From biotech to SaaS. What I've tried so far

Biggest lesson so far: shipping is the easy part, marketing is the hard part!

I feel like I've learnt a thousands lessons that I had already read about (the power of doing rather than reading!). I've long been an advocate for lean startup methodology and agile development but building my own SaaS has accelerated my learning so fast.

In my day job, I work at biotechnology startups. There we write really complex pieces of software for a few engaged users. SaaS feels completely different! My problems are not scientific or even technical, but are all marketing based. I seem to have written a really nice product in an extremely crowded space. How do I differentiate? How do I even get one person to click on my website through Google?

Before you read further, understand, I am a complete novice. I am just enjoying learning, throwing paint at the wall and seeing what sticks.

In the last several months it feels like code automation tools have become even more useful. I now do not write code by hand, but rather review code by an AI. Shipping new features is now almost trivial (especially once the bare bones of site deployment are solved). This has shifted all of my focus to business development. I'm trying to become an SEO expert over night.

I am far from having solved this. Here are somethings I've tried so far:

- Ensuring I've got a robust sitemap and robots profile for Google
- Opening up a Google Search Console account (not much data to delve into there yet!)
- Made some extremely informative and useful content on IndieHackers ....
- Posted to HackerNews (no upvotes... but one new user!!)
- Launched a "learn" section on my site to drive traffic... early days yet I'll let you know how that goes

My biggest problem I think is that I am launching very late into a very crowded space. The big platforms must pay millions in Google adwords. That said, I don't need to even access a 1% of their audience. I think my customers are "pre-platform" and my burn rate is next to nothing. I'll keep plugging away until I get to the front page of Google for at least one term! See you there

If you think I missed anything obvious please comment below.

PS this was all written by hand, how old fashioned.