So, I've launched my product in mid-February.
It was my first product and my first launch so naturally, I've made some mistakes which I'm now aware of. However, these mistakes led to the product lacking any kind of initial momentum.
Then, after over a week of intense advertising, promos, blog posts, and only lower tens of landing page views, I was determined to give up on the product. I knew good marketing requires time, but with my chance for initial momentum wasted, and so much advertising resulting in nothing, I was really let down.
However, right at the decisive moment, I checked my Gumroad dashboard - I had my first subscriber! The sudden feeling of joy gave me the hope I needed to carry on with my project.
And that's how we get to today when after almost 2 months, I'm still at only 1 paying subscriber (only $2.40/month) and about 70 free users. All that with a whole lot of advertising in my blog posts, on socials, and with promos and feature updates.
Overall, I once again feel like I felt the week after launch. The project is currently losing ~$150 yearly, so not a whole lot, but far from anything good. Also, I've already identified the marketing and launch flaws, and have ideas for the next projects.
I really don't want to give up on this project but with a net loss, no visible uplift after all these 2 months, and a depressing feeling I get every time looking at the stats (which I sadly keep doing very often), I don't see any other solution other than hitting the brakes or giving up entirely. Ideally, it would become a definite "side-project", with me having a lighter attitude towards it and possibly even reducing the costs to $0, but I don't see a clear path to do so right now.
With all that, I wanted to ask what's your experience with such situations? How do you know when it's time to give up and move to the next project? Was your project successful from the very start, after some time, or was it your second, third, or even later attempt? If you have any, how do you treat your unsuccessful projects?
I'm very curious to learn about your experience to help me make my upcoming hard decision.
I won't prescribe to you what to do. I'll tell you what I did.
Here is where I quit: Cofounder and I got a working prototype. I'd call it an MVP.
Myself and cofounder were first 2 users. We used it for 3 months, and talked to 100 users. We met every week to discuss what's going on between dev and sales.
After talking to 100 people, 60 signed up, 1 used it. Me. yes after 3 months we had 1 user and it was a cofounder.
We also looked at our revenue: $225. Because we were charge percent of transactions there was no monthly subscribers. I did the math and at current user rate we'd make about $2k in a year. And literally had no hope that any other users would generate transactions.
We talked to users. We collected the data on what they wanted. We knew that we'd need to completely iterate the product as well as the business model.
It was mostly devastating because it worked. what we made was exactly what we wanted to make. It worked and it failed.
Quite a sad story.
I can somewhat relate. The product I created specifically focused on solving a problem I had, one that I thought was more widespread.
Either I was completely wrong, or I made too many mistakes and underestimated the power of marketing.
Thankfully my only paid subscriber is not me, but it's only $2.40/month, so yeah...
Good that you had a beta period, right now I deeply regret not having one. Not necessarily for improving the product, but building an initial, active audience.
Have you talked to the 70 free users and tried to find out what features/support would need to be required before they would consider paying?
I made a mistake by focusing too much on the privacy aspect of my product (which doesn't seem to make a difference anyway), which resulted in me having no contact data for any of my free users. The only way for me to contact them is through in-product announcements or chats, which is less than ideal. I'm considering changing it, even moving to a paid-only free trial model, but I don't want to appear too fickle.
Sometimes, I feel the same with my product, but then I think "It is harder to get a girlfriend than having a successful Saas" and I just keep going forward. 70 users sounds great from my point of view. Saas comapanies take time, maybe 1 year or 2 years or maybe more. The important thing is having fun and improve your product with feedback.
Yeah, but how do you know whether you're not missing out on something better? I have some ideas for other projects, but I'm still invested in this one, which keeps me from moving forward right now.
Leaving profits on the side, I'd love to continue working on this project, only if I had some more user feedback. Pretty much all my free users are silent, and the way I structured the product prevents me from contacting them directly.
Only the paid one reached out to me to fix his issue, and once I did, he had really nice things to say about the product. It was a great experience, however just a one-off.
In my case, I have been working on my project for almost 4 years. I started when I was 27 (now I am 31 XD). I left my work and my girlfriend to start a company. At that time, I envision a price comparison Saas. However, after 1 year with 0 income I said to myself I am doing something wrong. My error was related to the marketing side. Another mistake that I did was that the product was too complex. So I said myself, I need a simple product with a good marketing strategy. So, my price comparison engine evolved into a fuzzy match engine. Then, again I spent 1 year. I talked to a company and they said my product was horrible, because it requires manual work. So, again I said, I need an extremly simple product (not just simple, it has to be extreme simple). So I created another product, but again no one wanted to register in my application. Why? Because my product was horizontal and not vertical. So, I changed my product to a vertical Saas. This time, I am getting better feedback. So, now, things are better than my first Saas. But the idea is the same. All the projects are related. My point is, learn from your errors, see your weak points and change them. Don't be afraid of changing the core business of your saas, why are you don't getting users? It is because the product is not essential? or what is the reason. Is it marketing? You are the only one who knows the answer. Again, I think your are doing ok. This is a long journey. I don't regret. There is one person that is paying you, we are 7 billion people in the world, for sure you can get more people. At least, you are prooving your idea can make money. I don't know what else to say hahaha.
Thanks for sharing your story. I think after all the suggestions, I'll make my last stand by trying to connect more with my users.
Your mention of the 4 year time period, made me think I shouldn't push too hard on a 2-month-old project.
You’ve got 70 free and 1 paying user in 2 months for a side project SaaS? That sounds great! Good things take time, and SaaS projects in particular.
What I’d try to do before quitting:
Talk to your power users. Find out what they like and double down on that. That includes your paid user and the most active free users. If they say they chose you because of a particular feature, make that your USP. Double down on what’s been working.
Think about how you can fix the mistakes you made. I doubt they are unfixable.
Take out some of the pressure you put on yourself. It’s supposed to be fun, not be depressing. :)
Charge more. Pricing changes how customers perceive your product.
Also check out https://www.bannerbear.com/journey-to-10k-mrr/. Took @yongfook quite a while, too.
Thanks for the advice.
Sadly, I don't have a way to reach my customers, because of the privacy focus of my product. Now I consider this a mistake, as it didn't drive more customers and limited my reach.
I'm thinking about ways to change it. Either requiring sign-in or moving completely to a paid-only free trial model.
Changing pricing is something I can try. I originally started at a higher price but lowered it sometime after launch. It did result in the only paid customer I have, but nothing more, so it might be worth going back.
As for pressure, I really don't want it to be too depressing, but I don't know how to make it so, except either quitting or turning it around.
Here you've already got what you need to change. :)
To run a product, you need at least some data about your users. You don't need to be the next Facebook that's collecting tons of data but you need at least some.
Worst case scenario for that change: You lose 50% of your users because you switch to a less privacy-focused model but gain so much customer insight that you are able to make them (and more) back in no time. I don't see any downside to trying. :)
Running a blogging tool without sign-in seems dangerous to me. When people post copyrighted material, you don't want to be held responsible for that yourself. Collect some data about your users.
Talking to users should probably have priority over pricing changes at the moment. :)
I believe in you. You can do that!
I second everything in this comment. Definitely don't give up with 70 users. Find out what they like, what they don't like, and what other features might give them even more value.