My little SaaS made $50,313 in 11 months
Been a wild journey! Here's some of it (in a brain-dump format):
Went from idea to MVP in a few days.
Saw that it has potential. Kept adding features.
Maybe too many features.
Tried subscriptions and failed.
Switched to one-time payments and made $2k in a day (best day so far) 🤯
Hired a contractor to help with the BE.
Hired a FT junior developer to take on (some of) the FE.
Hired a designer to help with... well, designing. Pretty things sell more.
Tried social media. Twitter works. YouTube works. LinkedIn works.
They all work if you get in front of the right audience.
But you know what's the best? Email.
So I built a 35k email list. (I should do a better job at providing more value through it tho' 🤔)
Also, sales work. Big time! People like to buy discounted stuff.
I might have overused this. Still testing it.
Offering PPP is also great. Do that!
You know what's another great thing? Collaborating with others.
About 20% of our user base came from one influencer making a few videos.
That's crazy! I should double down on that, right? 🤔
Oh, and last but not least. Tiers.
We have 3 tiers. $49, $99, $299.
The middle one sells the most.
The top one makes 30% of our revenue.
Ok. I think that's it.
If you have any other questions, LMK. Cheers! 🥂
LE: Here's the project if you wanna try it: https://iCodeThis.com
Hi Florin, congrats on your achievement and thanks for sharing.
Were you charging in your MVP phasee or did you start with a free tier? Or in other words how do you evaluate if people will pay for it when the product is immature?
The goal was to monetize asap but I spent a bit too much time on the free tier (launched in Dec 2022, and monetized in Mar 2023).
I don't know why but time just flew by. 😅
I Like the experience of the app , good work
Means a lot! Thank you!
Cool business and platform. Are the challenges designed for front-end only?
Thank you for the kind words!
Yes, at the moment. We'll planning to expand later this year.
Your variety is evident in everything you do, from quickly creating an MVP to figuring out different tactics. Great work!
Thank you @premsaini! Doing my best (still lots to learn)
looks like such a cool project. how much revenue did you make prior to hiring?
I started right away hiring the BE developer (no revenue yet), and 7 months in I hired the FE dev (was at about 20k I think)
Awesome work, Florin.👏
Thank you, Emmanuel!
Nice. I wish that someday my side project could be like that!
Just keep going and experimenting and it will! Wishing you the best!
Congratulations on your journey! It sounds like you've made tremendous progress and learned a lot along the way. One thing to be cautious about with relying solely on one-time payments is the lack of predictability in recurring income. While it's fantastic that you made $2k in a day, ensuring a steady stream of revenue is crucial for sustainable growth. Perhaps exploring a hybrid model with both one-time payments and subscriptions could provide a balance between immediate income and long-term stability. Keep up the great work and wishing you continued success! 🚀👍
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out a hybrid model somehow. Might go with monthly mentorship or something like that.
Thank you for the reply and the kind words!
Man that's incredibly awesome!! Well done
Appreciate it! 🙏
Awesome, well done
Thanks buddy! 🙏
Love to see it! How did you build that email list?
From the people who sign up on the platform
Sorry, you got 35,000 people to sign up for your list? wow, that deserves more attention if so.
Well, I had an audience on Twitter and YouTube but yeah. 😄 thanks
Yeah that helps I now see that. congrats brother! I am about 2 months from launching. I appreciate the simple straight forward post. Additionally the design of your website. I really like the button "start coding"
Wishing you the best of luck!
Nice! Cool project Florin.
Glad you like it!
I have always been inspired by iCodeThis.
Well done Florin
Wishing you the best
Thank you Arkim! I'm wishing you the same!
Thanks for sharing Florin, great journey
Love how you where not afraid to change the pricing along the way.
How did you find the influencers and what is your payment model?
I noticed they ask at least for 500$+ and I have no idea how well they would perform.
Congratulations! :)
Nice. What do your margins look like?
About 30% atm
Great idea!
I am exploring building out a software development course that is very heavy on building projects rather than watching videos. This is right down that same path.
When doing your collabs with influencers, do you offer them affiliate money?
Yes. We have a system that tracks how many people join the platform through their link and we pay a % whenever someone becomes a pro member.