I'm a software developer that enjoys and is good at product development and management. I have a Saas that is making $70k / yr. I grew it mostly on the connections I had within the insurance space. Almost everyone I knew that demoed my product is currently using it. I have very low churn so I know it's hitting a need for my clients.
The thing is, marketing is a pain for me and I have tried many times and for long hours to learn it and be good at it. I get stuck, frustrated and start hating the indiehacker life.
I know the Saas sells as almost 40% of all demos lead to a sign up.
I have features requests from clients who would be willing to be upcharged if implemented, but I'm not sure if I should invest in a company that I can grow. Right now it's not paying for the bills I have and I'm getting tempted to pursue lucrative contract work...
I can't afford to pay someone a salary. I have $10k in the business bank account so there isn't much capital there, and I can't seem to keep marketing at a effective rate for more than 2 weeks.
What should I do? What would you do?
Based on what you said, you should either sell it to someone else or pursue contract work and cut back on your Saas hours.
Btw, this is what I did.
This post though. Brings me back to my early days.
To learn marketing, and even worse, to be really good at it is a full time job and so is running a startup. Some founders tend to juggle "both jobs" by barely surviving off of 3 hours of sleep or less for a few years, high levels of daily stress and constant depression until they get funded and are able to delegate tasks by hiring people.
Don't let it get to you @philipimperato . Just try to take the time out every now and then, go for a walk in the park, breathe and think clearly through your steps to better calculate the impact of each planned action.
Keep pushing🚀
@philipimperato, I just sent you an email with some resources by the way.
Find someone that is interested in commission based working
Offer them until end of contract for any client they bring
I've been in the insurance industry over a decade so can share a story that may relate to you.
There was a really smart programmer/consultant who used to work for a vendor of ours. If there was a feature we wanted or a change that needed to be done to the underwriting rules engine (URE), we'd talk to him.
Anyways he went overseas for a few years then came back as the founder of a new URE product (UnderwriteMe) that competed against his previous employer.
His product was way better than the competition but there's no way a life insurer would deal with an early startup, they are too risk adverse. I mean the majority of these life insurers make money on renewal/existing books. They don't make money on new business but the URE is mainly used at new business/application stage.
I'm not privy to details but my gut feel is he got a reinsurer (Pacific Life Re) to own a small stake in the beginning to give him legitimacy.
Once the product took off, Pacific Life Re made his company a wholly owned subsidiary.
So if you haven't looked into yet, partnering up may be worth a look.
Hiring an outsource could take as much time as it will be to start with an Adwords campaign and you may not reach the expected results.
My advice is to experiment a little with text ads in Google Adwords, it's not going to be cheap but have in mind that you need to reach a 1% conversion rate and to do a trial with at least 1000 clicks. There's a reason why I suggested the expensive Adwords while there are plenty of other cheaper alternatives, that's because they have an amazing AI that will find new keywords where your potential clients are and I've usually seen a higher conversion rate.
Reserve up to 10 hours in a month to set up your first campaign, it's doable. The problem that may arise if you won't hit the desired conversion rate, then you'll need to do some changes to the design.
If you really believe in the product and it's profitable, why don't you get a co-founder or partner up with someone with a marketing background?
How could I incentivize someone to hop on board without the ability to pay them?
Why don't you try outsourcing it overseas? You can get a good content writer on Fiverr or Upwork to give you a few articles per month, someone else to create a commercial.... You don't need to put much in to up your marketing if that's all you need.
Also, you can probably get some cash from Clearco or Chisos to start with to fund it that campaign...
Average work produces average results. In business that means failure.
You decide the quality of work you're willing to accept.
We are talking about sales here and not product, you need a good and scalable strategy to build your brand and get eyes on it. In a world where everything is competing for your attention content is king, your product can be the best thing in the world but if you're not selling you're drowning.
Get creative with sales channels, those that do win the game.
This comment was deleted 5 years ago