SaaS already making 400 usd in MRR, but stuck there.
Hello Indie Hackers fellaws,
I am not the kind of people who use to write a lot online, but I wanted to try getting involved in Indie hackers since it is a one kind community!
I have a SaaS that I have been working for about 8 months and it is already making 400 USD MRR for the last 4 months, although I have not been able to make it grow any more, I am an one man company.
These are the main characteristics of my SaaS:
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B2B model.
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I am giving 7 days trial, not credit card required.
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I am just asking for company name, email and phone on the registration form and then redirecting to the system.
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I have 3 different plans : 30 USD , 60 USD AND 80 USD, about 60% of my clients pay the 80 USD one and 30% of the pay the 60 USD , only 10% paying the lowest one.
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Main source of traffic is organically through youtube and Instagram, I've done some paid campains but not working as I thought.
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I have setup in mail chimps automatic emails to be sent everyday after the sign up process with documentation and videos about how to use the software.
I have received plenty new register but not many are converting to paying customers.
In the social networks of the company I am trying to show that we are a medium-size company and not a one person one, should I just show clearly that this is a one person project to add more history to the product?, I am not sure if this background would create fear in current and future clients.
What would you do to improve the conversion process?
Thanks a lot for your valuable time and feedback
Hey there,
That's a great MRR for being a solo founder and only 8 months in. It took me a lot longer to get there myself.
I'd recommend really spending two or three days looking into your paying customers and figuring out who they are. What industry are they in? Who are their customers? Are they primary small businesses? Medium? Who signed up the business, the CEO or the head of a certain department? What's their budget for your type of tool/service? Where are they located? Which of your features are the most important to them? Figure out as much of that kind of data as you can for all of your customers, then read through it all and try to see a pattern. You might find, for example, that 80% of your highest paying customers are small businesses of 2-3 people, who are looking for a tool under $99/month, and are generally in urban areas.
Ok, now that you have a good idea who your customers are, figure out how those customers found you. What do they search for? Were they referred by someone? Did they find you on social media? Did they sign up from a certain landing page? Are they clicking your emails?
Now that you know all that, you're not shooting in the dark, hoping that whatever you do will bring you more customers. You'll know exactly who to target and how.
Hope that helps! I'd love to hear what your business is.
Hi Yousufj,
Thanks a lot for your kind feedback, it is very inspiring, I am a software developer and this is the first time I am making a SaaS that I own since in all my previous years I have just been working as a developer for other companies, I was not sure if 400 USD MRR was a good amount considering the months I have been working in the project.
It makes a lot of sense to make this pattern you mention, I will dig into it.
Do you guys use some special tracking took such as Mixpannel to keep a record of the clients behaviour and be able to understand them better?
My business is a SaaS aimed for shipping companies to manage and track their clients, orders, and shippers.
Thanks
Oh, to answer your question about analytics. I use Heap, which I highly recommend, but I'm sure Mixpanel and all the competition would work just fine as well.
But you mostly use user tracking behavior to understand how to improve your product. Not to better understand customers needs, or improve your positioning, or define your customer personas. For that, I think you'd need a survey tool.
You're welcome! Share a link to your site, sounds interesting.
Hey, it looks like the primary thing you should look at is your main funnel, something like: visitor > user (registered) > activated user > paying user > ... > customer (paying user that committed N consecutive payments.
Specifically, we're talking about Activation. As a metric, this can be defined as committing a certain action or batch of actions that would aggregatively indicate that a user has been through your core product experience. Checking the quality of traffic against Activation is more practical than against Payment (payment cycle is usually longer than activation cycle, etc.)
Say, you have a stable flow of traffic to your website, that does not convert to paying users well. Okay. How do they convert to Activation? Do they get beyond the point of using your product's core functionality? This will help answer the question of whether the traffic that registers with your product sees its true value in action.
I am excited to read all your feedback, it has been quite inspiring for me.
I have taken your advice and I am making more videos and sharing them on youtube, besides I scheduling video calls with prospects to hear their needs.
Currently, I am using these marketing tools:
Pipedrive. (CRM)
Mailchimp
Google Analytics.
Tawk.to (Chat Client)
Calendly ( Schedule video calls)
I would like to know what tools you use in your SaaS, and what do you think about the ones I am using right now.
Greetings
Congratulations on your MRR, as other said $400MMR after 8 months is a great start.
Also its great you have a steady stream of new registrations as this means your marketing / landing page is working and solves a pain point, only your solution is probably not clear enough or your new users don't get to the point they see the value.
I got to this point myself and for me adding an in-app chat worked wonders, you want to make it very easy for your new users to reach out and talk to you. When you have a chat button in your app you make this very easy. Not everyone will reach out but the people that do will have a burning problem they like to solve. Talk to them, setup screen shares with them. Not only to help them work with your tool but mainly to understand their problems and background better.
This will give you more information on what it is your users are looking for and what they are running into in their onboarding. Use this information to 1) create an onboarding experience that provides the 'aha moment' as quick as possible and 2) create an help center to answer the most common questions. Instead of answering questions for a single user, write an help center article and direct the user to this article. This will not only help this users but also future users that have the same issue. Before you know it you'll see people find the answers themself.
I have been using intercom myself for this, there are a couple of alternatives you can look into.
Good luck!
What did you do to get the paying customers? Try and do more of that. Reach out to those that are not converting and find out why they are not converting. Is your app/site asking them to pay or are you hoping that they will find the payments page themselves? Congrats and best of luck.
Hi Segmond,
I think that most of my clients came from video tutorials I make in my youtube channel, and then I talk to them through WhatsApp and they kind of feel a direct connection with me.
For now it is a website, not App just yet, the platform blocks the access and ask them to put their credit card and select a plan once the trial period has ended.
Thanks for the feedback.
Well, looks like you need to figure out how to get more people to look at your video tutorials. Sounds like the more that see it, the more will end up buying your product.
Hello everyone.
I am excited to read all your feedback, it has been quite inspiring for me.
I have taken your advice and I am making more videos and sharing them on youtube, besides I scheduling video calls with prospects to hear their needs.
Currently, I am using these marketing tools:
Pipedrive. (CRM)
Mailchimp
Google Analytics.
Tawk.to (Chat Client)
Calendly ( Schedule video calls)
I would like to know what tools you use in your SaaS, and what do you think about the ones I am using right now.
Greetings
Hello everyone.
I am excited to read all your feedback, it has been quite inspiring for me.
I have taken your advice and I am making more videos and sharing them on youtube, besides I scheduling video calls with prospects to hear their needs.
Currently, I am using these marketing tools:
I would like to know what tools you use in your SaaS, and what do you think about the ones I am using right now.
Greetings
Hey there, I'd love to help, but to give more actionnable feedback Id love to know more about your service. Could we schedule some time to chat maybe?
have you talked to your existing customers and asked what them for feedback?
I have talked with some of them , how would you systematically talk to them?, maybe a survey?, or a video call?
YES. of course. anything less would be a lost opportunity.