Kickstarting Your SaaS Journey in 2023 (edited)

[Wolffe]

Hey guys, I've started multiple Saas products in the past, many of which have failed. In a reply below I shared some of the most important things I've learned.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

First post and 3 broken rules...

1) Sounding like ChatGPT...
2) User-offloading (DM me!)
3) Self-promotion.

3 rules broken in a first post. Not a great start.

Instead, why don't you share some of your learning experiences in selling a SAAS business? I'm sure we'd all love to hear your experiences.

 

[Wolffe]

First post and 3 broken rules...

1) Sounding like ChatGPT...
2) User-offloading (DM me!)
3) Self-promotion.

3 rules broken in a first post. Not a great start.

Instead, why don't you share some of your learning experiences in selling a SAAS business? I'm sure we'd all love to hear your experiences.

Here are some learning experiences in running and selling my small SaaS (and starting other SaaS companies that failed):

I think that there are 2 criteria that massively improve the chances of your SaaS succeeding:

-Solve a problem in an area where you have an unfair advantage (ex: you've been a content creator for years, you know the ins and out of the industry)
-Solve a problem that's painful and frequent, but most importantly, for an audience that has the budget and is willing to pay for it. Sell to businesses rather than to consumers. Consumers are cheap and churn fast. I've experienced this with myself; whenever I find a tool that will make my business money or save me time I don't have problem paying a $30 or even $50/month subscription, but I won't pay a $9/month subscription for a music app that I use every day.

When starting development for your SaaS build the simplest version possible and launch. Don't get stuck in adding new features and debugging. Anything that doesn't get you closer to your first paying customer is procrastinating. Test the market as soon as possible, find out if your idea solves an important problem and iterate from there. Create content around your SaaS (videos of how to use it or videos in that niche). At the beginning you won't get any views but it will pay over time.

Lastly, I will be editing my first post and change it for something that can help other users instead of promoting my SaaS agency. Many of these concepts come from MJ's books. I still remember the first time I read the millionaire fastlane , it forever changed how I saw things; no BS, for the first time I felt that someone was telling me how things were, and for that I'll be always grateful.