects a little more than I originally thought with my chili, I can do it since I know inside and out. I couldn't that with Pad Thai. I would be at the mercy of others to tell me for a very long time while I figured it out, which can cause determental results to me, my business, and my customers even.

It's something I can build a real brand around.

You can do like @banjoa said:



Their number 1 is basically what I told you to do, build it for yourself and your industry.

Their number 2, how do you know Florist really need a new niche Shopify solution, or any solution. Are you a florist? How do you know when you have done enough, or not enough to solve their issues? What happens in 6 months when someone copies you, how are you going to handle that and pivot when you don't know Florists needs?

Number 3... This at least gets you closer to an industry, but how are you going to help say plumbers repeatably when you don't know anything about their needs?

Number 4, what are you going to build on top of Stripe ( or any platform? ). You basically back to square 1 again because you don't know what to build and for whom since you have no industry to back up your work, claims, and needs.

You belong to some industry already. You just need to find it.
This post is good that it deserves a cash donation option. I am a huge believer in picking a field and grind for years.
 

CDM

Bronze Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
193%
Jun 17, 2013
199
385
If you code something and it doesn't catch on, you can always try to sell it on Flippa.

Wow. I was totally unaware of the resource before. Maybe just what I needed!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

NMdad

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
224%
Aug 6, 2017
612
1,370
New Mexico
Hey, Jason!

I've gotten significant interest/validation for a B2B SAAS concept from a handful of my consulting clients, and want to hire someone to develop the web app.

I'm not a software engineer, but have solid SQL & VBA/vbscript skills, and have a working knowledge of HTML.

My goal is to own the SAAS--not become a software engineer. I do not want an equity partner (given problems with equity partners for past projects); I want to hire someone.

The SAAS will need to--among other things:
  • query, retrieve, & write data from/to an on-premise Microsoft SQL Server database
  • display reporting/metrics per user-entered parameters
  • send emails (from different users at each customer's domain (joe@XYZcorp.com, sally@XYZcorp.com; bob@ABCInc.com, mary@ABCInc.com), attach files to the emails, use customer-defined templates for the email subject & body)
  • generate & save pdf files
The basic architecture will probably be something like:
user <---> SAAS <---> customer's on-premise SQL database

However, since I'm not a software engineer, I need to ensure that I have full access to & control of the code & documentation (so that the SAAS & all its architecture can be maintained, upgraded, etc.).

What would you recommend? Hire a main developer, and a 2nd developer who can do code & documentation reviews?
 

eliquid

( Jason Brown )
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
519%
May 29, 2013
1,876
9,731
Hey, Jason!

I've gotten significant interest/validation for a B2B SAAS concept from a handful of my consulting clients, and want to hire someone to develop the web app.

I'm not a software engineer, but have solid SQL & VBA/vbscript skills, and have a working knowledge of HTML.

My goal is to own the SAAS--not become a software engineer. I do not want an equity partner (given problems with equity partners for past projects); I want to hire someone.

The SAAS will need to--among other things:
  • query, retrieve, & write data from/to an on-premise Microsoft SQL Server database
  • display reporting/metrics per user-entered parameters
  • send emails (from different users at each customer's domain (joe@XYZcorp.com, sally@XYZcorp.com; bob@ABCInc.com, mary@ABCInc.com), attach files to the emails, use customer-defined templates for the email subject & body)
  • generate & save pdf files
The basic architecture will probably be something like:
user <---> SAAS <---> customer's on-premise SQL database

However, since I'm not a software engineer, I need to ensure that I have full access to & control of the code & documentation (so that the SAAS & all its architecture can be maintained, upgraded, etc.).

What would you recommend? Hire a main developer, and a 2nd developer who can do code & documentation reviews?

More than likely if you hire someone with a good background and review ( upwrok prior work, etc ) you won't have any issues. The main should be able to document and keep everything together for you.

But if you want to be sure, then yes hire a 2nd person to go over the code WHILE the main developer is working on it. If you do it after, it can become costly as they try to figure out what the main dev did.
 

Ritchie.

New Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
55%
May 2, 2020
11
6
23
Nigeria
Please what is saas, how do people profit from saas
Hello everyone.

A lot of you know me for my digital marketing Gold Thread here on the FLF ( see sig ), as well as other posts in the forum.

What you might not know is that I've successfully built 6 profitable SaaS programs either solely by myself, or with a single partner ( and with no other employees other than VA's ), and that I am working on building my 7th SaaS

I've learned a few things in SaaS over the last 7 years that span:
  • Handling competitors
  • Reducing churn
  • Fraud reduction
  • Technology for SaaS needs
  • Big Data ( billions of new data points daily over years )
  • Increasing LTV
  • APIs
  • Pricing
  • Onboarding
  • Project management
  • Marketing
  • Customer service
  • Partnerships
  • Customer demos/profiles, MVPs, UVP's, ahHa moments, etc
  • many many more things

I've focused all my SaaS programs in the digital marketing space, but I have some ideas for new SaaS programs expanding outside of that for the future.

I can't answer questions related to:
  • Legal - please seek an attorney
  • Specific finance questions about my current or past SaaS programs - I'm not going to divulge other than generalities to the public. I can verify for a mod though if needed.
  • Info on verticals outside of digital marketing - meaning if you have a SaaS for doctors and you ask me a specific medical question, I won't know it if it pertains to doctors or medical
  • LLC vs Scorp Vs etc - This is legal
  • How long is a piece of string type questions

And before anyone asks.. NO, not all 6 SaaS are currently running right now. I closed down the first 5 over the years at different times due to either partner problems or interest died off for me and I rolled into the next SaaS combining ideas to make something new.

For clarification, I am running 1 active SaaS right now and building another ( the 7th ) that is not public atm since it is not finished.

Ask away!


P.S. - Listen, I'm a different type of person. I have very unique views that don't always fit the norm you might have heard elsewhere. What I tell you is what has worked for me and the way I see things from my own personal experience. There are many ways to skin a cat. If you don't agree, that's cool but always think things over for yourself and what will work for you.

.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

eliquid

( Jason Brown )
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
519%
May 29, 2013
1,876
9,731
Please what is saas, how do people profit from saas

SaaS means Software as a Service.

Essentially you are making software online that would replace a service people are using now and would pay you for to automate every month.
 

NMdad

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
224%
Aug 6, 2017
612
1,370
New Mexico
More than likely if you hire someone with a good background and review ( upwrok prior work, etc ) you won't have any issues. The main should be able to document and keep everything together for you.

But if you want to be sure, then yes hire a 2nd person to go over the code WHILE the main developer is working on it. If you do it after, it can become costly as they try to figure out what the main dev did.
Excellent, thanks--good to know I was on the right track.

Next question: How to manage a developer when I'm not a developer?

I feel like I don't know what I don't know--or what I need to know.

How would you recommend managing a developer? I'm thinking something like: daily updates from the developer, including:
  • what they worked on (in plain English, so I can understand),
  • what they'll work on next,
  • any roadblocks/hurdles or questions they need me to answer
 

eliquid

( Jason Brown )
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
519%
May 29, 2013
1,876
9,731
Excellent, thanks--good to know I was on the right track.

Next question: How to manage a developer when I'm not a developer?

I feel like I don't know what I don't know--or what I need to know.

How would you recommend managing a developer? I'm thinking something like: daily updates from the developer, including:
  • what they worked on (in plain English, so I can understand),
  • what they'll work on next,
  • any roadblocks/hurdles or questions they need me to answer

Most tech people fit into a certain Myers Briggs or Enneagram personality type.

Based on that, you want to give them S.M.A.R.T goals in a nutshell.

If they are outsourced, you want to pay them on milestones... not busy work. Those milestones have time-limits too. They get paid when they hit milestones on time and things work as they should.

You want to make sure they are giving you updates. Daily might be too much for a freelancer, but every 2-3 days would be good. You will need to be in the weeds with them and making sure you provide fast TAT to them as well with answers.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

eliquid

( Jason Brown )
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
519%
May 29, 2013
1,876
9,731
Something everyone in SaaS needs to know...

Software is sold, not bought.

.
 

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,568
68,703
Ireland

eliquid

( Jason Brown )
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
519%
May 29, 2013
1,876
9,731
What do you mean @eliquid?

@Andy Black , that in today's economy providers must take an active role in educating, engaging, and supporting buyers. Basically help "selling" to them ( doesn't have to be a hard sell ), instead of letting them just buy ( like in a buffet setting ).

.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,568
68,703
Ireland
@Andy Black , that in today's economy providers must take an active role in educating, engaging, and supporting buyers. Basically help "selling" to them ( doesn't have to be a hard sell ), instead of letting them just buy ( like in a buffet setting ).

.
Ah, thought so. I think that applies to lots of things now!
 

sonny_1080

Creating a tool I want to use.
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
164%
Oct 30, 2019
496
815
Los Angeles
Hello everyone.

A lot of you know me for my digital marketing Gold Thread here on the FLF ( see sig ), as well as other posts in the forum.

What you might not know is that I've successfully built 6 profitable SaaS programs either solely by myself, or with a single partner ( and with no other employees other than VA's ), and that I am working on building my 7th SaaS

I've learned a few things in SaaS over the last 7 years that span:
  • Handling competitors
  • Reducing churn
  • Fraud reduction
  • Technology for SaaS needs
  • Big Data ( billions of new data points daily over years )
  • Increasing LTV
  • APIs
  • Pricing
  • Onboarding
  • Project management
  • Marketing
  • Customer service
  • Partnerships
  • Customer demos/profiles, MVPs, UVP's, ahHa moments, etc
  • many many more things

I've focused all my SaaS programs in the digital marketing space, but I have some ideas for new SaaS programs expanding outside of that for the future.

I can't answer questions related to:
  • Legal - please seek an attorney
  • Specific finance questions about my current or past SaaS programs - I'm not going to divulge other than generalities to the public. I can verify for a mod though if needed.
  • Info on verticals outside of digital marketing - meaning if you have a SaaS for doctors and you ask me a specific medical question, I won't know it if it pertains to doctors or medical
  • LLC vs Scorp Vs etc - This is legal
  • How long is a piece of string type questions

And before anyone asks.. NO, not all 6 SaaS are currently running right now. I closed down the first 5 over the years at different times due to either partner problems or interest died off for me and I rolled into the next SaaS combining ideas to make something new.

For clarification, I am running 1 active SaaS right now and building another ( the 7th ) that is not public atm since it is not finished.

Ask away!


P.S. - Listen, I'm a different type of person. I have very unique views that don't always fit the norm you might have heard elsewhere. What I tell you is what has worked for me and the way I see things from my own personal experience. There are many ways to skin a cat. If you don't agree, that's cool but always think things over for yourself and what will work for you.

.
Hey @eliquid
Not sure if this is the right thread to post this question.
If it isn’t, I’d appreciate if someone can direct me to the right thread or person to speak with.

I want to do 3 things to my website:

1. Add a filtering feature to filter listings based off information givenby the site’s visitor.
2. Make it possible for businesses to add their listing by filling out a form and the website automatically Creates a page for that business including the given information
3. Create a system where folks can leave reviews and they automatically post to the site.

Anybidy have any experience with this or know someone I can speak to? I might have to outsource it but I’m not sure the ballpark estimate of how much it will cost.

Any feedback is helpful.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top