Building SaaS Grounds Up. Progress Thread

[mojorisin]

I'm building a financial portfolio SaaS to tackle a specific issue that I and my cohorts solve with spreadsheets. I'm on the journey to automate via an online tool. I posted a previous progress thread, however this round I'm doing a monthly update only (vs. randomly posting). The 10th of the month is my accountability, I just set a reminder

I'm a subject matter expert in this field with years of experience, so that allows me to design and test the solution for my own needs. As well as a small group of friends who provide open feedback of not only the tool but "what would it take to pay". This is also my 3rd SaaS, first 2 were successful exits but on a much smaller scale. First 2 were existing business that I purchased, where this time I'm playing the long game so decided to build from scratch to get it right.

While I certainly have goals and dreams for the site, I'm a subscriber of "atomic habits" where I make incremental progress day by day. This has worked for me in my career, business, and investing over and over, it fits how I'm wired - continue to learn & iterate - make 3 steps forward, 1 step back... grind away... then wake up one day to see how far you have come

Ok, so here's the current state, next 30 days of plans, and outstanding questions in my mind (open for feedback)

Current State:
Site build: its taken 4 months building from scratch. My first mistake was the scope was too large, so I trimmed that down so I can focus on getting exceptional at 1 thing. I'm 2 weeks away from a full working 1.0 product that I and my small test group are using full time to replace their spreadsheets. Product looks very good, professional at this stage. I could still trim back the scope a bit, since the additional features slow down dev & QA due to the dependencies. But I'm going to push through since they are very nice features that I want.

Website:
I developed a website in parallel to the app dev. I've invested time in building out the blog and on page SEO, its the long game to organic search. I'm using skill that I used in a previous site I owned that was 100% SEO dependent. I'm building my SEO and WordPress skills so I don't have to be dependent on developers. I did buiild a contact I pay per hour for WordPress fixes, he teaches me what to do. The guy has been awesome and cost effective to move fast.

Marketing:
I've been investing more and more time into digital marketing. Which is exciting, because now I actually have a product I am closing to actually SELLING. It will be fun to move from 80% dev / 20% marketing to 90% marketing / 10% dev. I can spend all my time marketing and seling the product, which is highly motivating.
Created a newsletter sign up and beta registration form on my main page
Created Mail Chimp campaigns, building my subscriber list

Current Fails:

1. Part of my scale strategy is to create an affiliate program with key blog influencers. Well, they are not interested in a guy starting out so I will need to start smaller and grounds up as they have not been open or resposive to my requests. I do need to figure this out, as it will take my business to massive scale.
2. I've posted a few times on my forums, but its hard to not be too "salesy", I'm working on my "style"

Next 30 Days:
Site Build: finish up 1.0, complete QA, push to prod.

Website: I'm working on my on page / blog SEO to continue to optimize and increase.

Digital Marketing:
Continue to build email subscriber list
Continue to contact forum members seeking my solution

Outstanding Questions I'm Pondering

1. Investigate reddit ads, this is the #2 subgroup I use for myself and users. I've learned I can target adds to a specific subreddit, I'm pretty pumped about that. I'm still months away before I'm ready, but good to know its there. I considered running a "beta sign up" ad, wonder what you guys think about that.
2. I need to find a low cost SEO tool. I love SEMRUsh, but $130 for a ground up startup is just too high as I have other monthly costs too. While I have a decent handle on keywords, I miss the daily monitoring and optimization it brings. My previous site had 100k hits a month, so it was critical... this site is just starting so its not worth the ROI at this point.
3. What else to be thinking about as an early stage SAAS
4. Freemium Model. I think I'm going to keep it super simple. It should help me to get user sign ups with a high feature no cost version. I can always tweak later, and I know its higher cost to me. But very few people will only need 1 portfolio. So I'm betting it will trigger purchases.
   1. Free: 1 investment portfolio with all features. This allows the user to get the full experience of the platform, and to get hooked. Most investors will need more that 1 portfolio so it will trigger upgrades.
   2. Mid: 4 portfolio: all features included
   3. High: unlimited

Thank you if you have read this far

 

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[Andy Black]

I'm building a financial portfolio SaaS to tackle a specific issue that I and my cohorts solve with spreadsheets. I'm on the journey to automate via an online tool. I posted a previous progress thread, however this round I'm doing a monthly update only (vs. randomly posting). The 10th of the month is my accountability, I just set a reminder

I'm a subject matter expert in this field with years of experience, so that allows me to design and test the solution for my own needs. As well as a small group of friends who provide open feedback of not only the tool but "what would it take to pay". This is also my 3rd SaaS, first 2 were successful exits but on a much smaller scale. First 2 were existing business that I purchased, where this time I'm playing the long game so decided to build from scratch to get it right.

While I certainly have goals and dreams for the site, I'm a subscriber of "atomic habits" where I make incremental progress day by day. This has worked for me in my career, business, and investing over and over, it fits how I'm wired - continue to learn & iterate - make 3 steps forward, 1 step back... grind away... then wake up one day to see how far you have come

Ok, so here's the current state, next 30 days of plans, and outstanding questions in my mind (open for feedback)

Current State:
Site build: its taken 4 months building from scratch. My first mistake was the scope was too large, so I trimmed that down so I can focus on getting exceptional at 1 thing. I'm 2 weeks away from a full working 1.0 product that I and my small test group are using full time to replace their spreadsheets. Product looks very good, professional at this stage. I could still trim back the scope a bit, since the additional features slow down dev & QA due to the dependencies. But I'm going to push through since they are very nice features that I want.

Website:
I developed a website in parallel to the app dev. I've invested time in building out the blog and on page SEO, its the long game to organic search. I'm using skill that I used in a previous site I owned that was 100% SEO dependent. I'm building my SEO and WordPress skills so I don't have to be dependent on developers. I did buiild a contact I pay per hour for WordPress fixes, he teaches me what to do. The guy has been awesome and cost effective to move fast.

Marketing:
I've been investing more and more time into digital marketing. Which is exciting, because now I actually have a product I am closing to actually SELLING. It will be fun to move from 80% dev / 20% marketing to 90% marketing / 10% dev. I can spend all my time marketing and seling the product, which is highly motivating.
Created a newsletter sign up and beta registration form on my main page
Created Mail Chimp campaigns, building my subscriber list

Current Fails:

1. Part of my scale strategy is to create an affiliate program with key blog influencers. Well, they are not interested in a guy starting out so I will need to start smaller and grounds up as they have not been open or resposive to my requests. I do need to figure this out, as it will take my business to massive scale.
2. I've posted a few times on my forums, but its hard to not be too "salesy", I'm working on my "style"

Next 30 Days:
Site Build: finish up 1.0, complete QA, push to prod.

Website: I'm working on my on page / blog SEO to continue to optimize and increase.

Digital Marketing:
Continue to build email subscriber list
Continue to contact forum members seeking my solution

Outstanding Questions I'm Pondering

1. Investigate reddit ads, this is the #2 subgroup I use for myself and users. I've learned I can target adds to a specific subreddit, I'm pretty pumped about that. I'm still months away before I'm ready, but good to know its there. I considered running a "beta sign up" ad, wonder what you guys think about that.
2. I need to find a low cost SEO tool. I love SEMRUsh, but $130 for a ground up startup is just too high as I have other monthly costs too. While I have a decent handle on keywords, I miss the daily monitoring and optimization it brings. My previous site had 100k hits a month, so it was critical... this site is just starting so its not worth the ROI at this point.
3. What else to be thinking about as an early stage SAAS
4. Freemium Model. I think I'm going to keep it super simple. It should help me to get user sign ups with a high feature no cost version. I can always tweak later, and I know its higher cost to me. But very few people will only need 1 portfolio. So I'm betting it will trigger purchases.
   1. Free: 1 investment portfolio with all features. This allows the user to get the full experience of the platform, and to get hooked. Most investors will need more that 1 portfolio so it will trigger upgrades.
   2. Mid: 4 portfolio: all features included
   3. High: unlimited

Thank you if you have read this far

Good luck.

Maybe check out @eliquid and @johnp ... they have SaaS products.

 

[mojorisin]

Update since Dec 10th. I've made a ton of progress in the 6 weeks since my last post. I've moved from an app under contstruction to an app that is working, users are testing, content created, website getting hits, and even a couple paying users.

Now comes the next wave: move from MVP and a couple users, to pushing to a new level. I still have work to do on "polishing up" the UI, website, enrollment process, performance, and payment for this first stage of my SaaS.

Progress:

1. Site & app are live.
2. 2 paying users for the service, who are outside of my circle. In other words, they signed up themselves online. Even without a fully functioning product, it solves their problem enough to use it.
3. ~1k hits per month on my site. Content: 27 blog articles launched. Using SEMRush for keywords and site audit.
4. 10 test users providing feedback for changes before they will pay for the SaaS
5. Created a Twitter account to broadcast and drive traffic to my site. Went from 0 to 16 followers in a week, still learning Twitter.

Challenges:

1. App performance is slow, I have a workaround to fix (it has to do with pulling live API's, so I will cache them)
2. Dev team I hired are slow, and not business saavy. Its 5 steps forward, 3 steps back since they cannot grasp the basics of a fintech app, they have not even attempted to use the product. So I'm continually re-explaining the same concepts over and over, which costs me time and money.
3. I'm driving much of the traffic through forum posts where I suggest a blog post or a login to try my site, not organic traffic yet
4. I"m only ranking for 9 keywords in my domain, little to no backlinks

Decisisions to Make:

1. I began seeking a new development contractor. I found a contact who develops in this domain, plus he has business school degree, much more business acumen to use some "common sense and logic" in the app.
2. Co-Founder: I'm not sure its sustainable to pay for development ongoing. I may consider a technical CTO who can handle the code and development of the site. I do have funds to invest into the site.

Next 30 days Goal:

1. Developer: switch to a developer who better aligns to my project.
2. App: resolve performance issues, polish UI, user onboard.
3. Business partners: I designed a solution where users of stock subscription are using my site to track the recommendations. My plan is to approach the service provider for a partnerships. I will provide my service at no cost for his users, I will show him how his users are already using my service. What I get out of it is users on my platform who will want to upgrade to a paying plan.
4. Content Content: continue to build ranking content to drive organic search.
5. Grow Twitter to 100 followers

If you made it this far... thanks for reading! Open to any (productive) feedback!

 

[Bounce Back]

~20 years webdev here - I apologize on behalf of devs who think its all coding and they don't have to understand the product. It is as annoying to other engineers who work with them too, believe me!

Great progress so far it seems. I like your determination.

I am still filtering out ideas myself and will be soon to start a SAAS after wrapping up selling my cleaning business a couple years back and getting somethings in order so these sort of threads are so fitting to read! Also thinking about challenging myself to outsource and manage that process while doing my day job to keep my salary going so anything you can share on managing dev contractors is helpful.

Question - are you writing all of the blog content or do you contract that too?

 

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[mojorisin]

Its only been a few weeks. But I'm posting an update since when I write this down it helps me to take a step back. And of course, I'm open to feedback!

SaaS User Update
I've gained more test users. I have 2 ICP within my fintech app I'm working with. Each of them are investors, but a slightly different use case. While I know I should be 100% focused on a single niche, they complement one another and I'm learning a ton from each. And when they are willing to invest their time testing & using my crappy product it validates a business need. In each ICP I have 5 to 10 testers, I'm hands on engaged with them. Its energizing when people are using your product and providing feedback, while I'm solving a problem for them!

One of the ICP subscribe to a stock service, many of the users are using my service for tracking & analytics of the stock picks. As I'm a user of the stock picking service, I have the same challenges. I'm on the chat threads daily where the problem is talked about over and over... so I solved it.

My goal is to work my way up to the provider so he will recommend my service to ALL his users. I will offer it for free, as I have a freemium model. Then when they come onboard, they will natually use other services to trigger a paid plan. I did send the owner a note, but he hasn't responded back... I'm continually thinking of angles to get him hooked...

Development
I'm at wits end... my agency is good overall but they do not use the product so their developers will code dump non logical code. I see it, then need to tell them to redo it which costs me time and money. I'm talking 3 columns of numbers don't add up properly... lol... ugh. Come on man. I found a top rated Upwork dev who is very smart I"m considering switching to. I told my agency i'm not too happy, they want to charge me another $2k to fix errors. Its not right, so I'm at a pivotal point on dev.

SEO
Organic SEO is the utopia for me. I'm doing "ok" but came across great research to gain domain authority, which requires backlinks. Chicken and the Egg. I'm struggling to get backlinks, and limited time honestly. I know I can buy links to reputable sites but its pricey. I'm not talking cheap spammy links, but an article on forbest.com for example. I don't think I"m quite there yet... but always looking for ideas how to fast track.

X
I'm focusing on building my twitter profile, I'm up to 30 followers in 2 weeks its a bit silly, people just post crap all day then subsribe to each other to gain followers. But, hey, whatever. I can spend 10 minutes a day on my phone to get audience. I will use this audience and network to drive traffic and conversions to my SaaS. I'm also startying to connect wtih other influencers where I will eventually build an affiliate commission program for them. That's the flywheel. SEO + Affiliates driving traffic to my site, I focus my time on product excellence and customer satisfaction not sales & marketing.

Motivation
There are days I"m like "I don't have to do this". I have my retirement funds set, and have high income. BUT then there's the thrill and challenge to build this business to acheive the ULTIMATE goal of financial independence while running my own business. That goal is honestly more satifying than the VP of Sales title I have today in a big sofrware company. When I wake up everyday, first thing I do is spend 45 minutes over coffee moving my SaaS forward. Its like a drug! But, its a grind. Putting in hours upon hours, to see a tiny little progress sometimes for days. I am in it for the long game, and I've listened to 100's of SaaS startup podcasts where the path to success is always the same "solve the problem for a handfull of users, develop until they will pay you, gather feedback, test, validate, then scale". This process normally takes 1 to 5 years. Patience....

 

[Bounce Back]

So one thing you can do stop some of the errors that keep coming in is to require them to write unit/functional tests. More expensive in the beginning especially but should prevent them from reintroducing logic bugs as builds won't pass (but you might not have CI/CD pipelines set up at this stage though).

TBH most people don't do that at mvp stage but I say it because you can write in plain English the test cases like: "These 3 columns should add up properly and be displayed in the total box" etc.

But ultimately if you go this route you may want to start trying to get flat rate project/goal based chunks done so you don't pay for devs to twiddle their fingers when they mess up the tests and have to fix them. Overall though what you are doing is pretty par for the course otherwise with paying someone else to be a PM/QA and having strong clauses that the code should be bug free and go through a user acceptance period where it can marked as needing fixed/non-accepted as out of scope and payment delayed until that point, etc.

 

[mojorisin]

So one thing you can do stop some of the errors that keep coming in is to require them to write unit/functional tests. More expensive in the beginning especially but should prevent them from reintroducing logic bugs as builds won't pass (but you might not have CI/CD pipelines set up at this stage though).

TBH most people don't do that at mvp stage but I say it because you can write in plain English the test cases like: "These 3 columns should add up properly and be displayed in the total box" etc.

But ultimately if you go this route you may want to start trying to get flat rate project/goal based chunks done so you don't pay for devs to twiddle their fingers when they mess up the tests and have to fix them. Overall though what you are doing is pretty par for the course otherwise with paying someone else to be a PM/QA and having strong clauses that the code should be bug free and go through a user acceptance period where it can marked as needing fixed/non-accepted as out of scope and payment delayed until that point, etc.

I like the clauses. Right now I'm a "leaky bucket". We set a scope, they provide an hours range, then they deliver the feature. However if there's a bug then I end up paying hours to fix or recode (its 50/50 sometimes they do not charge me). But lesson learned to negotiate that upfront.

 

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[mojorisin]

So one thing you can do stop some of the errors that keep coming in is to require them to write unit/functional tests. More expensive in the beginning especially but should prevent them from reintroducing logic bugs as builds won't pass (but you might not have CI/CD pipelines set up at this stage though).

TBH most people don't do that at mvp stage but I say it because you can write in plain English the test cases like: "These 3 columns should add up properly and be displayed in the total box" etc.

But ultimately if you go this route you may want to start trying to get flat rate project/goal based chunks done so you don't pay for devs to twiddle their fingers when they mess up the tests and have to fix them. Overall though what you are doing is pretty par for the course otherwise with paying someone else to be a PM/QA and having strong clauses that the code should be bug free and go through a user acceptance period where it can marked as needing fixed/non-accepted as out of scope and payment delayed until that point, etc.

Hmmm... I almost like your idea. Maybe I pay a QA and Dev seperate. Today they all work for the same agency, which on one hand keeps it simple for me. However I'm not creating the "positive tension" since they're all at the same office.

At this point, the agency is making money off dev with me. I'm not paying for PM or QA, only dev time. If I stayed with the agency, then I could bring in my own QA or consultant to the team who could represent me better.

 

[Bounce Back]

Yup for sure - split up areas of concern and across parties and you let others handle the tension so you can focus on your lane (non-software delivery and more the product itself).

Similarly the other thing is to overtime be thinking how you can split the services logically into different code repos so not one vendor has access to all and can just copy/paste your service(you can read some upwork and the like horror stories on this).

Note: If you are going real cheap on per hour cost yeah I wouldn't expect the devs to fix their bugs for free - but if you say "X feature unit tested/functional test - what's your shipped cost? With user acceptance period of 14 days" it behooves them to write better code so they don't have rounds of fixing before they get the $$$. I've seen many contracts that have clauses where bugs discovered need to be fixed even up to 6-18 months after shipped and paid ($1m+ dev engagements though) - think like that on a smaller scale to not be burned.

Technically if you had a software eng manager (fractional or otherwise) you could at least have them spot checking the merges as well. The tests especially because they could write all kinds of junk there that "passes" but is unmaintainable or made assumptions that are wrong etc..

Edit to add: Sometimes though it can be better to see the mvp (depending on your app) as disposable. It is to validate it is worth spending money doing it right (which can be 10-50x the cost of doing it wrong and quick but be scalable, secure, maintainable, etc. which usually ends up being cheaper in the long run).