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Four years of running a SaaS in a competitive market

(maxrozen.com)
269 points mtlynch | 11 comments | 06 May 25 21:47 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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arewethereyeta ◴[11 May 25 13:32 UTC] No.43953717[source]▶
TBH, I find it extremely hard to acquire customers. Even with a rock solid product that is NOT, in any way, below the competition. I get the visits but the signups are non existent. Probably because my audience is geared towards programmers and tech oriented businesses. I can do almost any project but marketing kills me.
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1. flashblaze ◴[11 May 25 13:43 UTC] No.43953785[source]▶
Can you share your experience regarding marketing? Any specific courses you'd recommend, channels you tried and what worked or didn't? I have posted on Twitter, mentioned my product in Reddit comments and also "showcased" it in some Discord servers. All that amounted to around 30 signups in 1 week. But this is not sustainable, and I would like to try some other avenues as well.
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2. arewethereyeta ◴[11 May 25 13:49 UTC] No.43953817[source]▶
30 signups in one week is sustainable I don't know why you would say it is not. Customers will bring customers. I would love to get even 10 a week. I tried them all other than blogging which takes a lot of time and cold emailing. I would say Reddit commenting brings the most.
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3. wahnfrieden ◴[11 May 25 13:54 UTC] No.43953841[source]▶
Is this b2b or consumer? You must crack organic marketing via IG/TT for greater reach. Reddit is only good for incremental/early growth. You will get millions of impressions on the other platforms if you play them right. But only if you have something that many people actually want.
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4. flashblaze ◴[11 May 25 13:57 UTC] No.43953858[source]▶
I think you're right, I may be jumping to conclusions, and I would be in a better position to answer in a month or so whether the 30 signups are good or not. However, the reason I feel they are not enough is because I got them in my launch week (if you can call it that). I won't be able to do this every week, and I would like to find a sustainable way to get new users discovering my product.

I think SEO is the answer to that and I am planning on checking out resources or short courses if there are any since they might help me in the future as well. The reason I was curious about your process was whether you had tried something different which I hadn't tried (or thought of) which might help me avoid/improve on your feedback.

5. flashblaze ◴[11 May 25 14:00 UTC] No.43953872{3}[source]▶
It is B2C. I'm from India, so TT is a no go for me. My product is also not exactly Reels material. I'm not planning on doing ads since that is a different path which I would like to avoid as long as possible after I've exhausted all my other options.
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6. wahnfrieden ◴[11 May 25 15:08 UTC] No.43954325{4}[source]▶
Everyone who does TT seriously contracts people to create US TT accounts and proxies into managing them
7. sebastiennight ◴[11 May 25 18:27 UTC] No.43955826[source]▶
Not to be a buzzkill, but GP is sharing that they find marketing extremely difficult and it's not been working yet for them.

This would make them the last person to ask for recommendations (no offense intended).

It would seem preferable to seek advice/recommendations from people with a similar goal/situation to yours who are currently being successful at marketing their startup/product.

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8. arewethereyeta ◴[11 May 25 21:30 UTC] No.43957324[source]▶
Exactly, I'm drowning here and he's asking me for swimming lessons :))
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9. flashblaze ◴[12 May 25 04:13 UTC] No.43959584[source]▶
Ah! I get what you mean
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10. sebastiennight ◴[14 May 25 16:11 UTC] No.43986237{3}[source]▶
I mean, there is definitely wisdom to learn from you (where did you jump in? How deep is it under your feet? Did you find anything that slowed your rate of sinking?)...

But on a more serious note - I've been where you are and the most helpful piece of advice I got at that time was to focus on one number (eg MRR or new lifetime deal sales) and focus each day on one action that could directly make it tick upwards. Indirect actions (eg "building in public on Twitter") do not count.

The other piece that was helpful for me at that time was learning what Paul Graham says about the Stripe founders [0]

> At YC we use the term "Collison installation" for the technique they invented. More diffident founders ask "Will you try our beta?" and if the answer is yes, they say "Great, we'll send you a link." But the Collison brothers weren't going to wait. When anyone agreed to try Stripe they'd say "Right then, give me your laptop" and set them up on the spot.

The day after I read this, I just started doing that. Everytime someone would ask me what I did, I would whip out my phone and have this 1 minute, before-and-after "elevator pitch" ready to show what my app did, and directly ask the person if they're interested so we can set them up for a free trial. I signed up a bunch of people over a few weeks just like that, with long free trials (like 1 to 3 months free) with an auto-rebill at full price (I'm talking $299/quarter).

It made a huge difference in the 1st year of going from 0 to 100 users.

[0]: https://paulgraham.com/ds.html

11. sebastiennight ◴[14 May 25 16:12 UTC] No.43986244{3}[source]▶
I replied to the sibling comment with some marketing advice that I hope can be as useful for you as it was for me!