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11k MRR and 600 customers!

Software Ideas hit $11k MRR and over 600 active customers!

It's crazy to think that I started this project less than six months ago. I hope the progress of this project shows people that you're closer than you think to hitting your goal - whether that's ramen profitability, $10k MRR, or beyond!

As Software Ideas has grown past the $10k mark, it's become more and more important that growth is coming from scalable channels. As such, a large part of what I'm working on now is in building these scalable channels. Specifically, I'm working on:

  • SEO and organic search rankings
  • PPC optimization
  • Referral and Affiliate programs

These four channels are hopefully the next step in Software Ideas' growth that will take it to the next level!

  1. 3

    $11k after 6 months is insane growth - congrats! I find it crazy that people are paying for SaaS ideas, but after checking out your website, you have some really compelling copy. Well done!

    • How did you find your first 10 customers?
    • What has been the hardest part of running SoftwareIdeas?
    • What are your most successful marketing channels?

    Really great work Kevin!

    1. 4

      Thank you!

      I find it crazy that people are paying for SaaS ideas, but after checking out your website, you have some really compelling copy.

      Thanks! The key is that it isn't just some random list of Software Ideas - they are ideas backed by a framework and rigorous market research. I consider Software Ideas a market research company, moreso than an 'idea' company.

      How did you find your first 10 customers?

      Pre-sales! I talk about it in-depth here, and I share the actual conversations I had with those first customers!

      What has been the hardest part of running Software Ideas?

      Since there's so much research that goes into each issue (~20+ hours), it's been difficult to build a buffer while I'm still working a day-job. Learning to optimize my writing process while still keeping the quality high has been extremely important.

      What are your most successful marketing channels?

      Originally, my best two channels were Twitter and Indie Hackers. After the first ~3-4k, I would add podcast interviews and organic search to that list. And now, I'm hoping that SEO, PPC, affiliate and referral will top all of those combined!

      1. 2

        Fascinating - thank you so much for the reply!

  2. 2

    Hi Kevin. Do you have something like showcase of successful implementation of your ideas by your followers ?

    1. 3

      Looking to have this shortly on a more official level! There's a bunch of people doing cool things with the ideas so far, and these are just the ones when a reader reaches out to me and lets me know that they took an idea:

      • Chris Davies built Rentify.store, which is currently doing a deal on AppSumo.

      • Will Ronco is working on a FullStory competitor called VexMap, focusing on exposing UX errors just like other applications expose code errors

      • Jozef Morvay built a decentralized idea platform called Crowdea, and I believe is looking for a second project now

      • While the idea didn't come from the newsletter, one reader recently sold his project that happened to launch the same week I wrote about the opportunity!

      Tons of projects still in the incubation phase as well... founders who reached out to me and let me know they were chasing an idea, but haven't gotten to the point that they are sharing publicly yet!

  3. 1

    Hey Kevin! I'm loving the newsletter so far. Do you think that eventually you'll have a Facebook or a Discord group for members?

    1. 1

      Hey, thanks a ton Sean! Yes, I plan to have a full-fledged community eventually which will be included in the subscription. However, this is a while out as I'm still working on The Foundation (first video comes out today actually!).

      I'm currently considering a short-term option of having a private subreddit, which would allow for some discussion around the newsletter, allow people to find co-founders for ideas, and perhaps do some other fun stuff without actually needing to wait as long for me to design the eventual community I'm imagining.

      Stay tuned on this one, it's definitely the #1 request coming from members right now!

  4. 1

    Very impressive Kevin!

    Well done.
    John

  5. 1

    Eek, looks like your growth peaked. Now what?

    1. 1

      I think it's just a post-Black Friday and holiday dip. That spike you see in the chart is from two days of record-breaking sales due to a black Friday deal, so if you cut that away you'll see growth is still relatively steady!

  6. 1

    Kevin this is awesome and it’s something we are actively working towards as we develop our platforms. Would love to learn more about your journey getting to the $11k MRR mark.

    My platform is a two sided customer discovery marketplace dedicated to helping founders build products that people love and connecting them to the people that want them

  7. 1

    This is stunning. Incredible results, keep it up!

    1. 1

      Thank you very much!

  8. 1

    Congrats Kevin.
    Speaking of the scalable channels. Which keywords you are trying to compete in organic and paid searchers? Do you mind sharing?
    Also, how do you track down the conversions from the search? Google Analytics and Console stack is sufficient or you are using some other tech stack?

    1. 1

      Hey Alex, thanks again!

      Which keywords you are trying to compete in organic and paid searchers? Do you mind sharing?

      This is actually one of the few things I'm keeping private. There's been a number of copycats and I'd like to keep the specifics under wraps.

      I can say this though - since Software Ideas was naturally ranking for terms, the goal is simply to write some quality content to further improve our ranking for those terms!

      Also, how do you track down the conversions from the search? Google Analytics and Console stack is sufficient or you are using some other tech stack?

      Analytics and Console has been perfect for now, I work with Blake from https://analystsnow.com/ who makes everything super easy on my end.

      1. 1

        By analysing your company's name: "Software Ideas", your HEAD TITLE: "Software Ideas", and your domain name: softwareideas, I can conclude that it is your main trafficable keyword that drives sales. People add "2020" to the search term, but mostly search for "software ideas" as a main slug.

        Good job, Kevin. You nailed the branded domain with branded google search. You paid clicks must be very cheap due to Ad Rank 10/10.

  9. 1

    Wooooooooow amazing job man!! Congrats!

    1. 1

      Thanks a bunch Julian!

  10. 1

    Congratulations on the new milestone!

    Your case is an interesting one, and previously you included churn figures too. Is the "slowing" in growth down to the high churn you had before? I'm homing on churn because it is something I think we often ignore as we chase new customers, so hearing your thoughts and numbers here would be interesting.

    1. 1

      Hey Glenn!

      Is the "slowing" in growth down to the high churn you had before?

      Growth hasn't slowed, it is actually skyrocketed over the past month! This was primarily due to a Black Friday sale I did which gained about $2,000 in MRR over that period (the spike in the graph above). You can see that sales have slowed after that sale, which makes sense.

      However, you're spot on that churn has also been up, it's definitely the next area I'm focused on. A lot of the churn is natural (people are no longer interested in starting a software company, and as such aren't a good fit for the newsletter), but there are definitely some opportunities for improvement here. Stay tuned over the next few months if this space is interesting to you, as this is probably my number one focus right now!

      1. 1

        Thanks for the reply!

        Yes, I'm really interested to follow this story (I think with your last post you were at 70% total revenue churn in 12 months). My intuition is as you say, people are unlikely to renew their subscription for two reasons:

        1. They found an idea they want to work on.
        2. They decided against working on an idea.

        Are you getting feedback from your users or asking those who cancel why they didn't renew?

        1. 1

          Are you getting feedback from your users or asking those who cancel why they didn't renew?

          Yep, just started doing a cancellation survey. I guess the 70% number you're referring to is taking a ~6% monthly churn and multiplying by 12? So far, it has seemed like three out of every four people who are up for cancellation are renewing after their first quarter, which can definitely be improved.

          1. They found an idea they want to work on.
          2. They decided against working on an idea.

          Right now I'm focused on getting better insight into the why, like you mentioned. There's a lot we can do to keep people who are in the #1 category above, and very little we can do about #2. So, finding out the split is important to identifying the long-term strategy!

  11. 1

    This is brilliant Kevin!

    Would love to read a deep dive into how you've been growing this/challenges you've faced.

    1. 1

      Thanks Jaisal!

      I've written a TON on how I've grown the business, here are the two best pieces of content:

      How I grew Software Ideas to $6k MRR in three months

      Software Ideas daily blog

  12. 1

    Awesome milestone!

    What happened between Nov 24 and Nov 28 that led to $2,000 increase in MRR?

    1. 2

      Thanks Farouq!

      This is due to a huge Black Friday sale I did, which was very successful! The one downside to it is that I've somewhat burned out the email list for now, so after that couple days of explosive growth, things have been much slower now :)

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