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I've sold my first SaaS project - here are 9 things I've learned from it

I was building EmbedTables.com for almost a year. In the beginning, I was satisfied because it was the first project that made me some money, but later on, I felt burned out. The revenue was stuck around $80 MRR, new users haven't come, I had no idea how to promote it, and most important I didn't want to work on it anymore.

So I decided to sell.

Honestly, I didn't believe that someone gonna buy it but set up a TinyAquire listing. After 3 days I've got some messages, but nothing serious. After one more day I've got an offer! After short negotiations, I sold the project :) Obviously, it wasn't life-changing money, but it gave me lots of motivation to keep going.

I have a habit to write down things I've learned from every experience (personal like school, or relationship and professional like projects and jobs)

Here are the 9 things I've taken from my 1st "more serious" project:

  • Use more tools to build faster - Bulma/Tailwind
  • Think more about marketing/growing from the very beginning
  • Make a pay button from day 1
  • Integrate detailed analytics from day 1
  • Spend less time building a landing page
  • Spend less time building more time for marketing and growth hacks
  • Before building any feature ask “What does it give me?” (more users, retention, better lifetime value, overall satisfaction) What metric should increase?
  • Don’t be scared you charge too much
  • It’d be better if you were passionate about the problem you're solving

Hope it helps someone with your next project!

I'm currently starting a new side-project called tefluo it helps connect tech influencers with software companies and get partnerships easily. Check it out if it sounds interesting to you

Best, Dominik

posted to Icon for group Building in Public
Building in Public
on November 1, 2021
  1. 1

    Congrats on the sale, and best of luck on your new journey!

    Integrate detailed analytics from day 1

    What analytics were you missing on day 1? Anything in particular that made a massive difference after implementing it?

    1. 2

      Thank you very much! In the beginning, I had just Google Analitycs 3 connected to my product. I didn't know what features my users use, how many projects they create, what templates they like the most, etc.

      I believe it'd be better to gather that information earlier to make better decisions. Focus on things that users want and use.

      for eg. My app was integrated with Google Sheets and Airtable. I was spending equal time developing both of them, but after connecting Amplitude Analitycs, I found out that I have 0 users using Airtable and 100% using Google Sheets 😅 thanks to this I spent more time polishing Google Sheets integration

      1. 1

        Thanks for the insights!

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