Is it a bad idea to write a tech book while working on my SaaS?

I feel like I'm doing this with my hackathon project and documenting it as I go.

If the topic of your book is related to the SaaS it might end up being beneficial, as you put real actionable items in the book.

As Patric said, it can also help to have something else work on when you hit a road block. You can still feel productive doing another task, instead of sitting staring at a screen looking for inspiration.

If you're ok with having two project simultaniously go for it.

I find it refreshing to be able to switch tasks if I feel no more motivation for the one thing. Obviously it takes twice as long.

In your case I agree with MacTheLad to make use of it publishing parts in public right away will give you lots of benefits

• early content marketing for the SaaS
• early feedback on both the SaaS and the book
• building an audience for both pre-launch

Just make sure you're honest with yourself and make progress not be trapped by procrastination

Patric

If you have the time and are prepared for things to take longer to get to launch, then yes - do it. You may find that the book becomes a good piece of content marketing for your SAAS app and may open other doors, too.

How about just taking notes while you builiding the product instead and not worry about creating a finished product of a publishable book, finish the product and then go back to your notes and focus on writing a good book.

You will also have more context by knowing how it all turned out and you can write a better book because you have the whole picture already, using your notes to fill in the details.

So sure, do both but focus on delivering one thing at a time.

I think you've already answered your own question.

"Main goal: launch my SaaS."

Anything else taking time away from this goal is a waste of time. The most important thing you can do is to put your SaaS asap on the hands of users/customers.

If I understood correctly you want to document what you're doing. Probably to make it easy for others to understand later down the road. If this is what you're thinking, go ahead and launch your product.

Some thoughts why it's not a good idea to document anything now:

1. Get the next developer to write that book for you if it really is important.
2. Most likely big parts of your product will be rewritten so your documentation will be outdated.
3. If you can't manage to put your product out there for whatever reason, your documentation will be worthless.

That's my opinion. I hope it helps.

No, it may be a waste of your time. I think it may have value once you have some paying clients and is trending.

If the book is remotely related to the SaaS, try to tie the two together. So then think of the book as promotional material and vice versa. :)

I'd choose one thing only to focus on unless you're good at switching context often.

Maybe try to spend 15-20 minutes a day (in a fixed timeslot, to get it into a habit) saving the outlines and audio notes for later processing?

What's the goal of the book? (selling it outright or content marketing?)

I'm currently writing a technical training book is meant to be used with a web app / SaaS platform and my experience thus far is that it has been challenging to make meaningful simultaneous progress on both fronts.