Went from $0 to $1k MRR. If I started my SaaS over, here’s exactly what I’d do
After going from $0 to $1K MRR, I've learned that what you focus on matters, but the ORDER you focus on it matters even more.
Here are the 7 steps, in the exact sequence I'd follow if I started over:
1) Solve a recurring painpoint
This is non-negotiable. If your tool solves a one-time problem, you'll need new customers forever just to stay flat.
The best SaaS products solve problems that come back every week.
Recurring pain = recurring revenue.
If your users can't explain why they're paying in one sentence, you're building a nice-to-have.
2) Validate your distribution before you build
Most founders build first, then figure out how to reach people. That's backwards.
Before writing code, make sure you can actually reach your target audience.
Can you find them?
Can you start conversations with them?
Do they want your offer?
If you can’t get people to signup to your waitlist, you won’t be able to get people to sign up when you launch your MVP.
3) Launch your MVP fast, but don't treat onboarding as an afterthought
Speed matters. Get something in front of real users as fast as possible.
But here's what most founders skip: if your user has to figure out how to get value on their own, they won't. And getting value fast is the whole point of an MVP.
Here’s what I did to get users to activate: instead of having the user to fill everything on their own, they just enter their product URL and I use AI to pre-fill everything they need to get started.
I also set up email notifications that pull users back into the app when something happens.
Because the truth is: most people will never open your app again unless you give them a reason to come back.
4) Talk to users 1:1 and collect feedback constantly
Not surveys. Not analytics. Real conversations.
Ask people why they signed up, what confused them, what they expected. Ask people who canceled why they left.
Every conversation sharpens your product, positioning, and messaging in ways no dashboard ever will.
5) Fix churn before scaling acquisition
Churn is the silent killer. If users leave as fast as you bring them in, more marketing just means more waste.
The #1 way to reduce churn: make your tool more valuable and get users to experience that value as fast as possible. Churn is your most important metric.
6) Find the bottlenecks in your funnel
Once churn is under control, map out where you're losing people:
visitors → signup
signup → trial
trial → paid
paid → retained
Don't try to fix everything at once. Find the biggest drop-off and fix that first. Then move to the next one.
You don't need world-class metrics at every stage, you just need to get to average for a pre-PMF SaaS tools like yours.
7) Stack marketing channels, but systematize what already works first
In the beginning start with one marketing channel. Only once your funnel is healthy should you stack more.
And don't abandon what's already working. Build a repeatable daily system around it so it keeps running while you layer on the next thing.
New channels on top of a broken funnel = wasted effort.
New channels on top of a working funnel = compounding growth.
This is the exact sequence I followed. Every step builds on the one before it. Skip a step and the ones after it break.
If you want to see proof and the actual timeline of $0 to $1k MRR, you can see it here.
Happy to answer any questions or go deeper on any of these!
What is your approach regarding churn at the moment?
Cheers!
This is a really clear breakdown of the order things need to happen in.
I'm currently in the early promotion phase with Franklin Prompt Studio and one thing that's surprised me is how much harder distribution is than building the product itself.
Building felt structured and solvable. Marketing feels much more ambiguous.
Curious — when you were at the $0 → $1k stage, which channel actually produced your first paying users?
Cold DMs on Reddit and X
Great breakdown. One thing I'd add about churn: before optimizing onboarding or product, check how much of your churn is actually involuntary, failed payments from expired cards, insufficient funds, etc. It's usually 20-40% of total churn and it's the easiest type to fix.
Most founders assume all churn is product-related when a big chunk is just payment mechanics. Quick check: Stripe dashboard > Payments > Failed.
Point 7 is where most founders stall not because they don’t know what’s working, but because they never systematize it. Podcast episodes are one of the most underused assets in a SaaS founder’s funnel. One episode can become LinkedIn posts, newsletter sections, and threads that keep working long after the recording drops. The founders hitting compounding growth are treating their podcast like a content engine, not just an audio file.
Yeah once you reach step 7 it's all about building systems
As a Founder who is Indiehacking two products solo, your advice is outstanding and pure gold. I have come to find that using UTM tracking in the early stage is the best thing one can do as it helps you know where users are coming from and which campaign is working effectivly.
Thanks for this masterpiece.
Glad it was helpful man
Love the hindsight perspective — $1k MRR is a real milestone. The "what I'd do differently" framing is always more valuable than the success story itself. For TubeSpark, my biggest "do differently" would be launching pricing validation earlier — I spent too long building before testing willingness to pay. What was the single change that had the biggest impact on getting to $1k?
Requiring a credit card to start a free trial
step 5 is the one that hits hardest for me. so many founders rush to turn on paid channels the moment they have something live, but if your retention is leaky the math just never works out, you end up paying to fill a bucket with holes in it. i think the real unlock is when you get retention solid enough that you can confidently say ok now every dollar i spend on acquisition actually compounds instead of evaporating. cold DMs on reddit and X is a great starting point too since the feedback loop is so fast. did you experiment with any paid acquisition at all during this stretch or was it purely organic/manual outreach?
I did some Google Ads, and the ROAS was not there, but now that my funnel is way better will try experimenting again
This is such a valuable breakdown! I love seeing real-world SaaS experiences like yours — going from $0 to $1k MRR is no small feat, and sharing exactly what you’d do differently is incredibly helpful for anyone starting out. It’s so true that early decisions around product, marketing, and customer feedback can make a huge difference. I often read startup and business growth advice online , and posts like this give practical, actionable insights. use it in my site
Happy to hear this was valuable!
This was extremely helpful, Filip. One question regarding the 7th point: how do you figure out if a funnel is healthy?
You need to have average conversions for each step in the funnel:
visitors → signup
signup → trial
trial → paid
paid → retained
The average depends on what type of SaaS and your stage. You can just ask any AI to give you the average benchmarks. For example in my case I was looking at benchmarks for early-stage pre-PMF B2B SaaS, with standard plan of $39 and where the trial requires a credit card
The point about fixing churn before scaling acquisition really stood out to me.
I’ve seen a lot of early SaaS founders focus heavily on getting more signups, but if users aren’t reaching value quickly, the funnel leaks no matter how much traffic you send.
Curious—when you were around the $500–$1K MRR stage, what helped you reduce churn the most? Was it product improvements, onboarding changes, or just better targeting?
It was improving my core offer which made the tool more valuable, and adding email sequence which explains to users how to get the most value out of the tool the quickest, so they activate faster
$0 to $1k MRR is underrated as a milestone — it's the proof that at least one person outside your circle thinks this is worth paying for. The "if I started over" angle is usually where the real insight lives. Which of those steps do you think most founders skip because they seem obvious in hindsight?
I think step 1 and 2 is where most founders go wrong and it's the reason why their product never makes money
step 6 is very interesting, I'm currently starting a venture and and I'm already thinking about churn currently just getting started and I've identified a few design partners, do you think its good to think about what could wrong at this point or wait it out?
Content marketing is also one of the best hidden strategy start ups don’t talk about enough
It's better to ship "good-enough" and see what the data says. It will reveal where your bottleneck is so you know exactly what to fix without overengineering.
Your MVP should include solid onboarding and activation though. If it doesn't that's where your first bottleneck will be
step 2 is the one most people read and agree with but still skip — it feels safer to build because you can make progress every day. validating distribution means sitting with uncertainty and that's uncomfortable. currently living this with my own launch, trying to build the audience before the app is live rather than hoping the app builds the audience for me
I know, I struggled with this for too long too. But once the pain of not making money is greater than the pleasure of building, you'll get over the uncomfortable
This looks like solid advice.
How did you decide to build this product in particular, and how many users did you talk to before starting to build?
There were already some new products in this space, the product checked step 1, and I knew I can compete with the existing products.
I built a waitlist and started sending cold DMs and posting to see if I can validate my distribution channel. Got 30 signups before deciding to build the MVP
Congrats on hitting $1K MRR! One thing worth checking at this stage - make sure your Stripe billing setup is tight. A lot of early-stage SaaS founders set up coupons and pricing tiers and forget about them. By the time you hit $5-10K MRR, these small leaks compound into real money.
Thanks for the tip, I think it's all good on my side
Interesting, Never looked at slack for marketing before. Did you have to join certain groups and earn some trust in the channel?
Wrong post buddy
I still couldn't figure out how it works. Or haven't you launched it in production yet? All URLs in the Platform section show the same screen =(
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