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How I built a SaaS in 10 days using my boilerplate

July's goal was to build in public an actual SaaS for 2 reasons:

  • Validate SaasRock as a production-ready SaaS starter
  • Launch my own SaaS

The problem

In Mexico, there are already a lot of invoicing platforms (QuickBooks, CONTPAQi, Aspel…), but none are simple and robust at the same time, and there's not a single platform that offers taxpayers the service to generate invoices for their receipts.

The solution

I called it Factura.so, like Notion.so, but with Factura (Invoice in Spanish).
It has 2 main features:

  • Forward all your invoices to [email protected]
  • Submit your receipts and we'll generate the invoice for you

With these 2 features, the headline became:

Factura.so - The only platform you need to request and receive invoices.

How I built it

I documented my journey in a youtube series called "Building a SaaS with SaasRock". Here's the summary of each video, or click here to view them all.

The code

Up to day 7, the code is available for SaasRock Enterprise subscribers.


The end result

Landing page

I need to communicate that with this platform, you could Request and Receive invoices, hence the emphasis:

Landing page

Dashboard

3 blocks here:

  • Summary: All my XMLs, Receipts, and Invoices (from 30 days to date).
  • Receipts: Stats by workflow state (Pending, Invalid, or Processed).
  • XMLs: The SaaS is around XMLs, so it makes sense to show the last 10.

Dashboard

My Receipts

Using SaasRock's Entity Builder I created 3 views:

  • Pending: A table of pending receipts
  • All: A table of all receipts
  • Photos: A grid of all receipt photos

My Receipts

My XMLs

XMLs can be created:

  • Manually: User uploads an .xml file
  • Email: Send or forward emails with .xml files to [email protected]
  • Sync: By adding a Taxpayer Credential (see My Invoices).

My XMLs

My Invoices

If a user uploaded their Taxpayer Credential, I sync their invoices with the SAT.WS API:

My Invoices

My Emails

SaasRock comes with an out-of-the-box inbound emails feature, I use it to create XML Entity Rows if there are attachments of type .xml and .pdf.

My Emails

My Subscription (prices in MXN)

The business model is simple:

  • Test: A freemium plan to test all the main features
  • Essential: For small companies
  • Business: For medium/large companies

My Subscription

What's Next for SaasRock?

Right now I have post-launch depression, where I don't know what I'm going to do next 🤣. But I have written down some ideas:

What's Next for SaasRock

Let me know what you think 😀!

on August 6, 2022
  1. 2

    Great stuff, dude! After building my latest SaaS I also decided to make a Saas boilerplate, and then I realized so is everyone else. Started listing all the boilerplates I come across here: https://saasstarters.com/ (far from finished, working on scraping logos) mind if I add your stuff to this?

    1. 1

      I think you'd benefit from using https://chipmunktheme.com for setting up the collection 😅 Hit me up if you have questions.

      1. 1

        you got it as a Hugo theme? 👀

        1. 1

          Not yet, but it might be a good idea 🤔

  2. 2

    An Awesome started kit. I think that I going to build something soon

  3. 2

    The site looks so Amazing. So a boilerplate is some kind of template right?
    Btw as your website uses crisp but I can see you are not active for past so many days

    So I'm guessing supportesk.com would be a better and cheaper option for you.

    1. 1

      I didn’t know that, thanks!

  4. 2

    I love challenges like this so much. Incredible job!!!

    1. 1

      I love them too 👌, thanks!

  5. 2

    Looks awesome, man! 😍 Will keep my eyes on it definitely 😁

  6. 1

    Awesome stuff dude, what's your stats on signups and arpu.

    1. 1

      This is after the first month of pre-launch: https://twitter.com/saas_rock/status/1542950546121818113?s=21&t=OaZQmY12Z8nPzS7sxcP6Jg. Currently I have 17 active subscribers, but I’ll switch to yearly plans or LTD soon.

  7. 1

    By having a "boilerplate", I am assuming that you built your own "template" of production code that is reusable for similar SAAS products... is that assumption correct ?
    if so, how long did it take you to put together that boilerplate ?

    1. 1

      Correct. It took me around 3 months, here's the first post I made about it.

      1. 1

        Great, thanks.
        Great project !
        This is running all on top of supabase correct ?
        As in, what you are offering is not just the templating, but also the cloud hosting of the application using supabase, is that correct ?

        1. 1

          Thanks a lot! No, I only use Supabase as a PostgreSQL database and file storage with their buckets. You host wherever you want and use whatever database.

  8. 1

    Great idea to use SaaSRock to build other SaaS projects! I'd do the same. It's a fantastic way to prove its utility.

    1. 2

      Thanks a lot 😀, I'm pretty happy with the result

  9. 1

    congratulations on launching and thanks for documenting the journey. You are unusually productive to finish it in a week. Frontend alone would take me more than a week. By the way do you wireframe the site before starting to create it? i saw your first video but looks like you had already done some preparation before you started documenting it.

    1. 1

      Thanks!! For example I recorded Day 1 on July 7 at 12pm and published it. Then, that day I worked on the code for Day 2, and recorded the following day (the 8th) at 3pm. In other words, I did not work more than a day on each video.

      I tried to touch the least files as possible to make this realistic. I figured that recording myself while coding would not be valuable, since I make a lot of mistakes, often re-do UI screens or schema models, and nobody would watch 4-6 hour long videos.

      1. 1

        got it. what about wireframing do you do that? if yes any recommendations?

        1. 2

          No 😅, my wireframing comes from inspiration from Dribbble and my favorite UX apps. For example, I created the InputFilters component based on Stripe's filters:

          Stripe

          SaasRock

  10. 1

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 2

      A starter kit; Alternative names would be "remix SaaS starter kit", instead of "remix SaaS boilerplate"

      a boilerplate is a unit of writing that can be reused over and over without change. By extension, the idea is sometimes applied to reusable programming, as in “boilerplate code.”

      source

      1. 2

        This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

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