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.

Building a browser extension empire

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Reflections on 2023

At the start of 2023, I did not have a business. I had a small web extension (or plug-in) that had 952 users but was not monetized.

As of now, I have almost 2800 users in total and out of these users, I have 57 paid ones (approximately).

That gives us a conversion rate of approximately 2% which is abysmal, let's not kid ourselves.

The MRR has gone down since November and is now around $2500 with an LTV of $300.

The CAC is around 0 since I am not doing any marketing besides writing blog posts.

How to build a business in 2024

I think that starting with something small that had a single feature, was a good way to get the ball rolling.

I did not have to worry about the competition too much as the competition was busy fighting with each other.

My extension did one thing and 1 thing only but it did it well.

I think this confirms that the way to succeed these days is to create an MLP instead of an MVP.

If you are not familiar with those acronyms, you can read more about them in the link below:

MVP vs MLP

MVP stands for Minimal Viable Product which means that you create the most bare-bones functioning product that works but can also look like crap and with a non-intuitive design straight out of the 2000s.

That may have worked at one point but nowadays, I think the best bet is to go with the MLP or Minimum Lovable Product.

It is the same principle as the MVP but this time, you‘ll spend more time on the UX/UI to make your product very lovable(think nice animations, nice branding/colors, cool name) and very intuitive to use.

How far you take it depends on you and there is no clear consensus as to when an MVP becomes an MLP.

Use your gut but don’t spend too much time before launching.

Praise for managed services

I use MongoDB which is hosted on Mongo Atlas for my database needs. I use Vercel to host my web application and I use the Chrome Web Store to distribute my extension/plug-in.

I always go back to this article when in doubt about what I should spend my time time on:

https://ghiculescu.substack.com/p/11-years-of-hosting-a-saas

Could I save a few bucks by deploying my application on AWS myself? Sure, but I would lose some sleep over it.

Could I save more money by using something other than MongoDB? Also possible.

Is it worth it? I don’t think so. Spending money on services that allow you to sell your product is not an expense, it’s an investment.

When you start thinking about adding more functionality to your product, start by looking at managed services that specialize in what you're trying to achieve.

I use another service to run cron jobs. I could build my own Node application, deploy it, manage my own jobs, and I would pay 5 dollars a month but I have to maintain it, secure it, update it.

I would rather spend time making more money than maintaining another application. This is what most people who start SaaS companies get wrong at the beginning.

You should spend your time building things that make your product better, not nickel and dimming your way to profitability.

There is always the possibility to optimize your costs down the line as long as you are profitable from the start.

A premium business is better

Do not be afraid to charge a higher price point than your competition. I price my product based on value not based on features.

I barely hear from my paying users unless I am the one reaching out. My free users on the other hand are never satisfied. There is such a thing as bad customers.

Free users are great for vanity metrics(think number of installs, page views, and so on) and early feedback but they don’t pay the bills and never will.

It is madness to think that if you bend over enough for your free users, that they will suddenly transition to paid users.

Most of my paying users pay without even finishing the free trial.

Free users are a PITA. That is why in 2024, I will ask for a CC for the free trial accounts. It should cut down on the free users signing up and inundating me with requests for features.

Be a product led company, not a feature led company

If you don't know where you are going, how do you expect to get there?

It’s fine at the beginning to not necessarily know where you will be at month number 6 or 12 but if you have a product that is more than 3 months old, you should already have an idea of where you want the product to be in the next 12 months.

I personally write everything I can possibly think of in a Google document, I let the ideas simmer and I get back to it later once I have had time to think about them.

Because of this process, I now have a good idea of the direction I want to take the company towards.

This means I can easily say yes or no when a customer requests a feature. If it fits in the overarching vision of the product, then I may consider putting the feature on the road map and if not, I can tell the user that it won't happen.

Do not be afraid to turn down customers.

I am never shy when it comes to telling the truth to my users. If a user is not happy, I prefer to cancel their subscription, refund their last payment and move on. No point trying to get blood from a stone.

When given the choice, the user can either accept things as they are now or move on and the choice is on them which makes it easy on my side to cut them loose.

This obviously needs to be done in a professional way. We are all adults here, no need to be a dick about it.

There are good days and bad days

Leave your ego at the door and keep your emotions out of the decisions. This is a business not therapy.

If a user is mad, take it on the chin and move on. If you are pissed at a customer, go for a walk. Nothing good can come out of you being a prick to your users.

Remember, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only 5 minutes to destroy it.

Some days, you feel like you are making zero progress, that the whole thing is just a waste of time and that getting a Switch and powering through Zelda for the next 2 weeks might be a good idea.

My answer to you is : this too shall pass.

Things are not bad forever and they are not good forever. The life of a business owner is made of many ups and downs.

If you are not comfortable with that and expect a smooth ride into the sunset, I think it would be wise to pause and make sure that this is the life you want for you and your family.

9 to 5 becomes 24/7

If you were not happy with your work life balance before starting a business, then Oh boy do I have to warn you to stay away from entrepreneurship!

The business becomes part of your life like nothing else. It is always there in the background. If you hope to have more free time, then think again!

It’s not going to happen, at least not during the first few years of your business being created.

After some time has passed and after you’ve put more systems in place, then maybe you'll be able to unplug, but for me, this hasn't happened yet and it won't happen for many years I believe.

There is just too much to build, too much to do. I am at its beck and call.

Don’t quit your job (yet)

We all have this dream to never work again for the “man”, to own our schedules and be able to take a day off or not work for a week if we want to.

I too share the same goals but it is delusional to want to quit your job the day the business is created.

If your business is not bringing at least whatever it is you make at your day job after taxes, then quitting your job just puts more pressure on yourself to succeed and to do it quickly.

The problem is that this kind of success is rare.

Most of the time you will try 3 or 4 different ideas before you find the one that works and then it will take even more time before you can live off of your business.

Take some time to read the examples below of slow and long SaaS ramp of death:

The Long, Slow SaaS Ramp of Death - Thomas Carney
Navigating the long, slow SaaS ramp of death - Baremetrics

Instead I suggest you be smart about it.

Try to negotiate going part-time for a while or use the laws of your state/country to your advantage.

For me, I went part-time for 3 months between April and July 2023. I worked 3 days a week at my job and 3 days a week (plus evenings and mornings) on my business.

In 2023 I learned that in Sweden, I could request to go on unpaid leave for 6 months and still keep my job.

That means that if everything goes to shit in 2024, I can go back to my old job in a heartbeat and the financial ruin can be averted.

Nobody told me this, I had to seek this information by myself. Don’t expect anyone to volunteer any information freely.

If you want to make it in this business of working for yourself, then you need to learn this: the buck stops with you.

You are the one who is responsible, you are the person in charge, it is up to you to secure your future to the best of your availability.

If you can’t or won’t put in the work required to succeed, then there is no one else to blame but yourself.

Look at the trend

It is better to take a step back and look at the trend of where things are going instead of focusing on the daily shenanigans. That doesn't mean you don’t need to show up everyday and do the work.

It simply means that most of the work you do will only pay off in the future:
- Write a few blog posts and see them rank in a few months.
- Get an affiliate partnership and watch the money roll in 3 months from now.
- Revamp your homepage and watch the conversions increase slightly over the next few months.

You get the gist.

Things take time and you'll need to be somewhat patient to see the results of your hard work.

Be like a monk, learn to be patient and accept that some things will take longer than you expected.

Time is better than money

If you had asked me 3 or 4 years ago what I most wanted after “making it”, I would have probably told you: a fast car, a big house, and stuff to fill the house from top to bottom.

Today I want only one thing: time.

Time is the most important thing in my opinion. There is never enough of it and it is and always will be limited.

Even if my business only allows me to live the same lifestyle as I am living now as an employee, as long as it allows me to have more free time in the future, then I would still consider myself wealthy.

To not have to show up at a given time 5 days a week is something that I long for. I wasn’t made for a 9 to 5 but the golden handcuffs almost made me forget that I was in a prison.

I want time to read books, to talk to the people I love, to do what I want during the day without having to ask permission. That to me is truly being wealthy.

I hope 2024 is the last year where I have to put up with this 9 to 5 schedule and I hope you do too.

2024 and beyond

I am not big on making commitments for the future. I think the whole premise of the new year's resolutions is just a cop out to do nothing until January each year but each to their own I say.

My goal for 2024 is to finally end my employment at my job and to maintain the same lifestyle I currently have but this time, paid for by my business. Anything above that is going to be a bonus.

That doesn't mean that I am not aiming to multiply my revenue and profit by 10 this year, not at all, in fact, I want to multiply it by 20, but it is also important to know what a wishful outcome is and what a satisfying outcome is.

Either way, I am going to work like a mad man and I will give it everything I have because our lives are too short to spend them having regrets.

I wish you all an amazing 2024 and I hope you succeed but if you haven't reached your goals just yet, don’t give up and try again.

The world is full of opportunities, 99% of people are too busy watching TikTok to notice but not you.

You got this.

Believe in yourself and be kind to yourself.
Take care.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Current status

After posting my introduction post, I thought it was time to create an execution thread.

I have two browser extensions currently live.


Extension #1

This extension is dormant, as in I haven't updated it in a while and it is very niche browser extension. I have looked at monetizing/selling it but I don't think there is way to currently do that. It sits at around 150 installs and does not grow much as the market it is serving is relatively small. Nonetheless I consider it a success and used it to build the foundation of extension #2. At this stage I am going to focus on extension #2 exclusively and leave this extension to be. It doesn't require any maintenance fortunately.

Extension #2

This is the focus of this thread. This extension has potential to become a source of income. It is growing steadily and my SEO efforts are starting to payoff. It has about 300 users currently and gets about 30 to 50 new users every week.

At this stage the extension is free and voluntarily limited and could do a lot more. But so far I have not been providing more value to my users because I wanted to keep some functionality hidden to be able to release a paid plan with these extra functionalities.

Before spending more time on this project, I validated the idea in several ways bay asking myself the following questions:


  1. Is this a problem that people are willing to pay for?

    Yes, because there are other competing extensions that are quite popular ( around the 5000 users mark) and charging users around $30 per month to use the full extension's functionality.

  2. Can I provide a better experience than the competition?

    Absolutely. I currently receive emails from my users every few days, and exchange with them regularly. I understand their problems and what they are trying to accomplish. I can build what they need. I do things that don't scale and treat every user very well by responding to each and every question they have in timely manner and spending as long as it takes with them until their issue is resolved.


  3. Can I outrank the competition in Google search results?

    Yes, I am currently in the process of ranking many articles and blog posts above the competition's results which leads me to having a steady flow of users visiting my landing page every day (currently I have 10 to 15 organic clicks on the website).


  4. Can this business be scaled?

    Yes, this business can be scaled. The plan is to have the extension as a middle of the road solution. User's get all the benefits of the extension but they still have to do some of the work themselves.

    The fully automated solution to their problem can be created via SaaS platform that will do everything on their behalf. This solution is not hard to build, I already have a prototype working.
Whats is the expected conversion rate between free users and paid users?

After reading a few articles on this issue, I have come to the conclusion that the conversion rate is between 5% to 10% usually. I follow this guy who has an extension whose made up of 30% paying users. This is the exception and not the rule but one can dream.

Current goals for the next 30 days
  • release the paid plan for the extension
  • convert at least 5 users to the paid plan
  • finish the MVP the SaaS platform and find at least 2 beta users
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
This is a middle of the month update but there is no one else except my spouse I can tell so today was a very good day.

Someone mentioned my extension on social media and it blew up. I made $1000 in less than 24H. Incredible.
The MRR has gone up by $400 and it looks like its not over yet.

I am going to bed now. Curious to see what I will wake up to. Scared as well. Very scared.
 

inputchip

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
409%
Mar 26, 2017
312
1,277
www.tmkings.com
I'm very bullish on Chrome extensions as a business model. It's one of the most overlooked.

The stats speak for themselves:

Apple App Store: 1 billion iPhone users
2 million iOS apps = 500 users : 1 iOS app

Google Play Store: 2 billion Android users
3 million apps = 667 users : 1 app

Chrome Store: 2 billion users
200,000 extensions = 10,000 users : 1 extension

Bottom line: Launching a Chrome extension gives you 20 times more potential users than an iOS app. There is significantly less competition in the Chrome extension marketplace, making it a great opportunity for your app to gain traction.

1. There is an existing app store for discovery, so it is easier to find browser extensions.
2. Low barrier to install (does not require admin rights even)
2. There is relatively low competition for browser extensions.
3. You can focus on one channel (such as Chrome with 50% or more market share).
4. The natural evolution into freemium makes it easier to monetize
5. People are more likely to pay for desktop apps versus mobile
6. Browser extensions integrate seamlessly into existing workflows, making them even more convenient to use.

Notable examples:

LastPass: 25m+ users
Loom: $73m funding
Grammarly: Valued $1B+
Honey: $4B sale
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
November update.

November was tough month but it ended well so I am happy about that.

The MRR is sitting at $2649 and projected to grow to $3K at the end of December. We will see if that happens.

I got new customers, and released a couple of minor versions of the extension. The extension is becoming better each day and more stable as well. A lot less bugs are reported.

I have about two weeks left of work at my day job. I secured a 6 months unpaid leave with my workplace so that I can work on my business full time from January 2024 until the end of June 2024. As per the law in Sweden, if I decide to come back, they have to take me back no questions asked.

I will still have to work my notice period if I choose to resign in June 2024. That means that even though I may not need my job by then, I will have to go back to juggling the business and the day job at the same time for up to 3 months.

I will use the time between January and June to automate many processes in the business so that the business can be run with ease with very little time.

I am also planning to tackle major features during those 6 months and go into maintenance mode during my notice period so that nothing breaks. I will also plan major features for the end of 2024 as my time will be limited between July and September 2024.

I will also focus heavily on marketing and outreach to potential businesses.

Another thing I am exploring is asking for a CC to start new free trials. I am getting too many complaints from free users whereas my paying users only talk to me when I reach out to them.

Such a strange world we live in when people get some software for free and have the balls to whine about random stuff.

Anyway I digress, the point is that I need to target the people who are most likely to buy my software. At the moment, I rely on volume(aka spray and pray) which is not the best way to do it.

I am so glad I have an accountant that takes care of the bills for the business and the taxes. The tax system in Sweden is not simple and I don't have time to learn to navigate the intricacies of it, so I decided to pay an accountant $50/month to take care of the tax reporting.

Once I reach 10K MRR, then I will look into getting up to speed with this matters but as of this moment I would much rather spend my time increasing my revenue and getting new customers than doing taxes.

I am also investing in my health. I try to sleep 8h per night, do stretches twice a day, stand for half a day as well to avoid sitting for too long. I am also buying a vertical mouse to avoid wrist pain and potential future injuries.

I will prepare a longer post for the end of the year that will reflect on my learning's of 2023 and my hopes for 2024.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
September update

The MRR grew by $625 this month.

The current MRR is sitting at 2K currently but will most likely reach 2.5K by the end of October if everything goes well.

I hired an accountant to do my taxes. It's real PITA to do your taxes in Sweden if you are not an employee.
The state takes 50% of the gross revenue. It hurts just to think about it but it is what it is for now.

You would think that for this amount of taxes, you would get some world class health care and solid infrastructure but that is not the case, far from it. What does the Swedish government do with all that cash, I have no idea.

Anyway, I don't really care at them moment since my focus is on increasing the revenue not optimizing my taxes. That will come later once I reach 30K MRR.

I will be going on leave for 6 month from my job in January which means that I will be able to spend 6 months full time building the extension and the web app.

My wife will start working in January as well as she will graduate in December and is pretty much assured of getting a job since she works in healthcare.

So between my wife's income and the income from the extension, our standard of living will remain the same(we are not big spenders and we don't foresee any kind of massive expense in the next 12 months)

But until January, I have to keep working before work, after work and on the weekend. I know that I am pushing myself pretty hard and I don't think I will be able to keep going like this for too long so this leave will be welcome in order to keep my sanity.

I have about 20 to 30 users waiting in the wings to use the new features I am currently developing so I think I will be able to reach between 4k to 5k in MRR before the end of the year.

I am confident I'll be able to maintain an healthy gross profit margin of 85% to 90%.

The affiliate program I started hasn't yielded any new users so far. Oh well! It was a small investment of time and now the infrastructure for it is set up so if I want to onboard a new affiliate it should just work.

But I don't have any plans to do that just yet, the product is not mature enough and still has a lot of bugs.

That's it for now. Good luck to you all out there who are just starting. it's a tough journey but very rewarding.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
October update.

October was a tough month. November is not looking pretty either so far.

I don't know if it's the end of the year approaching or if finally the recession that has been predicted for the last year has finally arrived but after an amazing September, the results of October have been disappointing.

I finished the month with an MRR of $2343, still up but barely. Churn is up massively.
I guess you win some and you lose some.

The amount of sign-ups is also going down which could point to this situation being tied to broader economic issues but I can't say for sure.

I have released some massive UI updates both on the website and on the extension. I also had to ask my extension's users for more permissions as I am planning to change the name of the service to avoid any potential trademark/ copyright infringements.

That means that I have lost about 800 free users because of that. The way it works when you request more permissions for an extension is that Chrome automatically disables the extension.

Then users have to manually re-enable it with the new permissions. Nothing can be done about that and from the point of view of security, it makes complete sense.

In the end the users who have not re-enabled the extension don't really matter. I notified all my paying users with a personal email about this update just to make sure they would know what to do.

So that's where I stand now. I think I was lulled in a false sense of security for the last 6 months, always expecting the MRR to go up. But October and now November are reminding me that in business nothing is certain.

So even though I am not happy to see my churn go up and MRR stagnating, I need to get used to this feeling that things can change from good to bad in a matter of weeks.

I am not worried though. I know I can do this but it will take time and effort.

I follow this guy on twitter who has a SaaS as well.

On his MRR charts that he shares publicly, we can see that he too struggled around the 2K to 3K mark in his journey and then after 12 months of investing in the product and marketing, his business took off. He now makes close to 90K a month.

I hope to replicate his success as well in the coming year.

Onward and upwards. The road to 10K will be difficult but I am running a marathon, not a sprint. The bigger picture is what matters here. in 12 months from now my MRR will probably vary by a few hundred $ on a daily basis so I can't let this little slump get me down.

Everybody wants to be in charge when things go well because then you get to reap the profits but it's hard being at the top when things don't go your way.

I am learning lessons that I will carry with me forward on this journey.

Good luck out there. Stay strong.
 
Last edited:

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
This update is overdue.

May was a good month. I finished the month at $800 MRR.

Churn is finally starting to come down a bit as I had the features that were requested by the users.
I spent some time fighting more fires than expected.

I am also finally adding the last piece of the puzzle which will enable me to move faster in the coming months: a dedicated server.

So far I have mostly relied on the Vercel cloud functions to do most of the work but a lot of work needs to happen in the background and cloud functions are not made for this so I bit the bullet and decided to spin a up a dedicated server that will handle all the background tasks.

It's been a bit slow to get started but it's finally coming together and it will be fully operational by the end of June which means I will be able to onboard my current users into the higher tier plan aka the Pro plan.

I hope the growth will continue this month and I hope I will finally break the $1000 MRR barrier. From what I have heard the first $1000 of MRR is the hardest to acquire then things get slightly better. I hope that is true.

The last 3 months I have been working part-time at my day job so that I could spend more time on this project and get it off the ground. I am happy i took this chance because it was a really positive experience and it gave me the time I needed to do things properly.

But this part-time period is coming to an end and I will be back working full time from this week onward.
I have to admit that this period of semi-freedom really opened my eyes.

Despite having great working conditions, a good salary, nice colleagues, I just can't stand normal employment.
I feel a sense of dread going into work not because work itself is bad but because of the loss of freedom.

When I am at my day job, I build someone else's dream, I make them money instead of me making money. I have to attend meetings and reach consensus and be available between 9 to 5.

When I work for myself, I can start the day at 5am and work until 9am, then go for a walk, or read a book for an hour, then get back to work or not if I want to.

Normal employment sucks the joy out of living and I believe I am reaching my limit.

My wife is going to school currently but she will be graduating at the end of the year and she is pretty much guaranteed to find a job straightaway as she works in healthcare.

I have a three month notice period at my day job so as soon as my wife graduates, I will be handing in my notice. By then I am 95% sure that we will be in a strong financial position for me to finally go full time on this business.

The goal for June is to get the server up and running properly and get all the background jobs working as well. Also onboard at least 1 customer of the Pro plan.

We ll see what happens.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
@Tau Ceti

Hope you are doing well. How is the journey going?

If you hit a plateau, would you consider going back to your original strategy and stacking more extensions? I'm thinking about that one lately, as my TAM is insanely small. It was by purpose, but the possible gains are quite limited, so I have to consider an intentional iteration (II) approach.

Looking forward to you answer. :praise:

Hi @circleme I am doing fine thanks. I hope you are doing ok too.

The journey is going well. I am about to release a massive new feature for my users. As always, I am following the same principles, that is releasing the most basic version of the new feature and then improve it over the next few months after I get some feedback from my users.

I am hovering between 1.4K and 1.5K in terms of MRR. So it's growing steadily despite the summer slow-down.

I think I am going to stick to one extension for now at least until I hit 10K MRR, then I will make an offer to buy my biggest competitor. His extension now has less users than mine and he hasn't really improved his product in the last 6 months. It's very basic and ripe for a takeover.

I think if I can acquire his extension in the next 6 months, I can establish a small monopoly over this market. There are a few other small players in this space but I won't worry about them for now.

So that's the plan.

I am hoping and working towards reaching between 3K to 4K MRR at the end of the year.

For starters, I am also planning to hire a copywriter to write 1 or 2 articles per month in order to boost my SEO reach.

Secondly, I will start thinking about adding some free tools to the website in order to generate some traffic and maybe convert those users into paying users.

I am also starting talks regarding a potential partnership with another extension builder who has 100K++ installs across his many extensions. I ll give him a commission for every sale I make from the traffic that he refers to me. The partnership is set to start in September, we are still working out the details.

Finally, I need to do a brand update. The current name of my application/extension is too specific so I need to make it more generic in order to target a bigger market.

I personally think you should stick with your small TAM and simply dominate it. Once you dominate it and the cash flows in, you can start acquiring competitors or similar/related extensions in order to increase your TAM.

At least that's how I see it.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Hi, congrats. Even if people don't pay yet, they download your stuff and use it so they find it valuable. That's great.

If you don't mind me asking, what programing language do you use to create these extensions ?
No problem at all. The tech part is actually pretty boring. React + typescript + JQuery.

I try to keep things very simple.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Great post. I hope you are doing well with the paid version at this point. Any updates?

I'm in the building process of an SaaS myself and this thread helped me to get some valuable insights. Keep it up if you don't mind!
Hi.

Thanks for your comment, I haven't written here in a while. It's been a pretty busy start of the year.
The extension is growing well. Approaching 2000 active users.

The paid plan has been released about a week ago. So far I have about 70 users on the free trial and 1 paying user who did not even bother with the free trial and signed up for the paid plan straight away.

I suspect that out of the 70 users on the free trial, I will only be able to convert 5 of them to the paid plan.
But i will only know that once some of those user's trial end.

The reason is simple, the paid plan is not yet complete. I am adding more features and fixing bugs as we speak and this process will continue for the next few months until it is offering enough value to the users.

I did not want to wait until the plan was complete before releasing the plan so here I am.

Once that is done, I will start working on the higher tier plan , called the Pro plan which will require a lot of work but enable me to deliver even more value.

The plans are structured on the basis of automation.

What I mean by that is, if you use the free plan, you need to do a lot of things manually. The Starter plan(which is the middle of the road plan I just released) allows user to automate some tasks but not all.

The Pro plan( most expensive plan around USD 200/250 per month) will allow users to automate 95% of the tasks as well as allow them to get to the data they need a lot faster.

All of this to say that I am very happy with the progress I have made. I have also negotiated with my employer to go part time for 3 months so that I can spend half my week building new features and do some marketing for the extension.

At the end of the 3 months, the Starter plan should be complete and the Pro plan should be released but not complete).

I have also on-boarded a few beta testing users who are getting the Starter plan for free for 6 months in exchange for their feedback and ongoing bug reports/ feature suggestions.

One of those beta testers is supposedly part of a large group comprised of my target users and agreed to share the extension with the rest of the group once the Starter plan is completed and mostly bug free.

Obviously i am a bit skeptical of such promises but who knows? If it works out then great, if not, then that's ok too. I am not getting my hopes up and will hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

I ll try to write more regular updates although I am trying to avoid distracting myself with anything that doesn't help the business grow currently.

If feels weird saying "I have a business" I actually did not realize this until just now. I have a business. Until now it was just a project that I hoped would turn into a business, but I have crossed the Rubicon.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Quick end of the week update.

I think it is important to share when good things happen and when bad things happen too.
Entrepreneurship is not smooth sailing and it certainly is not for the faint-hearted.

Something started happening a few days ago, the extension started losing users by the hundreds. Its now sitting at around 1700 active weekly users and going down day by day.

At first I thought maybe I had a lot of users uninstalling the extension because they did not need it anymore or did not like the latest update.

But after looking into the numbers I couldn't find any reasons to believe that is what happened.

The reason for that is that when a user uninstalls the extension, I redirect them to a web page on the website so that they can leave some feedback if they so desire.

99% of them do not leave any feedback but my website analytics pick up that someone visited this page, this way I know approximately how many users uninstall the extension each day.

I use the same process when someone installs the extension as well.

Looking back at the last months, I can see that the number of people uninstalling the extension is pretty steady while the number of installs is increasing.

That means in theory that the number of weekly users as defined in the Chrome store should be increasing. And that is what I was seeing until a few days ago.

So something changed but I am not sure what.

According to the chrome store, the definition of weekly users is as follow:

The approximate number of Chrome browsers that loaded the item in the past seven days. This includes enabled, disabled, and unknown statuses of the item.

So it looks like some browsers have not loaded the extension in the last week. When I released the new version a week ago with the paid plan, I also had to request one extra permission in the browser. If a user does not re-enable the extension with the new permission, then it won't work.

My theory is that the users who appear to have gone actually still have the extension but it was automatically disabled after the update and therefore it never gets loaded, which would explain the steep decline without seeing the matching number of uninstalls.

I have reached out to my network to understand a bit more about the user count on the Chrome store but there is not much that I can do about that for now.

I am not going to worry to much about that for now and keep focusing on the important stuff.

I am going to keep developing the missing features of the Starter plan and get a new version of the extension out by the end of next week.

My goal is to get at least another paying subscriber.

If I can get 1, then I can get 10 and if I can get 10, I can get a hundred.

Perseverance is key.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Middle of the month update.

I am now closing in on the first big milestone $1000 MRR with 93% profit margin.

The churn has really gone down in the last 2 weeks and I got a bunch of new customers.
I hope to finish the month between $1100 and $1200 MRR.

It's not a lot compared to some of you who are making 10K or 20K a month and still a far cry from reaching the fastlane levels of $50K to $100K per month but to me it is awesome.

Now that I am back at work full time, progress has been slower but I won't let that get in my way.
My goal is/was to reach $10K MRR at the end of the year.

If progress continues at the same pace, I am actually on track to reach $2.5K to $3K MRR but I am not giving up, I will keep going until I am free.

That is my motivation.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Hey guys/ladies,

I realized I did not write an update for February.

February was not a good month, the MRR was stalling and the churn was high. I finished the month at $2600.

On top of that I did not manage to release the new plan before the end of the month which left me frustrated and doubtful.

That is as much as I can remember now.

I ll remember to be back at the end of March with hopefully better news. Sorry about the short update.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Mid-week update

I published a new blog post today.
The goal is to publish 2 high quality blog posts peer week until the end of the year.

Yesterday was a great day SEO wise. I got a CTR of 22% in Google search which is more than I could expect. I try to target the keywords that the big players are overlooking.

Tonight I will start working on the next blog post.

Then back onto building the paid plan's functionality.

I also gained 10 users yesterday. Good momentum but this is a marathon and until I get my first paying user, it means absolutely nothing.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Small update.

I published the 2nd blog post yesterday and also did a bit of maintenance by compressing all the images on the marketing site. The goal for the compression was to have faster loading pages which is metric that Google watches like a hawk.

The compression was a success.

I shed about 50% of the images weight on average which means that in theory, the site will load faster. Which is great from an SEO standpoint, which in turn should lead to more people trying the extension, and finally hopefully turn them into paying customers.

Is this a premature optimization? Maybe but its done now so...

Next, I created a Stripe account to accept payments and spent some time setting up the plans and subscriptions as well as reading how to integrate the subscription logic in the site.

There is still the challenge of checking when a user has an active subscription(from the extension) but I ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I think that the payment plan + account creation will be done by Sunday night or Monday night next week. To make this work I have to work simultaneously on both the extension and the website at the same time as the account creation/payments happens on the site and not via the extension.

Anyway, all of this to say that I am busy thinking, planning and doing.

As for the paid plans, i have settled on:
- $0 free plan - Basic (existing functionality, extension as is currently)
- $49/month - Starter (extended functionality for the extension, still requires the user to do some things, priority email support....)
- $199/month - Pro - fully managed version (Basically a SAAS version of the extension that does everything for you)

The Pro plan is not available(and not even planned at this stage) and wont be built if I don't manage to get at least 10 paying users on the Starter plan.

One step at a time.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
It's been two weeks since my last update.

What went well:
- released a new version of the extension to fix a few bugs that some users had reported
- wrote 4 blog posts
- the user base is growing nicely => closing in on 600 active users

What went wrong:
- I had to go on a work trip for 4 days which put me really behind in terms of feature released and blog posts written so I had to play catch up this week and work longer hours to make up the time.
- I made some progress on the users accounts and payment plans but I still have to implement the paid plan functionality. At this rate the payment plans won't be available for public use before mid-December if all goes well.
- found a new bug in the extension just after getting the new version published so I need to spend some time on fixing it and submit a new version for approval this week.

Whats next?
- tidy up a few things and check the articles written this week for spelling mistakes and grammar(it was a very rushed job)
- keep building the user accounts/payment features and get approved by Paddle for the payments

All in all, its been a tough week, on top of that I have been put on major project at my job with a hard deadline so my days are long and tiring. But that is the price to pay to regain my freedom so I am not about to throw my hands up and the air and give up.

Things will get bumpier once the paid plans are released. No doubt. So I better toughen up and be prepared to handle issues.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
January 2024 update

This month, I started by tackling a lot of underlying issues that were standing in my way of delivering new features. I spent a lot of time cleaning up the code base and improving the performance of some critical workflows.

The MRR was $USD 2612 at the end of the month. It has recovered since December 2023 but obviously needs to be a lot higher.

The upcoming month is dedicated to accelerate the rate of feature release and introduce a new plan. So far I have the Free plan,the Starter plan and I want to release the Pro plan, which will be priced at $99 per month.

I am also finally going to pull the trigger on removing the free trial without a CC. I need more qualified leads not just opportunistic people. Also a lot of Free users are reaching out with a lot of questions that are completely unrelated to my product.

So those are my objective for this month, and it's February so it's a short month, that means I need to hustle.

The goal for this year is to reach MRR USD 9K. This will allow me to have the exact same salary I have with my job and pay all taxes + expenses for the business.

I also need to have an extra USD 6K by the end of the year to buy two things that I will need:
- new Iphone (mine is 6 years old going on 7, still works but apps are starting to not open properly anymore and it's lagging pretty badly)
- new Mac, my wife's Mac unfortunately decided to die suddenly last week, so I gave her my old Mac (3 years old) and I am currently using my j day job's Mac to work.

Good luck to you all out there.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Matt Sun

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
252%
Oct 21, 2017
572
1,442
Argentina
Hi, congrats. Even if people don't pay yet, they download your stuff and use it so they find it valuable. That's great.

If you don't mind me asking, what programing language do you use to create these extensions ?
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
October 2022 report

What went well:
  • Traffic is increasing steadily on the marketing site. 300 hundred organic visitors this month.
  • The extension's user growth is solid. Just crossed the 320 users mark this morning
  • The latest version of the extension is a success. No users have contacted me to report any issues so far.
  • Talked to 4 users this month.
What went wrong:
  • It took too long to release the new version of the extension.
  • The programmatic SEO experiment I am conducting is not yielding any tangible results yet. About half of the new pages have not been indexed yet. So maybe it is just a matter of waiting a month and see if anything changes.
  • I did not publish enough articles on the marketing blog due to being focused on releasing the programmatic SEO experiment and the new version of the extension.
Goals for November 2022
  • Cross the 500 active users mark for the extension.
  • Publish 8 new high quality articles
  • Release the paid plan and get at least 5 paying user
Challenges ahead:
  • My wife is starting a new job which means I have to do more house chores for the next 4 to 6 weeks which it could cut some of my free time dedicated to working on this project.
  • I have to go on a work trip for 4 days where I am afraid my productivity will be greatly impacted.
  • I am catching up with a very good friend at the beginning of December so I need to spend some time to plan the trip properly and book my flights and accommodation as well as research things to do at the destination.
Game plan:
  • Work on the extension/blog between 7am until 9am and also work between 7:30pm and 9pm 6 days a week.
  • Take Saturday off as a family day.
  • Read marketing blog posts and plan the week ahead on Sunday.
  • Try to use the Pomodoro technique to increase productivity.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Quick end of the week update.

I had to take a few days off for medical reasons.
But while i was incapacitated, I actually got 2 new paying customers.

One customer bought an annual plan and the other one a monthly plan.
I also have a customer who subscribed with a coupon code and 2 beta testers who I am giving the product for free during the beta phase.

It feels good to make money while not working. I could get used to that.

Obviously this is just the beginning, the paid plan is not even complete. I will be releasing new functionality next week which should improve the conversion rate as I ll be able to remove some of those "coming soon" labels from the site.

I have big plans for the future, the vision of the product is slowly taking shape in my head and the steps to get there are becoming clearer each day.

In any case, I feel very motivated and despite all the talk of recession and people tightening their belts, it seems that if the product delivers value and fills and actual need, then people are willing to pay for it.

Maybe that will change in the next few months but I will enjoy my temporary success as much as possible.

I try to keep a cool head and tell myself that things can change very quickly.

I also need to start sending emails to my registered users. I need to leverage my list of users and send them product updates more often.

So far I have tried to not reach out unless they reach out to me first. I don't want to spam them. But I need to get over that and come up with a plan.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Quick start of the week update.

I am almots at $250 MRR with a total revenue so far of $600.

I am making progress and will be releasing a major update for the extension this week.

I negotiated to go down to part time at my job so that I can spend 2 full days working on the business and 3 days working at my job.

This allows me to stay in the zone more time and get things done a lot faster instead of doing 1h or 2h session here and there before/after my job.

I am going away for 4 days to visit my family this week in another country, so my productivity will take a hit but I am taking my computer with me and plan to work a couple hours in the morning and at night so that I can enjoy my time during the day with my family members.

I also need to be able to respond to user questions and support requests.

Next goal is $500 MRR before the end of April 2023 and $1000 MRR before July 2023.

My part-time arrangement with my employer will only last for 3 month, so I have to make the most of it. The loss of income does not bother me, I have a very minimalist lifestyle and plenty of savings.

Considering taxes and expenses, I need to generate $10000 before the end of the year to make this part-time arrangement a worthwhile investment.

I am confident I will be able to make it work.

Also, each $ of MRR increases the potential resale price of the business. A rough calculation gives it a valuation of $250 (MRR) * 12 (months) * 3 (years) = $9000 currently.

The MRR is 90% profit at the moment. The only cost is the hosting of the website.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
We may have talked slightly past each other initially, but my initial "idea" of multiple SaaS products - even if only micro - died because of the following statement from you

I am still at the start of my MVP development and have obviously significantly underestimated the effort behind it. Also, more and more possible "ideas" or features come up that the ONE SaaS could still have to solve further sub-problems of the possible customer. While I won't map all these in the MVP, they will come sooner or later. To "dream" of the next SaaS product already now was very naive on my part. Your input from the past posts made me question that even more. So ty for that!

I'm glad that your extension is going uphill and thank you for updating regularly. If you have any more info about your process (how exactly do you collect user feedback (emails, chats, etc.), at what point would you say you have reached PMF? (What criteria have you set for this?)) I would be very happy about it!

-Peter
I am sorry , I did not mean to put a damper on your idea.

I think that the 12 startup in 12 months routine can work but it's a lot harder nowadays.

When Peter levels did it in 2014, he had a few advantages that you and I probably don't have today.

For starters, back then starting a Saas was a lot easier in terms of exposure. I think his goal of starting 12 startups in 12 months even earned him a lot of press coverage because it was so new at the time.

That allowed him to produce hits much faster than you and I could today. The philosophy of the micro-saas seems very straightforward if you take it literally.

In practice though, it is a lot harder. For example even if you release a new saas every month, it is highly likely that you wont even have time to even begin marketing it.

Once again, when Peter Levels did it( and just so we are clear I am not trying to diminish his accomplishments, I think that he is a great role model) he was backpacking and living a very inexpensive lifestyle. Whereas, you and I we probably have a mortgage, rent or other expenses that still need to be paid.

What I am trying to say I guess is, that if you have 12 months of runway in front of you and you can afford to spend 3 weeks coding, plus 1 week marketing each SaaS, then you may have a shot at making it work.

But if you are working on it in your downtime, or after your normal day job, then its a lot harder. That is why for me, this approach was a no go from the start.

I know that as builders, we like to build and marketing comes after. But i think marketing is probably more important than building these days.

With an audience, you can pretty much slap a stripe payment link on an ugly bootstrap template and you will get some sales.

But if you don't have an audience(mailing list, Twitter or Instagram followers) then you either need to spend some time building this audience and then create a product for them.

Personally i prefer SEO because its easy to start and I am more comfortable writing in long form instead of tweets. Also Tweets dont get indexed by Google so all the value is lost if you are not actively trying to build your audience there.
Now for your questions, as far as feedback, I get mutiple emails regularly from my users and I try to answer them with 24H.

I also have a form on the marketing website where the users can contact me.
About PMF, I think to me, its the case that I am not sure what it looks like but when I see it, I ll know. So at this moment, I dont have it. That's for sure, when will I have it? I cant really say.

But in everything I do, i try to keep it simple. And I automate everything I can because I trust scripts more than I trust myself to do stuff.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
July's growth was slower as expected due to Summer slow down but the current MRR is $USD 1.2K.

Good month overall. I managed to ship more features and started work on a major feature which means that I will be soon able to release the next subscription plan at a higher price point.

My 10K goal for the MRR before the end of the year is definitely not reachable but 3K to 4K seems achievable.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
445%
Jul 23, 2007
38,083
169,517
Utah
Reflections on 2023

At the start of 2023, I did not have a business. I had a small web extension (or plug-in) that had 952 users but was not monetized.

As of now, I have almost 2800 users in total and out of these users, I have 57 paid ones (approximately).

That gives us a conversion rate of approximately 2% which is abysmal, let's not kid ourselves.

The MRR has gone down since November and is now around $2500 with an LTV of $300.

The CAC is around 0 since I am not doing any marketing besides writing blog posts.

How to build a business in 2024

I think that starting with something small that had a single feature, was a good way to get the ball rolling.

I did not have to worry about the competition too much as the competition was busy fighting with each other.

My extension did one thing and 1 thing only but it did it well.

I think this confirms that the way to succeed these days is to create an MLP instead of an MVP.

If you are not familiar with those acronyms, you can read more about them in the link below:

MVP vs MLP

MVP stands for Minimal Viable Product which means that you create the most bare-bones functioning product that works but can also look like crap and with a non-intuitive design straight out of the 2000s.

That may have worked at one point but nowadays, I think the best bet is to go with the MLP or Minimum Lovable Product.

It is the same principle as the MVP but this time, you‘ll spend more time on the UX/UI to make your product very lovable(think nice animations, nice branding/colors, cool name) and very intuitive to use.

How far you take it depends on you and there is no clear consensus as to when an MVP becomes an MLP.

Use your gut but don’t spend too much time before launching.

Praise for managed services

I use MongoDB which is hosted on Mongo Atlas for my database needs. I use Vercel to host my web application and I use the Chrome Web Store to distribute my extension/plug-in.

I always go back to this article when in doubt about what I should spend my time time on:

11 years of hosting a SaaS
Could I save a few bucks by deploying my application on AWS myself? Sure, but I would lose some sleep over it.

Could I save more money by using something other than MongoDB? Also possible.

Is it worth it? I don’t think so. Spending money on services that allow you to sell your product is not an expense, it’s an investment.

When you start thinking about adding more functionality to your product, start by looking at managed services that specialize in what you're trying to achieve.

I use another service to run cron jobs. I could build my own Node application, deploy it, manage my own jobs, and I would pay 5 dollars a month but I have to maintain it, secure it, update it.

I would rather spend time making more money than maintaining another application. This is what most people who start SaaS companies get wrong at the beginning.

You should spend your time building things that make your product better, not nickel and dimming your way to profitability.

There is always the possibility to optimize your costs down the line as long as you are profitable from the start.

A premium business is better

Do not be afraid to charge a higher price point than your competition. I price my product based on value not based on features.

I barely hear from my paying users unless I am the one reaching out. My free users on the other hand are never satisfied. There is such a thing as bad customers.

Free users are great for vanity metrics(think number of installs, page views, and so on) and early feedback but they don’t pay the bills and never will.

It is madness to think that if you bend over enough for your free users, that they will suddenly transition to paid users.

Most of my paying users pay without even finishing the free trial.

Free users are a PITA. That is why in 2024, I will ask for a CC for the free trial accounts. It should cut down on the free users signing up and inundating me with requests for features.

Be a product led company, not a feature led company

If you don't know where you are going, how do you expect to get there?

It’s fine at the beginning to not necessarily know where you will be at month number 6 or 12 but if you have a product that is more than 3 months old, you should already have an idea of where you want the product to be in the next 12 months.

I personally write everything I can possibly think of in a Google document, I let the ideas simmer and I get back to it later once I have had time to think about them.

Because of this process, I now have a good idea of the direction I want to take the company towards.

This means I can easily say yes or no when a customer requests a feature. If it fits in the overarching vision of the product, then I may consider putting the feature on the road map and if not, I can tell the user that it won't happen.

Do not be afraid to turn down customers.

I am never shy when it comes to telling the truth to my users. If a user is not happy, I prefer to cancel their subscription, refund their last payment and move on. No point trying to get blood from a stone.

When given the choice, the user can either accept things as they are now or move on and the choice is on them which makes it easy on my side to cut them loose.

This obviously needs to be done in a professional way. We are all adults here, no need to be a dick about it.

There are good days and bad days

Leave your ego at the door and keep your emotions out of the decisions. This is a business not therapy.

If a user is mad, take it on the chin and move on. If you are pissed at a customer, go for a walk. Nothing good can come out of you being a prick to your users.

Remember, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only 5 minutes to destroy it.

Some days, you feel like you are making zero progress, that the whole thing is just a waste of time and that getting a Switch and powering through Zelda for the next 2 weeks might be a good idea.

My answer to you is : this too shall pass.

Things are not bad forever and they are not good forever. The life of a business owner is made of many ups and downs.

If you are not comfortable with that and expect a smooth ride into the sunset, I think it would be wise to pause and make sure that this is the life you want for you and your family.

9 to 5 becomes 24/7

If you were not happy with your work life balance before starting a business, then Oh boy do I have to warn you to stay away from entrepreneurship!

The business becomes part of your life like nothing else. It is always there in the background. If you hope to have more free time, then think again!

It’s not going to happen, at least not during the first few years of your business being created.

After some time has passed and after you’ve put more systems in place, then maybe you'll be able to unplug, but for me, this hasn't happened yet and it won't happen for many years I believe.

There is just too much to build, too much to do. I am at its beck and call.

Don’t quit your job (yet)

We all have this dream to never work again for the “man”, to own our schedules and be able to take a day off or not work for a week if we want to.

I too share the same goals but it is delusional to want to quit your job the day the business is created.

If your business is not bringing at least whatever it is you make at your day job after taxes, then quitting your job just puts more pressure on yourself to succeed and to do it quickly.

The problem is that this kind of success is rare.

Most of the time you will try 3 or 4 different ideas before you find the one that works and then it will take even more time before you can live off of your business.

Take some time to read the examples below of slow and long SaaS ramp of death:

The Long, Slow SaaS Ramp of Death - Thomas Carney
Navigating the long, slow SaaS ramp of death - Baremetrics

Instead I suggest you be smart about it.

Try to negotiate going part-time for a while or use the laws of your state/country to your advantage.

For me, I went part-time for 3 months between April and July 2023. I worked 3 days a week at my job and 3 days a week (plus evenings and mornings) on my business.

In 2023 I learned that in Sweden, I could request to go on unpaid leave for 6 months and still keep my job.

That means that if everything goes to shit in 2024, I can go back to my old job in a heartbeat and the financial ruin can be averted.

Nobody told me this, I had to seek this information by myself. Don’t expect anyone to volunteer any information freely.

If you want to make it in this business of working for yourself, then you need to learn this: the buck stops with you.

You are the one who is responsible, you are the person in charge, it is up to you to secure your future to the best of your availability.

If you can’t or won’t put in the work required to succeed, then there is no one else to blame but yourself.

Look at the trend

It is better to take a step back and look at the trend of where things are going instead of focusing on the daily shenanigans. That doesn't mean you don’t need to show up everyday and do the work.

It simply means that most of the work you do will only pay off in the future:
- Write a few blog posts and see them rank in a few months.
- Get an affiliate partnership and watch the money roll in 3 months from now.
- Revamp your homepage and watch the conversions increase slightly over the next few months.

You get the gist.

Things take time and you'll need to be somewhat patient to see the results of your hard work.

Be like a monk, learn to be patient and accept that some things will take longer than you expected.

Time is better than money

If you had asked me 3 or 4 years ago what I most wanted after “making it”, I would have probably told you: a fast car, a big house, and stuff to fill the house from top to bottom.

Today I want only one thing: time.

Time is the most important thing in my opinion. There is never enough of it and it is and always will be limited.

Even if my business only allows me to live the same lifestyle as I am living now as an employee, as long as it allows me to have more free time in the future, then I would still consider myself wealthy.

To not have to show up at a given time 5 days a week is something that I long for. I wasn’t made for a 9 to 5 but the golden handcuffs almost made me forget that I was in a prison.

I want time to read books, to talk to the people I love, to do what I want during the day without having to ask permission. That to me is truly being wealthy.

I hope 2024 is the last year where I have to put up with this 9 to 5 schedule and I hope you do too.

2024 and beyond

I am not big on making commitments for the future. I think the whole premise of the new year's resolutions is just a cop out to do nothing until January each year but each to their own I say.

My goal for 2024 is to finally end my employment at my job and to maintain the same lifestyle I currently have but this time, paid for by my business. Anything above that is going to be a bonus.

That doesn't mean that I am not aiming to multiply my revenue and profit by 10 this year, not at all, in fact, I want to multiply it by 20, but it is also important to know what a wishful outcome is and what a satisfying outcome is.

Either way, I am going to work like a mad man and I will give it everything I have because our lives are too short to spend them having regrets.

I wish you all an amazing 2024 and I hope you succeed but if you haven't reached your goals just yet, don’t give up and try again.

The world is full of opportunities, 99% of people are too busy watching TikTok to notice but not you.

You got this.

Believe in yourself and be kind to yourself.
Take care.

Thread moved to GOLD, thanks for sharing your insights.

This business, no matter how it ends or proceeds, was a WIN. Congrats to yourself.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Loving the updates - keep it up! The growth in users looks awesome!

I follow some TikTokers that post about different extensions that solve everyday problems - have you thought about eventually tapping into the use of influencer marketing?
Thanks for your reply. Once the paid plan is out of beta-testing then I don't see why this could not happen.

For now i don't pay for ads and only rely on SEO or the Chrome store listing to get new users. This basic approaches have serve me well. It allows me to grow the user base relatively quickly but I am not overwhelmed with bug reports. If the user base grew from say 1000 to 3000 overnight, that could be a problem in terms of customer support.

Only time will tell. For now the focus is getting the paid plan out, then onboard around 100 user on the paid plan, then maybe start advertising.

Thanks for your suggestion in any case. I appreciate it.
 

Tau Ceti

Silver Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
316%
Sep 15, 2014
208
658
Stockholm, Sweden
Quick update.

MRR is at $550
Total revenue so far: $2100

I released another big update today.
Interestingly, so far the breakdown between monthly and annual plans is 80/20 (the Pareto rule). How likely is that?

I am starting to get some enterprisy type of people signing (that is people who sign up using there work email addresses) and based on those email addresses I can see that they work in a field directly related to my niche.

If I can get one of those people to sign up and start talking about it with their colleagues, that would open the road for me to start selling B2B instead of B2C currently.

The pro plan will be a lot more expensive compared to the Starter plan, so that will probably be B2B focused while the Starter plan stays as a mix of B2B/B2C.

We will see.

For now, i need to finish the Starter plan before the end of April , then start work on the Pro plan.

I am tired tonight and I have a headache, so I am going to take the night off and chill with a book.
 

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