I'm quit my full-time job and I'm a full-time solo founder now!
Hey IH,
I quit from my full-time job in order to take my MonitUp.com project, which I started in 2020 and developed as a side project, faster.
I've been trying to get used to the new order for 2 weeks, but working from home is a bit difficult (I have 2 boys, 5 and 8 years old). Sometimes I go out to work and I can work more efficiently in cafes, seaside and quiet places.
MonitUp's MRR is still $308 there is a lot of and different work to do. I think it would be better for me to do the things that will enable me to sell more first. If I increase the MRR, I will have a little more peace of mind. $300 isn't enough for me to live on so I'm going to spend it out of pocket for a while. Hope it doesn't take long :)
To be able to work more efficiently and which jobs would you recommend me to focus on first? There are definitely some of us who have gone through these processes before, what would your suggestions be?
Privacy invasion software.. 🤮
Hey Wes,
I understand you, but you shouldn't just look at this type of software as monitoring. Firms are commercial structures, they have to earn money in order to continue their activities and they have to work efficiently.
When companies use such an application, they have to notify their employees and obtain their consent. These apps cannot be used privately.
Consent is commonly obtained through just simply requiring it to maintain employment.
Trust goes a lot farther than micromanagement and invasion of privacy.
Results are what matters, not what it takes to get there. This software is nothing more than automated micromanagement.
Hi Faruk,
Really great work, and really impressive that you are taking the first step out into the solo entrepreneur path! I work as a product manager and would love to give you some more feedback in general, in the end I can imagine that the goal is to increase the MRR.
But first to answer your questions:
https://www.productplan.com/glossary/value-vs-complexity/
General feedback:
Partner up with other SAAS that could be interested by the same type of customers, and you could share each others leads/customer lists, participate in podcasts, collaborate with others.
Good luck! I hope this could be some help for you. If you want to discuss ideas. Don't hesitate to PM me and I want to try to help out, this is learning for me as well. :-)
Hey Robin,
thank you very much for your suggestions. It can be a bit confusing for a tech guy like me to get it right and implement it :)
I will think about what I can do on these writings and I would love to contact you.
These processes are really useful and you learn fast. You try things and see if it works. If it doesn't work, you try something different.
Let me know if there's anything you want to try, MonitUp is a great place to test it out :)
You've made a brave decision. Respect!
I've looked at your project. It seems quite complete.
If you have existing customer and they are happy with your app, then you should spend more time on marketing to get more customers as a priority (just my opinion).
I would only fix bugs to prevent existing customer from churn. And develop futures only if there will be potential "big" client who need this future. But not spend time on "nice-to-have" things :)
Hey Sergei,
Thank you very much for your suggestions :)
What would you suggest I do for marketing? These days, I often try to do things that will help on the SEO side.
I would go and search for the target questions on the internet (like Reddit, IH, etc.) where people ask question related to your niche. So you can write answers that can help solving their problems.
This is manual time consuming job, but it highly targeted and effective.
Also, I like to go with PPC, but this will require burn some cash at the beginning while you'll find audience and placements that will work for you.
I have little experience with SEO, trying to do baby steps now in it :)
You can simplify the process a little, for this you can use tracking mentions, I just have one :) https://mentiontools.com
If there are new mentions, you will be notified and can respond quickly.
Congratulations Faruk on taking the leap to pursue your MonitUp.com project full-time!
Thanks Boris :)
I have the same idea but I'm still in college. Now, I have changed my mind as I'm 2 semesters away from graduation. You have a family to take care of, and you are a very experienced developer, I think you can find plenty of remote development jobs (like turing.com) that offer some flexibility, and they pay really well, so you have the option to work on Monitup.
Hey Zakaria,
It is very important to focus, set a target, and do whatever it takes to achieve this goal.
Since 2020, I worked on Freelance on the evenings and weekends with my full -time job and developed Monitup. In 2021, I made very good money with Freelance jobs, but there was a problem. There are some conditions for making money with freelance or full -time business. You have to find a job, deliver the job properly, make the customer or work happy, manage to pay, and then find a job again and repeat the steps I just count.
This means: If you just work, you win. But that didn't make me happy.
Instead, I chose to create a system. I would probably have won 8-10 times more than I won from Monitup if I had continued to freelance works, but it is laborious to build a system from scratch.
So why did I create a system? If you can create the system, you can make money while sleeping, you can earn money while spending time with your family or hobbies. Currently, a customer can signup of Monitup, pay, start using the system, and access reports. None of these processes do not have to intervene. If so, I can create my second system while MonitUp and continue to work.
This is where I want to go and this is a really challenging way, I hope I will.
Amazing. Good luck man!
Let me know if you need any help with designing. Always happy to connect and help :)
I'm specialized in B2B SaaS design.
Thanks Naresh,
As you can see, we always needed help with the design . We did the best a technical guys could do with copy, edit and paste :))
Our incomes are low, so if you have low-budget help, why not?
Sure, let's talk and see what we can work on.
https://calendly.com/unlimiteddesignz/15min?month=2023-02
Nice work Furak!
Judging by your pricing and MRR, you have around ~100 active customers. These are nice numbers. Where there are 100, there can be easily 1000. Going by this reasoning, i would double down on marketing and closely monitoring the signup funnel.
What are you current monthly website visitor to customer signup rates?
Hey Igor,
Last year, I sold 28 Lifetime deals. Lifetime deal ended 3 months ago and we switched to subscription model. Of course we couldn't sell, then we searched why we couldn't sell, we tried many things.
I actually have 3 customers in total right now, one of them pays monthly for 38 licenses, and the other 2 pay for 1 license each.
However, the main problem is: none of these customers came directly to my website and made a purchase. Someone made a reference or found me from facebook groups that I am a member of. Here too it seems that there is a big problem with my website. I've had comments on my website before, we've completely changed the design 2 times but it seems like we haven't found the right one yet.
Let's take a look at MonitUp visits for the last 28 days:
SESSION SOURCE (direct) 168
indiehackers.com 168
google 90
yandex.com.tr 17
linkedin.com 13
t.co 8
app.sourcescrub.com 4
Most of the people from Google searches come with the keyword MonitUp, while the rest come to the articles, but most of them close the article before they even reach the home page.
This means: people coming to the website may not be the right audience. My target audience is: CEOs, Bosses, HR and IT executives.
I don't do much for marketing yet other than SEO work. I mean selling MonitUp through dealers, I talked to about 20 potential dealers, they all got their interest, but none of them have started selling yet.
If you have any suggestions for marketing, I'd love to hear it.
Good luck Faruk, give it everything you have!
Thanks Adrian, I will do my best.
Congrats Faruk!!! At this point, it may be good to look at;
When you are able to answer the questions above, you will be able to replicate the small success you have experienced so far :)
If you'd like to understand which startup stage you are in right now, you may want to do this quick test: https://d5d95dafyqb.typeform.com/to/FaCU39m6
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Hey İlke,
Thank you very much for your sugestions. I have a few small and one big for me small client for the world.
In fact, I found one big and one small client as a result of my friends recommending MonitUp. I can't find the right client from my website, basically for 2 reasons. One: Since I have just started SEO works, I cannot attract the right target audience through google yet.
Second: My job is to log what's going on in people's companies, and I guess that requires some trust. Having one-on-one meetings with the customer, allowing them to test for a few months and gaining their trust.
I think it is a bit difficult to sell on the B2B side.
In order to promote my product, I think I need to find a way to reach my target audience, the Boss, CEO, General Manager, HR and IT managers directly.
Of course, these are my experiences, I could be wrong.
I'm going through the link you sent now, thank you.
That is pretty much expected as you have to first try things that do not scale to find a scalable and repeatable business model.
One thing I am curious to understand is; where does the customer-problem fit lie in your business? In other words, who is your early adopter customer and what is their problem?
Before thinking about SEO or field sales, you may first want to explore the real problem and the customer who has that problem.
MonitUp measures the productivity of full-time, remote, hybrid and remote workers.
My small existing customers; wants to know how their remote teams are spending their days.
My big client is; it wants to measure the productivity of those who work in the office, sometimes from home. I think there are a few problem employees, they're lying and they want to make sure of it.
In fact, it is quite difficult to identify my target audience. My target audience: Companies that spend at least 5 hours a day in front of the PC, where their employees create value in front of the PC, and who want to measure their productivity. However, this is a very broad definition.
I would like to explain with an example: My big client contacted me with a company and reference in the law industry. When they decided to buy it a month later, I thought: So there is a need for such a product in the law industry and I should contact more law firms.
I contacted 20 law firms for about a week and they told me that there is no need for such a product in this sector.
Afterwards, I updated my target audience as follows: A company in any sector that produces value at the PC. I have to reach the CEO, founder, General manager, HR and IT executives who are obsessed with control and security.
That sounds like a good start! Have you also written down your problem hypothesis statement?
This is the first time I've heard of it, I couldn't understand what it was. Could you please explain?
I'm a technical guy :)
Please have a look here: https://www.7-fit-framework.com/problem-hypothesis-statement
You have explained a part of it in your prior response. Now you may need to structure your thoughts into one, solid hypothesis that you can test to prove/disprove or revise.
I wrote one, what do you think?
How efficiently does your company operate in this world of inflation, quiet quitting and remote working? You cannot manage what you cannot measure. We will work together in the future with companies that use their resources with maximum efficiency.
A problem hypothesis statement has a solid template you may use (link in my previous message)
If you need, we may chat. https://app.growthmentor.com/mentors/ilke-karabogali
İlke, thank you. I will work more on it.
Very brave decision, but I love it! Good luck :)
Thanks Viktor, The brave will win :)
Congrats Faruk. I don't have a lot of advice as I'm working on my transition to full time founder, but haven't made the leap. Good luck. No looking back now!
Thank you very much, I closed all the back doors and focused on MonitUp. I have no other way but to succeed :)
Hi, great job! Are you open to selling your Saas? I am interested.
Hi Alex,
I'm glad you like MonitUp.
Why not?
https://www.slotozilla-pl.com/pl/darmowa-kasa