Would you keep going if only bringing in $50 a month?

I guess it depends. I have a SaaS that plateau-ed at about $500/month for 2 years. It was giving me constant stress and after trying for over a year to grow it into something full time, I wasn't able to.

So I decided to just let it run, make sure backups were working and notify my customers that no more maintenance would be done and it was all "best effort" going forward. It's now been two years and apart from some very minor things, the stress is gone and I'm very happy with that decision. It's still bringing in about $50/month, but I plan to give my 4 remaining customers free access by the end of the year and phase everything out completely by the end of next year (yes, it's a business where you can't just switch suppliers on the spot).

It was a difficult decision, but what helped me in deciding was:

• The subject matter no longer interested me. At all.
• My target customers didn't have a lot of money, so selling to them was really hard for very little return.
• It was clear that growing the business would require some one who enjoyed marketing & sales way more than I did. I tried to outsource this, but I could not make this work.
• Due to the stress involved, I had no energy to try new side projects. The last 2 years, I've done a bit of everything during my spare time and I'm only now at the point where I feel I could spend a year working on just one thing in my free time.
• I tried to sell the business, but nobody was even remotely interested. I feel this is also an important indicator.

Whatever you decide. Good luck!

How much effort did it take to get to $50/month? How many users are paying you?

For instance, did you have to spend a 30min to 1 hour 1on1 session with a customer to convince them to buy?

This matters as it will tell you how difficult it is to scale your business.

Another question to ask yourself is if the money more than cancels out the current operating costs.

Depends. The model is not working right now. The idea may be good or it may not. You cant waste time and resources for that. Send me the website and I will evaluate it on market and what is really going wrong. I will be honest and try not to be harsh. There has to be something there though. wally

It's tough. Like misterdz123 said, I'd be excited if people were paying me money every month for something I built! But I can imagine the feeling of not seeing any growth.

Have you tried the growth strategies that don't scale?

• Talk to your customers and ask how they found you, what they liked about it, to get new ideas about marketing it. Maybe get testimonials and find out what makes it worth the money.
• Find communities related to your topic. Both for keyword ideas, helping others, and mentioning your product.
• If it applies, local events in the real world (whatever that is haha) might even help.

Tough to answer your question without having more info. And a lot of us are struggling to get to the point you're at!

Have you validated any iteration/pivot options? Are your current/potential users available to poll?

yes, I think it'd be awesome if someone were paying me for anything that I build.

what's your site? are your visitors coming back?

Yes. Although my https://mailist.app is not making any money yet (losing some for infra maintenance), users find it so useful I want to keep it. And since I've made it on my own from scratch, I don't want to kill my 👶🏻 project.

So it's a question more about what value for you it brings rather than how much money it makes.

What field/vertical is this in? What tech stack is this built on top of?
How much were you asking for

I would keep it. You never know when the new idea will come. You just have to spend more time in the toilet, bath or your car 😀. This is how it usually works for me. 🤞

I don't know how much experience you have in marketing or what your budget is, but it could be that you just haven't figured out the right marketing strategy yet. How many customers do you have and where did they come from? Can you do more manual outreach to your target customers? It's always a good sign when you can actually get someone to pay for your product. If you want to decide whether or not to continue trying then talk to your current customers and see how much value they're actually getting out of it.

$50 isn't much, but paying customers are paying customers. Like others have said, maybe you've found a niche and could slightly pivot to gain better sales?

What's your product?

What research are you doing around it? How many of your customers have you spoken to 1:1?

Also important to question how this venture makes you feel. Is it something that you absolutely love, bringing positivity into your life? Or is it a ton of work that you dread? This question alone can give you insight into how you should proceed.

Assuming this isn't subscription based - if it were me personally, I'd certainly stop investing more than it's bringing in. If you're only investing the money that you've made then it's breaking even at least. If you then really feel like you've hit a brick wall with it and can't go any further, I'd then just stop investing anything and take the (little) profit it may generate without marketing.

This comment was deleted 6 years ago