I’m building a SaaS-only freelancing platform — here’s the traction and where I’m stuck
I’ve spent 15+ years in marketing, with the last ~6 years focused entirely on B2B SaaS — mostly working with early-stage startups in full-time, fractional, and advisory roles.
Over the years, I’ve turned to Upwork at times — both to find clients for myself and to hire help. And every time, the experience felt broken.
From the startup side, it means digging through a large volume of applicants who don’t actually have SaaS experience. From the freelancer side, it means paying to apply, navigating scam postings, and losing a meaningful percentage of your earnings to the platform.
That frustration led me to start Saasea — a freelancing platform built exclusively for SaaS.
The idea isn’t just jobs. It’s a smaller, higher-trust ecosystem of founders and SaaS operators who actually understand how SaaS works.
What I’m intentionally doing differently:
- Freelancers must have real SaaS experience and go through verification
- Startups are vetted
- No % take from freelancer earnings
- Freelancers pay a subscription to be listed
- Startups pay per job post or a monthly platform fee (including access to forums + free advising)
Before building anything, I pitched the idea at a pitch competition and spoke with dozens of founders and freelancers. The feedback was consistently strong, which gave me confidence to move forward.
Traction so far (with very light marketing):
- ~400 people joined the waitlist over ~1 year
- Mostly driven by a few Reddit + LinkedIn posts
- Launched a private beta ~1 month ago
- 50+ freelancers signed up from just two emails
- Current goal: 200 freelancers in beta
Now I’m shifting focus to the harder side of the marketplace: startups.
This is where I’d love advice from other Indie Hackers who have built marketplaces or sold to founders:
- What has resonated most when getting founders excited early?
- Is subscription pricing for startups a turnoff, or does it align with ongoing value?
- What signals increase trust most in early, curated marketplaces?
If anyone wants to see what I’ve built so far, here’s the beta:
👉 https://www.saasea.io
This is very much a build-in-public experiment focused on quality and trust over rapid scale.
Appreciate any honest feedback.
