My wife thinks I'm wasting my time building a SaaS. She might be right.
Every night it's the same. Home from work, eat dinner, disappear to my laptop. My wife just looks at me and shakes her head.
She's not wrong to question it. I've got a stable 9-5 and a side hustle that already pays well. Why risk the stress?
Because I found a problem I can't stop thinking about. Indie SaaS founders are losing paying customers to churn, and the tools that claim to help charge £300-500/month — whether they save you a single customer or not. That pricing model is broken.
So I'm building something that only charges when it actually works. No results, no fee. I'm not a developer — just a guy with a business degree and no-code tools trying to make it happen in the hours between dinner and sleep.
Some nights I make real progress. Other nights I stare at my screen wondering if my wife is right.
But I'd rather try and fail than spend the rest of my life wondering "what if."
Anyone else here building something while the people around you think you've lost the plot?
Been there. The look from people when you say you're "working on something" instead of watching TV or just relaxing. It gets old.
What I've learned is that showing beats explaining. Nobody cares about your startup until you show them actual money, even if it's tiny. A £10 payment notification feels silly but it changes the conversation.
The performance-based pricing is smart. Most churn tools feel like they're designed to protect the vendor, not prove value. If you can make the "this worked" moment undeniable, you've got something.
One thing though: set a deadline for yourself. Not for launching (launch early), but for deciding if this specific idea is worth continuing. The danger isn't failing, it's building something mediocre for years because you're emotionally attached. Give yourself six months to hit a real milestone. If it's not working, pivot. That way you're being responsible, not reckless.
Really appreciate this. The "showing beats explaining" point hits home - that's exactly why I went with performance-based pricing. If I can't prove it works, I don't deserve to charge for it.
The deadline advice is solid too. I'm giving myself 6 months to get 10 paying customers. If I can't do that, I'll know it's time to rethink.
How's your SaaS journey going?
The performance-based pricing model you're describing is the hardest type of SaaS to execute, but also the most defensible if you can make it work.
Here's why it's hard: you're not just building a tool, you're building attribution infrastructure. To charge only when it works, you need to definitively prove causation — that your intervention is what saved the customer. Churn is messy. Was it your email sequence that stopped them from canceling, or did they just change their mind? Did your feature prompt work, or were they already going to upgrade?
The SaaS companies that charge £300-500/month regardless of results aren't doing it because they're greedy. They're doing it because proving ROI at the individual customer level is genuinely difficult. They shift that measurement burden to you.
But if you can crack the attribution problem, you've built something remarkable. Because the moment you can say "we saved you Customer X, here's the receipt," you're no longer selling software — you're selling saved revenue. And saved revenue is infinitely easier to justify than "access to a dashboard."
The question that will determine whether this works: can you define "it works" precisely enough that both you and your customer agree on what counts as a save? If you can nail that definition early, everything else gets easier.
Agreed - it's definitely harder to execute. But I'd rather build something where customers genuinely win than charge monthly for a tool they're not sure is working. What are you building?
The fact that you're questioning it means you're being honest with yourself, which is more than most founders do.
One thing that helped me reframe this: stop measuring progress by revenue alone in the early days. Measure by learning velocity — are you understanding your users better each week? Are you getting closer to the problem?
The founders who waste time are the ones who build in isolation for months without talking to users. If you're iterating based on real feedback, you're not wasting time — you're investing it.
Also, having a skeptical partner is actually a superpower. They force you to justify every decision, which makes you a sharper thinker. Use that friction productively.
The "learning velocity" framing is exactly what I needed to hear. I've been so focused on getting to revenue that I forgot the early days are about learning what actually works.
Good news is I'm actively looking for beta users right now instead of building in isolation. Already having real conversations with SaaS founders about their churn problems and learning a ton.
And you're right about the skeptical partner - every time I have to explain why this matters, it forces me to sharpen my pitch. Annoying but useful!
What's your story? Are you building something too?
The "pay only when it works" model is brilliant. Most SaaS founders get this backwards — they charge for access to the tool, not for the outcome.
Your wife will come around. Mine thought I was crazy too, building an AI secretary after forgetting her mom's birthday. Then she saw the first paying customer notification at 11pm on a Tuesday.
The look changes from "you're wasting time" to "okay, maybe you know what you're doing."
The dinner-to-laptop grind is real. But there's something about building your own thing that a 9-5 can never replace. Keep going.
Ha! The birthday story is brilliant. That's exactly the kind of thing that happens when your brain is half in startup mode 24/7.
Waiting for that first paying customer notification moment. I think that's when it becomes real for everyone around you - not just you.
An AI secretary sounds like a great idea though. How's that going? Got any paying customers yet?
yeah been there. my girlfriend gave me that same look for a solid six months while i was building stuff after work every night. the thing that helped was when i stopped talking about the product and started showing her the actual numbers, even when they were tiny. like "hey, someone paid me 9 quid for this thing i built" hits different than "i'm working on my startup."
the pay-only-when-it-works model is a genuinely smart angle btw. churn tools that charge regardless of results always felt backwards to me. if you can nail that, it's a real differentiator.
keep going. the people who think you've lost the plot usually come around once something clicks.