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8 Comments

Building a SaaS for One Person

  1. 11

    I enjoyed this post from @elliotbnvl. It's easy to get carried away in the beginning with overly ambitious plans, imagining your end goal and trying to get there all in one step. But a long journey consists of thousands of small steps, and I like that his first step is simple: building a SaaS that his dad loves. That's it.

    Also, semi-related, I wonder if there are actual SaaS tools designed for just one person with no ambition to go further than that? i.e. Some CEO or celebrity or other wealthy individual needs a bespoke SaaS tool and is willing to pay handsomely monthly fee for it. Perhaps these exist, but we just rarely hear about them. I suppose it's not too different than building out a custom application for a company. I've certainly built some tools for my own personal use in running IH and doing other things.

    1. 5

      Hey Courtland, thanks for posting this! I really appreciate the share and the thoughtful comment. :)

    2. 3

      i.e. Some CEO or celebrity or other wealthy individual needs a bespoke SaaS tool and is willing to pay handsomely monthly fee for it.

      Such an interesting thing to think about! It sounds awesome to only have to answer to a single customer, but I guess the downside is your MRR won't change much over time.

    3. 2

      Some CEO or celebrity or other wealthy individual needs a bespoke SaaS tool and is willing to pay handsomely monthly fee for it. I suppose it's not too different than building out a custom application for a company.

      This is the day job of many freelancers like me. Building bespoke software tailored for small groups of people at one company. The nice thing is you can completely customize the experience for that set of people.

      A good name for it might be "sub-dunbar software" from Dunbar's Number, which is software optimized for small groups of mutually trusting humans.

      https://mccormick.cx/news/entries/sub-dunbar-software

    4. 1

      I made StatWatch, pretty much just for me. I keep track of the progress of my site, some competitors and even sites in adjacent niches that I've been learning from.

  2. 2

    Really great post! That’s the thing, build a SaaS or product for that one user. This parallels how I came about the idea for my app, I’m building it for my niece. It’s refreshing to see someone else building something inspired by a family member. Thanks for sharing!

  3. 1

    @channingallen this is a test on a link post

  4. 1

    I once saw a video by Tom Scott, in which he said that he had yet to find a correlation between how much work, he puts into a video, and how successful it becomes.

    If you are going to make something on a whim, make it really fast and get it out the door. If no one asked for it upfront, spending one thousand more hours on it probably won't be the differentiator.

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