I'm building a SaaS for just one person

https://elliotbonneville.com/blog/seven-day-saas-retrospective/

by elliotbnvl • 6 years ago

126 45 6 years ago

elliotbnvl12• 6 years ago

tl;dr: I built a glorified spreadsheet app called Bicycle (https://usebicycle.com) in seven days. Now I'm refining it for one user's needs based on principles from Do Things That Don't Scale by Paul Graham and the 1000 True Fans theory.

Also, working 90hrs in a week is draining.

bobblywobbles3• 6 years ago

Only 90 hours? /s

If part of a test project, are you spending the time to fit within the guidelines or are forced to for some reason?

elliotbnvl12• 6 years ago

Haha right? I seriously don’t get how Elon Musk pulled 120/hr weeks on the regular. Well, actually I guess I kind of do, a little... if you are super passionate and invested that makes a big difference.

Anyway, I did this as part of my Seven Day SaaS Challenge (https://sevendaysaas.com), where the goal is to constrain the amount of time behind a keyboard coding in order to force real world interaction with potential users, alongside marketing and the businessy (aka critical!) parts of building a SaaS. But, I’m an overachiever and I had high goals for this app, hence cramming a lot into one week. :)

LaundroMat3• 6 years ago

Thanks for pointing me to this book and that theory. As per my other comment, they should prove helpful to me.

elliotbnvl12• 6 years ago

Absolutely! Best of luck.

Scarbutt• 6 years ago

With server-side-rendered HTML, this could have been done in ~3 hours :P

elliotbnvl12• 6 years ago

Sir, I challenge you to a duel! A speed-development duel. ;)

icedchai2• 6 years ago

Interesting. What is the revenue model?

elliotbnvl12• 6 years ago

As of right now, I'm planning on directly targeting enterprise users for access to projects with varying levels of permissions at a low monthly rate per user, something like $10 to $20/mo per user (possibly less, if that's too high). Enough that I'm making $$, but also not something an individual contributor couldn't just expense without turning heads. And then enterprise plans on top of that.

bobblywobbles3• 6 years ago

I appreciate people like you, who see a need that someone has, and takes the initiative to help them.

The project matters, but less so. Being a person who is willing to help others is what makes the world go round.

I have no need for BI software myself, but I appreciate the fire you have inside of you and wish you good luck if you take this further.

elliotbnvl12• 6 years ago

Thank you. I sincerely appreciate it!

LaundroMat3• 6 years ago

Haha, I'm working on my second SaaS for one person :)

The first is drfreezr.com , something I built for a friend who manages a bioresearch lab and had trouble enforcing diligent bookkeeping about what samples are stored where in what freezers.

He and his lab colleagues are very happy with it, and they use it on a daily basis. But now I have to start marketing it. So the typical thing I do is optimize the code/UX/data model instead of finding more customers.

And now I'm working on a small-scale CRM for my wife (prototype phase) and her colleague who's she's started a consulting business with :)

elliotbnvl12• 6 years ago

That's awesome, man! Congrats on launching a successful SaaS! Now get your butt in gear and start marketing that sucker :)

Jokes aside, this is exactly the point of Seven Day SaaS and why I challenged myself to build ONLY for a week, then focus on all the rest after that. I set a rule for myself: no more feature releases or UX tweaks (aside from egregious bug fixes). Marketing and outreach only from now on!

Don't build something new until you validate what you have built. It's like that analogy of the guy mining for diamonds: you have no idea how close you are to success.

kindly_fo• 6 years ago

Did your friend know that 50%+ of saas can be replaced with speadsheets (google/Microsoft)?

LaundroMat3• 6 years ago

Good question, but yes, he did. Their main issue with spreadsheets was the lack of roles and permissions. The tool makes it easy to allocate fridge space to users, which in turn makes it easier for the users to keep track of things. Also, users can't touch other users' stuff.

Also, the data per fridge cell itself is more complex than what fits in a spreadsheet row.

All this adds up to a much more user-friendly (and manager-friendly) experience, which leads to higher uptake among users and ultimately cleaner data.

christiansakai• 6 years ago

I'm really really amazed how creative and productive someone can be. Meanwhile I can't even find one ideas. It doesn't help that I'm not an app user. I keep my digital stuff minimal.

larrik• 6 years ago

In this case, he's solving a real problem for a real person. This means you need to know people with problems, and recognize that they are problems (they may not think so!) and believe you can improve it.

Of course, you can make something way better than what they have, and they still not use it...

amelius• 6 years ago

Most of these apps are basically just visualizing database data, with some very simple business rules for transforming the database. If you use the right framework, it becomes very easy and building an app is basically like filling out a template. Of course, if you start from the wrong framework, writing such an app can be a real challenge.

elliotbnvl12• 6 years ago

One thing that seems to affect my creativity levels is how much I'm consuming. You're either a consumer or a creator. You can't be both at the same time.

icebraining2• 6 years ago

That seems... unlikely. Most of the writers I'm aware of, for example, read quite a lot. Maybe it's the type of consumption?

transitivebs• 6 years ago

Completely agreed with this. Produce more, consume less as a general approach to the interenet.

jmstfv2• 6 years ago

Meanwhile I can't even find one ideas.

Here's the cheat code for you: look at what businesses are constantly spending money on, and you will find plenty of business ideas. There will be competition, most likely a lot of it, but don't let that deter you. Competition means there's money to be made in the market, and people are already aware of the problem so that you don't have to educate them on why they need a solution (you will have to clearly communicate why your product is better, though).

When going after existing markets, you basically swap an idea validation challenge with a sales and marketing challenge. Before launching my business, I had a misconception that if you're already solving a problem, you don't have to do much marketing and sales - WRONG! You still have to get in front of existing customers, repeatedly.

Going after an existing market doesn't mean you have to launch a carbon copy of an existing product. You can differentiate by a price (probably not a good idea), by a combination of features, or by having a polished UI/UX/Developer experience. If your competitors suck, you can differentiate by virtue of not being broken (e.g. "Product X just works" can be your shtick). You can also out-market your competition (here's the one thing they don't want you to know: better products don't usually win over better-marketed products).

Why businesses you might ask? Because they're not reluctant to part with their money if you can either save or make them money. You will have a higher average revenue per user (ARPU), which means you can spend more money on acquiring customers (CAC is the term-of-art) than if you were in B2C. You will also need fewer customers to reach your revenue goals, which will translate into less support.

If your goal is to build a sustainable business, I think this is the most optimal approach to take. Just make sure you're not in the winner-takes-all type of market.

freedomben• 6 years ago

Thanks for your post. If you're launching a new product, how do you compete with products that have loads of features?

At a previous startup I worked for we wrote tax software, which was a well established and entrenched market. Our big thing was really cloud-based, but acquiring customers was often really hard because we were always missing that one feature that people really cared about (and it's never the same feature).

harrisreynolds• 6 years ago

This is a really good comment. I would only add, don't go into a market that is too mature unless you have a very unique or niche approach.

Examples include CRM and Data visualization. The CRM market is 20 years old so unless you are serving a vertical that is highly underserved for some bizarre reason you could build it but no one would come.

I built Chartly in the data viz market, but wish I would have instead spend the time on Webase [1] which, as a no-code platform, is way earlier in the market lifecycle.

[1] https://www.webase.com

chrisfrantz• 6 years ago

My favorite tool for this example is Whimsical. How many mind mapping and flow chart tools are there?

Whimsical built a new one with way less features and I’m suddenly creating flowcharts again because of how refined it is. Refined because all the cruft has been stripped out.

Choose a business process AVD build the MVP of it. The key here is also that it has to be lightning fast with a modern a aesthetic. But use something like Tailwind and prioritize the speed of every user interaction and you have a winner.

jbc1• 6 years ago

Start a development agency and advertise where non-tech people would look for you. Yellow pages, facebook page, fill out your details so they show up on google maps.

You'll have a ton of businesses contacting you looking to have their ancient specialised software replaced or improved upon. They wont have a budget to make doing it just for them worthwhile, but it will be a fountain of SaaS ideas that come with built in validation and a first customer to learn the specifics from and act as a reference.

bobblywobbles3• 6 years ago

It's truly inspiring, isn't it?

I think it's moreso that you have a desire to help someone, using the skills unique to you, that is what makes it inspiring.

zolland• 6 years ago

This is awesome! I'm working on a very similar mission. When do you plan on monetizing the product?

Also, a bit off topic but how much time do you allocate for your blog?

elliotbnvl12• 6 years ago

Ideally, ASAP. If I can find people that are willing to pay, I'm happy to sell. If I can't, then I'm going to toss this idea.

Hmm, I'm trying to post maybe twice a week right now, so I guess probably five or six hours a week?

duck• 6 years ago

This looks great, but just wondering if you have looked at something like Airtable (https://airtable.com/) to solve this? I had a couple custom tools that were similar, but I've been able to replace them w/ Airtable and it has been nice to not maintain those anymore.

I'm building a SaaS for just one person

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