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Building a microsaas in public

Greetings hackers,

One of my 2022 goals is to build all of my projects in public. So I'm starting now with my newest idea, Submetrics. This is an idea I've had for a while after I noticed how much time I was spending every month tracking all of my social media, subscription, and community metrics for a few of my private communities I used to run.

Anytime you see yourself spending hours per day, week, or month in a spreadsheet, there is an idea for a solid microsaas project.

Now I'm not sure if this idea is even worth building. Just because it scratches my own itch doesn't mean it's a problem others have.

As a true indiehacker I'm not going to start building the actual software until I've at least seen some interest. Below is my plan to verify the need of Submetrics.

Plan

  1. Create a simple Figma UI mockup
  2. Build a simple landing page illustrating the basic concepts of the product
  3. Launch a ProductHunt ship page to collect emails
  4. Promote the product for 2-4 weeks
  5. Get 100 early access subscribers

Once, or if, I get 100 early access subscribers I've successfully proven out the concept of the product and will start building it.

I've already done steps 1-3. Below are the costs and time invested.

Costs and Time Spent

  1. $130 on Figma mockup
  2. $79 for 1-month of ProductHunt Ship
  3. $30 for the domain name
  4. 5 hours total invested into building the landing page

Overall I'm in for $239 and 5 hours of my time. If everything goes well, my goal is to build this microsaas to $500/month and have a solid stream of income. If I can't prove out the need, then I'm only out a small investment.

Landing page: https://www.submetrics.co/
ProductHunt Ship page: https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/submetrics

Let me know if there are any questions :)

  1. 3

    Very cool - thanks for sharing. Looking forward to reviewing the progress!

    1. 1

      Thanks! I'll be giving updates daily on Twitter :)

  2. 2

    Hi Yaro, how is it going? Have you already obtained 200 subscribers? If not, what is your timeframe?

    1. 1

      Going well so far! Currently 48 subscribers on day 3. Still need to see how it’ll go by the end of the month.

      1. 2

        Sorry, it was a typo, I meant 100. How many posts have you published? Did you use only the PH shipping page for collecting emails? What is your conversion rate (visitors/signups)? Sorry for so many questions!

  3. 2

    Hey Yaro, thanks for sharing, and congrats on the first steps!
    Would you mind sharing your plans for promoting channels?

    1. 2

      Thanks @Karimsan! My promotion channels include the following currently

      • IndieHackers
      • Twitter
      • A few private communities
      • Reddit

      I think this is a solid enough set to gauge interest.

  4. 2

    I'm curious. How did you integrated all the tools like Mailchimp, Youtube, Gumroad, and so on?

    1. 1

      That’s a great question! I haven’t even started yet. So I’m not sure if all of them are even possible, but if I can verify the demand for the product I’ll start building it.

  5. 2

    Yaro, Great stuff.. I'm looking forward to following along.

    And the product looks on point. I can think of a bunch of other platforms I'd like to have in my dashboard. I signed up and await updates. --J Paul

    1. 1

      Thanks! What other platforms would you like in your dashboard?

  6. 2

    Hey!
    Congrats on launching your landing! It looks good to me and the idea is neat (I have a similar one in my list of ideas :)
    May I ask you what is your plan to compete? There is a bunch of players already, how you could beat them?

    1. 1

      Thanks :) I'm not too sure how I will compete. What are some of the other players? I know Tolta is a similar idea and also Baremetrics. I'm trying to shoot for something in the middle.

      1. 1

        I meant such services as https://raport.pro and https://chartbrew.com/
        But you are right, you can find your niche by, for instance, making just a way simpler product.

  7. 2

    Very cool. Would be happy to follow your journey. Till you want to post it on sale ☺️

    1. 2

      Haha thanks Ilya, perhaps I might sell i eventually. I'll deff reach out to you.

      1. 1

        Very cool. Will be happy to help you with the acquisition 😊

  8. 2

    Thanks for sharing this, Yaro! I like the Figma mockup that you used. I'm curious, how do you plan to bridge the mockup with a functioning UI? Do you have any working UI templates in mind that have a similar look and feel to the Figma mockup template that you purchased? Would you purchase a template that includes charts (ie a bootstrap template with chart.js widgets), or build your own? Thanks again for this post, it is very informative!

    1. 1

      Thanks for the reply @kmanninen! That's a good question. I'll probably look around for libraries for the charting (probably chart.js). If I can't get the charting exactly like the UI, I'm not too worried. The rest will be styled with tailwind.

  9. 2

    Hi Yaro,

    This is the great, and the right, approach for sure!

    I have question, about what's the motivation behind selecting those tools.

    The reason I am asking is because I have a product that's aiming exactly this process you are willing to go through. It instantly creates a landing page for a saas business idea and you can start collecting emails right away. You would need in total 5 minutes to setup the whole thing (compared to the 5 hours you are planning I think that's better). An in total it would cost you 9 euros per month.

    So I would appreciate if you could share your experience, and how you would do it differently if you start over.

    You can see my product here: plygrnd.xyz

    1. 1

      The motivation behind selecting these tools is that they are what I work with the most. NextJS, tailwind, Figma, etc. Your product does look super useful. Is your own landing page using your product? I love your landing page. I'll consider using this for my next project.
      A few big features I'd need.

      1. Ability to integrate with ProductHunt ship
      2. Ability to export the subscribers

      Overall looks great!

      1. 1

        Hey Yaro, yes indeed, the product's landing page is a creation of itself :)

        I would be so happy if you do indeed use it, I would be more than happy to help you with anything.

        This is great feedback. Thanks for the nice words.

        exporting subscribers -> something we can easily implement. why would you need it?

        integration with PH Ship -> I know Ship, but what do you mean integrating with it? and why would you need that?

        1. 1

          Howdy, I just set up a landing page in a minute - very nice!

          http://greatidea-1441179648135.plygrnd.xyz/

          Some questions -

          1. How do I know how many subscribers I have?
          2. Is there a plan to allow an image to be added?
          3. Could user choose either subdomain or endpoint for landing page to mKe it a bit more friendly looking?

          Overall, a great experience!

          1. 1

            heeyyyy, thank you so much for trying it out!!

            1. in your dashboard, on the left you have a "subscribers" tab. There you can see your subscribers. You can email them all, like a newsletter. We are right now working on a new dashboard that will show you (# subscribers / # unique visitors) as in numbers and also in percentage. That will also give you an idea how good your landing page converts.

            2. Yes, indeed there is. right now we have default images in the templates, but we are planning to make that selectable. We also wan to keep it as simple as possible and not become a "tool to build a landing page" where you make everything, but rather a very practical quick landing page creator that's enough to get the word out. We will find a balance :)

            3. Don't understand what you mean exactly here. You get a subdomain by default, and if you like, you can use your own domain also. Do you mean something else?

            Thank you so much for your feedback :) If you'd like to give it a try, I would be more than happy to give you a coupon so you can try the full package experience, with custom domains etc. ?

            1. 1

              Thanks for the quick reply!

              I mean something like this:

              https://flyerfox.plygrnd.xyz

              I didn't look at the dashboard yet, probably my answer is in there. 🙂

              1. 1

                ah okay i understand. once you login to your dashboard, you can configure your project name and plygrnd subdomain as you wish.

                so yes, you can create "flyerfox.plygrnd.xyz"

                if you have it you can also attach your domain to it, making it also "flyerfox.com" for example.

  10. 2

    Hi,
    what about the expenses on your domain name? Hosting?

    1. 1

      Great catch there. I just edited to include the domain. I spent $30 on it. Hosting is free since I use Vercel.

  11. 2

    Thanks for sharing your plan. It looks really slick!
    I don't have a question directly related to your product but about ProductHunt Ship. What is your experience so far? Do you recommend it?

    1. 1

      I think it’s worth it if you’re trying to assess an idea. It gives you access to be featured in their upcoming products page, which gets tons of eyes on it. Plus anytime someone subscribes their followers are also notified. This gives you a built in network effect. Overall I’d only use it for a month just to see if people are interested.

  12. 2

    Super cool! I love it, both the approach and the product. landing page looks slick

    1. 1

      Thank you so much! Any thoughts on the product idea itself?

  13. 2

    Great idea! What's the benefit of paying for PH Ship? What are you expecting from it?

    1. 1

      The biggest benefit is you get featured in their upcoming products page which will great seems by thousands of people. Plus anytime someone subscribes their followers are also notified. I’m expecting it to help as a marketing tool to assess my product idea. It also can be used to gather emails too which is nice

      1. 2

        Is this the first time you are using it? What do you expect to get out if it in terms of subscribers and etc?

        1. 1

          I've used it before with Playgroup (https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/playgroup). Honestly I'm not expecting anything since ProductHunt Ship just give me a platform and views. The idea itself will drive subscriptions. I hope I get 100 lol

  14. 2

    All the best Yaro.
    Your website looks neat. What did you use to build it?

    1. 1

      Thanks @DeepakJain! I used a NextJS + Tailwind template I found online for like $29 and started modifying it. If I can find the website again I'll post it here.

  15. 2

    Good luck Yaro!!

    1. 2

      Thanks @upenv hope you're doing well. We haven't talked for a while :)

  16. 2

    Cool to read about your plan. Coincidentally I am building something similar, but the other way around. Its also about collecting metrics, but focused more on indie hackers.

    I've started with the implementation of the platform (which I justified to myself as I will be at least using it during my indie hacker journey 😀).

    Currently have the base functionality working and working on the content and subscriptions/pricing. I've subscribed for early access, curious to see where you will be taking this!

    1. 1

      Oh that's really good! What specific services will you be integrating it with? I feel I can get 100 signups but simply don't want to be in the situation where I spend a lot of time for no ROI. My inspiration was Tolta + Baremetrics. Combing those two but specifically for a niche. I feel these types of microosaas products can make a decent MRR.

      1. 2

        I'm currently starting with npm, twitter and github. And after initial release hope to get some traction and add integrations to services that users require.

        My inspiration was that I needed something to track this for myself when I started building things, so I build it.

        1. 1

          Oh that's really solid! There are so many integrations. The trick is finding the right ones for your audience.

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