First steps in SaaS world
Hi, just wanted to share that I launched my first mini SaaS product, but there are some challenging trade-offs to be made now.
My SaaS is all about helping small businesses helping to organize their courses and simplifying the process by taking their payments, sending reminders and other administrative stuff.
The platform now is very minimal, basic (Bootstrap css) right now. I have one client (= organiser on my platform): my mum, from whom I identified the problem and wanted to solve this broadly. The system itself works great: people use the website to enroll, they pay, I make invoices, I pay to the instructor.
Next step is getting more organisers on the platform that offer more activities so it starts growing.
But my internal conflict is as follows: should I go all-in on promoting this platform, mostly by personal outreach, knowing that the website isn't looking perfect and it may not be so visually appealing? My goal here would be to validate my solution.
OR should I spend more time on the platform to make it more attractive for organisers to join? I recently made a blog to explain why I made the platform and some first experiences, but other than this, it's just the platform. No other content.
My guess would be the first option. But that's not going so smooth, so that's why I'm hesitating again.
If you want to take a look, here's my Saas Decourse: https://decourse.brightcompany.be/en/ (you can switch to the Dutch language in the lower right corner, if that's more convenient for you)
Agree with most of the comments. Focus on acquisition. All your efforts there.
Definitely you should put all the effort talking to possible customers. You could be surprised finding out what they really expect from you.
I just glanced over Decourse, and it's impressive to see the idea implemented. It is admirable how hard and committed you have been. Remember that although appearances are important, your target audience may value functionality and actual value more at this point. I hope your trip is filled with success!
The first step is to create a good product and achieve value proposition. The second step is to work on growth and achieve growth hypothesis.
I believe that there are many tools on the market designed for the distribution of online courses, but very few designed for the target that you want to target. I think it's a very good idea that you cover that space.
Perhaps, in the future, you could add tools to help that audience create their first online courses, or adapt content they already have.
For example, my girlfriend has a degree in Biochemistry and gives live private classes on related subjects. Her first problem was how to organize those classes (your tool solves that problem). Having some live classes recorded, she thought it would be good to turn them into an online course. I helped her with that because I am a WordPress designer. Your clients would prefer to do it with your tool if you had that option too.
I hope it helps you, good luck!
Thanks Nico!
Interesting extension possibilities indeed. I'm not planning to focus on online courses right away but I think there's a similar challenge for in person courses. Supporting organisers to upgrade offline class material or combining existing experience into a new course for example.
Great, thanks again!
How did you identify the initial problem your SaaS solves, and do you plan to address additional problems as your platform grows?
The problem was something I noticed from my mum, who's organising courses/workshops almost every evening of the week. In between her day job, she had to do all the admin stuff and was often frustrated by the manual process.
I thought of also helping organisers who are not so established yet. For example: helping them find a location and related services like food&drinks. But perhaps also marketing advice for promoting their courses and strengthening online presence.
My answer to your question is go for the outreach. But the other question I'd have (at the risk of sounding negative, which is not my intent) is how does this compete with the many other options for course management. Why choose this over Udemy, for example? Why wouldn't I want to use a WordPress LMS (there are several well developed ones) instead? You may have good answers to these, but if you don't, that'd be the first thing I'd attend to... Best of luck!
Hi, thanks for your response!
My target with Decourse are small business owners who organise physical courses at their own place, sometimes also rented place. As it's a physical course and the organisers are busy self-employed professionals, often times they're not so tech-savvy and don't want to spend too much time on this, so I want to make it as easy as possible.
People I currently target are using Google Forms to collect enrollments, checking their bank accounts to see if they got paid or not, sending emails on what to bring to the course. Basic, local stuff, soaking up lots of their energy. Not competing at all with Udemy/Coursera/...
Ah, somehow I wasn't focusing on this being for in-person classes. That could very well be a market to go after--I can see how there might be a need. And since the businesses have brick-and-mortar locations, it may be easier to reach them with marketing.
This is a great answer to the questions. I have an artist friend who started an art course for kids in a shed in her garden and she went through process of setting up her own website (with Wix), and I know she found it stressful and time consuming. Also, last couple of years, my daughter has been enrolled in a couple of dance classes, and it's been the manual process you've described. Most recently, I was looking for a dance class on Saturday morning for my daughter and checked about 10 websites for classes in my town. Half of those hadn't been updated for a while and had wrong or no class information: when I emailed them, I found out it was because they didn't know how to update it, or they found it too complicated to update (most of those were Wordpress websites). So there are definitively a lot of businesses providing in person classes who need help with their online presence.
I would advise you add some copy about who should use this and why. Nothing fancy, but a clear explanation of who it is for, this will facilitate your personal outreach. Once you've done that, focus on validation. And best of luck, I think it's a really useful service you have there.
PS: You probably already know this from your market research, but just in case you don't... In the UK, there is a service doing something like that, called Classes for Kids (https://www.classforkids.io/en-GB) I think they operate in a few other English speaking countries too. It's a similar service, but aimed at Kids classes/clubs only, and used by clubs (eg usually businesses with a team of teachers, not solo teachers). I'm guessing the reason it's not used by solo teachers might be how much they charge. They have basically cornered the market in UK for school clubs, and they've done that rather quickly, with very focused marketing. You may want to consider a similar approach of narrowing what kind of classes you want to cover and whether you are targeting solo teachers or clubs (ie a few teachers).
Thanks a lot!
I'll make it more comprehensible with some extra copy asap.
I like your Classes for Kids comparison. Haven't heard of them previously but I'm looking into it right now!
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Thanks for your feedback, appreciate it!
Can you elaborate a bit on why pursuing a marketplace is not a good idea? Of do you mean in this phase, right now, to focus on getting paid customers (= organisers)?
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