SoftwareIdeas.io

Software Ideas hit $150k in net revenue last month!

I've written "how I grew Software Ideas" posts a ton, so if you want the overview, I'll just link to it here

In this post, I'll talk about an aspect of how we've been able to be successful that I don't see talked about nearly enough:

Giving Back

"After a two-day blaze, our business was literally in ashes. Everything but that one chair, which, as it happened, was not on the premises at the time.

Just the week before, we'd presented it as a gift to the master craftsman who taught us the art of woodworking. After the fire, he insisted on giving it back to us."

Allen gave a quiet laugh. "That's ironic, isn't it? The only reason we still have that chair," he mused, "is that we gave it away."

• Bob Burg, It's Not About You

I've been getting in the habit of giving away old newsletter issues to founders looking to learn more about a particular software market.

While this seems silly on the surface, giving things away is a personally meaningful way for me to give back, and gives the company a reputation that I'm proud of.

It's so easy to get trapped in a scarcity mindset and try to avoid giving at all costs. I've definitely been trapped there before, myself.

However, I've come to learn that being generous and focusing on how to be the most helpful you can be for people is an antidote to that scarcity mindset.

That doesn't mean to strip the price tags off of your products and open-source them to the world, of course. It's important to be open to receiving just as much as you give. But focusing on giving has positive consequences that are hard to quantify.

For example, I already mentioned how giving away those market reports to founders gives us a good reputation, but it goes further than that.

That person was unlikely to spend money on a membership anyway. However, we've done something nice for them, and who knows - maybe in the future, they recommend us to a friend or peer who is looking for their next software idea! Or maybe someone stumbles across that comment that is a good fit for us, sees the kind of company we want to be, and signs up!

And maybe a year from now, if they decide to look at new or different software ideas, perhaps they'll remember us and give us a look then.

In other words, in every gift of giving, there's a bit of receiving too.

I've been heavily inspired by Bob Burg and his Go-Giver Series, and I highly recommend that you consider how you can grow your company to new heights by giving in new extremes.

This week, Software Ideas has officially crossed 7,000 people on the free & paid email list!

I like my milestones to be helpful and educational, so let's talk about how I've been able to drive interest to my email list!

1) Give users a reason to sign up

Too often, I see dull incentives for signing up for an email list. Something like, "Enter your email to be notified when I post!"

There should be a much better reason to sign up for your email list. Offer something exclusive in exchange for the user's email, and you will see exponentially better results.

For Software Ideas, I offer a free issue of our premium newsletter, just for joining the email list:

Some people might be worried that this steals attention away from the buy button, but I don't think this should bother you. Only a tiny number of potential buyers are going for the buy button the first time they see your site. For the vast majority of your customers, you'll need to nurture them.

2) Quality content only

This goes without saying, but I'm very careful with only providing quality content, not just to paid members but on the free email list as well.

One of the easiest ways to piss off your email list is for your emails not to be worth their time. Avoid this at all costs!

3) Email list sign-ups are a result of distribution channels

Last but not least, it's important to remember that email lists grow as a result of the number of people that are made aware of that email list.

Sounds redundant, but people often get too focused on 'growing the list,' and not focused enough on 'growing the website traffic.'

I've seen many founders become lost as soon as they start thinking of an email list as something separate from their core offering. It's important to realize that an email list is a step in the lead pipeline. Instead of worrying about getting people on the list itself, worry about getting people onto your website, and let the website take care of the rest (by following the first tip!).

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Thanks to everyone who's signed up for the email list, read the free premium issue, or signed up to be a paid member (500+ people!). Your support has made it possible for me to continue writing nearly 10,000 words/week and provide this market research to bootstrappers and developers. Thank you!

It's been just under 10 months since I first launched Software Ideas, and I'm happy to announce that I'm going full-time on the project!

Software Ideas began with my own search for my next SaaS product. After my first SaaS, CoderNotes (~$150 MRR), I realized that I wanted my next product to be in a market that already had a lot of money changing hands.

I wanted to find niches in markets where I thought a bootstrapper could compete and win, so I started doing tons of market research.

I quickly realized that this research wasn't only valuable to me, but to any founder who was serious about finding their next profitable business idea, so I took some of my early research and formatted it into a post here on IndieHackers, as well as on places like Reddit and Twitter, to see if I was right in thinking it was valuable research.

As of today, that post has over 24,000 views on IH alone!

That's when I realized that this research-based approach was something people wanted. And after some pre-sales, I also validated that it was something people and were willing to pay for, and I decided to explore it as an actual business, putting my plans for my next SaaS on hold temporarily.

Five months later, Software Ideas was pulling in 10k MRR!

Around this time, the demands for Software Ideas became much more challenging than they had previously. Early on, it didn't take much to run Software Ideas week-to-week, for two reasons:

First of all, there were fewer customers. I try really hard to respond to every subscriber who personally emails me, asking additional questions about the opportunities discussed in the newsletter, looking for my opinion about their marketing strategy, etc.

And in the beginning, this meant only a couple of in-depth emails per week. But as Software Ideas grew to over 500 paid readers, it took a lot more of my time to manage customer questions.

Secondly was the double-edged sword of improving the Software Ideas newsletter.

The first newsletter had 1,218 words in it. These smaller newsletters were easy to write, taking me only 10-15 hours.

Issue #44, one of the more recent newsletters, had 8,306 words! This is a great thing for the product because I'm providing far more value to readers. Still, the extra time was destroying my ability to get done everything I needed to for Software Ideas to succeed, particularly on the marketing side.

All of this combined meant that it was time to take the leap - Software Ideas needed more of my time, and it was making enough money to cover my immediate expenses.

So back in March, I gave my employer a four-week notice.

You might be wondering, "Wait, why are you posting now if this happened in March??"

Well, I plan on writing more about this over the next few days, but the short version is that both my significant other and our dog both happened to get seriously ill at the same time - both ending up hospitalized and having some pretty expensive medical bills.

I plan on writing more about how much of a blessing it was to have my freedom during what's been the most trying time of my life, but the reason I'm posting this milestone today is that things are calming down - my significant other is feeling good enough that I don't have to be a full-time caretaker, and our dog is currently stable.

This means that I finally have time to re-focus on why I went full-time in the first place - to focus on Software Ideas!

To those wondering why I've been pretty quiet for the past couple of months, this is the reason. But I'm back for good (fingers crossed), and I'm excited to start sharing how I plan on growing Software Ideas even further!

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!

Software Ideas launched publicly on July 5th of this year. 145 days later, it officially hit $10k in monthly recurring revenue!

$10k is the milestone that I think most founders have their sights on when they launch their company. This is the milestone that I was looking forward to the most!

I'd like to share some thoughts of what I've learned throughout the experience:

1. 💡 Ideas are as important as execution

I started Software Ideas with a strong focus on building a product that people already wanted and were willing to pay for.

That focus was a huge piece of the puzzle for creating a rapidly growing product.

I did this by asking for pre-sales up front, so that I knew if someone really was going to pay. I've shared more details about the pre-sale process here and here

2. 🔥 Distribution is MORE important than development

As a developer, I came to the bootstrapper community thinking that my profession was the most important part of building a company. Now, I view that as dead wrong.

While building a quality product is important, it's just the starting point.

The biggest piece of a business, which bootstrapped founders tend to overlook, is your ability reliably get your product in front of new potential customers.

As a early-founder, your job is to quickly find a model that allows you to reliably put your product in front of new people, and then to have an offering good enough that they reliably purchase.

I see so many people, including readers of my newsletter, who go straight to building an MVP once they have an idea. They don't realize that they are skipping the most important step of figuring out the distribution puzzle piece.

The fact that Software Ideas was able to figure this out from the beginning led it to reaching $10k MRR so quickly.

I hope this inspires people to give distribution much more thought!

3. 📈📉 Be prepared for the emotional roller coaster

One of the toughest struggles throughout this journey has been in how high the highs are, and how low the lows are.

The problem is, the lows hurt a lot more than the highs help, and that's something that you need to prepare yourself for.

I clearly remember my first unsubscribe. The first hateful email, the first time I was sworn at because I didn't respond to a customer email within 24 hours. Even though the positive comments outnumber the negative ones 10:1, you'll get stuck on the negative ones if you let yourself.

I've found that gratitude is key in keeping yourself sane, and so is letting yourself feel down and upset every now and again. These negative things are inevitable as you grow, and I don't think it's realistic to say that you can just overcome them emotionally. Sometimes you just need to let it hit you, wash over you without completely consuming you, and then let it go and move on.

Conclusion

To the 500+ readers of Software Ideas, I can't express my gratitude enough. The support you've all shown this project is amazing and I am excited for all of the cool things that are coming up in the next few weeks!

Over the past weekend, Software Ideas hit $9k MRR!

This growth has been due to some finding some organic success with some long-tail SEO keywords, as well as the awesome readers of Software Ideas who continue to share the newsletter around. I'm incredibly thankful!

Just 4-ish months ago, I was deciding if this was an idea worth pursuing. I hope my progress inspires people, especially if you've been grinding for a while now.

All it takes is one product that people are willing to pay for, and a way to reach customers!

I'm a little late on posting this, but just recently Software Ideas hit $100,000 in ARR!

This is mostly a vanity metric, but it's still really cool to see the newsletter hit 6 figures!

I think the biggest take away from my story is that it's possible to see these kinds of numbers in just a few months' time. There's nothing special about me, I just happened to find the right mix of a product that people are willing to pay for and a number of channels for people to find out about the product. That's all it takes!

Next up - $10k MRR!

Software Ideas has just hit $8,000 in monthly recurring revenue!

Getting into the high thousands is a super cool milestone, and it's very cool to be getting close to the magical $10k mark! One thing I've definitely noticed now is that Software Ideas requires less 'hands on' effort to make a sale. I think that's happening for two reasons:

1. Better product offering. Now that Software Ideas has over 50 opportunities in the archive, I think it's easier for people to buy.

2. More readers = more word-of-mouth.

Thanks to everyone who has checked out Software Ideas, and a special thanks to the 400+ readers who continue to let me work on this super fun project!

*PS: If you're looking for more details on how I grew Software Ideas, check out this post for an overview!

Over the weekend, Software Ideas hit 400 readers!

I'll be honest, I never expected to hit 400 in under four months. When I started, I was probably hoping to hit 500 within a year, and I would have considered that ambitious!

I think the main reason for such rapid growth has been all the work I did early on in making sure I nailed the positioning of the product early on. If you'd like to read more about that, you can check out my summary here

I'm eternally grateful to the 400+ people who are supporting this newsletter, and I'm excited to keep growing Software Ideas to 1,000 readers!

Today, Software Ideas hit 4,000 free email subscribers!

This is the secret sauce to the success of Software Ideas. Each week, the free preview of the newsletter goes out to 4,000 people, and pushes many over the edge to becoming paid subscribers. With nearly 400 subscribers, you could say that the Software Ideas email list converts at roughly 10%.

With so many people looking forward to receiving a weekly update, it really keeps me motivated to keep on delivering high-quality content every week! Thanks to everyone who's already checked out Software Ideas, you've made this project a reality in only 3.5 months!