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Hey, makers! What's the hardest part about building a SaaS startup?

by Alexey Shashkov

Hey, guys! I'm passionate about SaaS startups. I already made a few attempts to build a successful SaaS product and business.

Currently, I'm working on my new SaaS product https://Getlanding.io. The idea is to let the product do all of the grunt work instead of humans. Fully without a learning curve, website builders, developers, designers, design, or coding skills.

And my hardest part about building a SaaS startup is to iterate very quickly!
Last time I encountered that problem working on my previous product «FromNotion». We've been making product iterations by months, not weeks, working full time. And I didn't find the best practices to solve this problem.

What is your hardest part about building a SaaS startup? Share your thoughts and experiences.

Alexey Shashkov's avatarAlexey Shashkov
on September 6, 2021
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  1. 2

    Hey Alexey,
    here are the 3 things I would consider first:

    1. To ship the product
    2. Get some traction to validate your idea
    3. Knowing when to quit
    mitt84's avatar mitt84
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    5 years ago
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    1. 1

      Hey, man! Thx for sharing it. Can you tell me why is that so hard? What are the best practices to solve that?

      Alexey Shashkov's avatar Alexey Shashkov
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      5 years ago
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      1. 2
        1. ship weekly even if the features are not polished yet
        2. build a network of hackers who will upvote and retweet when you launch
        3. quit when there was no initial traction (work&wait max 3 months) -> move to another idea -> can't understand people working for years without revenue -> pure craziness 🤔
        mitt84's avatar mitt84
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        5 years ago
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        1. 1

          =) Yeah, totally understand you, man=)

          Alexey Shashkov's avatar Alexey Shashkov
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          5 years ago
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  2. 2

    Hey Alexey, for me there are several hard parts:

    • Choosing an idea (I have tons of and can't implement each and always tend to have FOMO)
    • Work consistently on it (Consistency beats Intensity – always)
    • Speak to potential users early (and not after I have implemented feature X Y Z they eventually don't even need)
    • Don't give up and believe in your idea if you don't get the initial traction you have hoped for.

    Dennis 👋

    dennis_zoma's avatar dennis_zoma
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    5 years ago
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    1. 1

      Howdy, Denis! Yeah, I totally understand you.

      But what about your current product? What have you done to solve these hard parts?

      Alexey Shashkov's avatar Alexey Shashkov
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      5 years ago
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      1. 2

        Hey Alexey, glad you asked. My most recent project is FollowShare.xyz (just release 2 days ago). But I have an active challenge on Twitter (https://twitter.com/dennis_zoma/status/1425382788950368260) where I try to build 10 different projects in 10 weeks. The motivation behind that is that I just quit my full-time job to try something new / leave my comfort zone and I didn't want to hop into the "next big thing". But rather try executing some small ideas and meanwhile trying out some new frameworks/languages/techniques I'm tinkering with for a while :)

        👋

        dennis_zoma's avatar dennis_zoma
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        5 years ago
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        1. 2

          Cool! Good luck, man! I think you're doing it very well!

          Alexey Shashkov's avatar Alexey Shashkov
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          5 years ago
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  3. 2

    Hey, @shashcoffe!

    My current greatest challenge is getting more beta users for BotMeNot, my latest project.

    Getting honest and real feedback for your product functionality is invaluable currently for me.

    Also, implementing the blog page has been problematic the last couple of days, having some issues with URLs not working properly.

    Have a great day!

    mkrunic's avatar mkrunic
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    5 years ago
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    1. 1

      Hi, Misha! Thank you for your reply.

      I see you bootstrapped «Price2Spy» to $217k/mo and «justLikeAPI» to $5k/mo. Wow! That's super cool! You're an experienced maker!

      I like the idea of BotMeNot. Joined to the private beta list. 🙌🙂

      A few questions:

      1. Which solution do you use for your blog and implementing it into your website?

      2. And how do you solve the problem of getting honest and real feedback for your product functionality now? What are the best practices for you?

      Thanks, man.

      Alexey Shashkov's avatar Alexey Shashkov
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      5 years ago
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      1. 2

        Hi, @shashcoffe !

        Thank you so much for joining the beta list, it means so much to me!

        1. Plain old Wordpress. Technically speaking, it’s 2 separate WP sites – A) main website, B) Blog

        2. Well, the beta users are actually the most reliable way currently for me. This is why they're so important, I don't want to ship a half-functioning service. Other than that, I occasionally post significant updates to some communities (such as IH, PH, etc.).

        Cheers!

        mkrunic's avatar mkrunic
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        5 years ago
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        1. 1

          Got it. Thanks for the reply!

          Alexey Shashkov's avatar Alexey Shashkov
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          5 years ago
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