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Is there anything from your freelance development projects that jumps out as potentially worthwhile? Many of the best bootstrapped SAAS businesses I've seen hav

Is there anything from your freelance development projects that jumps out as potentially worthwhile? Many of the best bootstrapped SAAS businesses I've seen have come from problems people encountered while freelancing or working on other things: Tyler Tringas created StoreMapper based upon freelance work he was doing: http://tylertringas.com/storemapper-store-locator-bootstrapped-to-50k/ http://tylertringas.com/storemapper-store-locator-bootstrapp... Andrew Culver created ChurnBuster after repeatedly running into credit card renewal problems for clients: https://www.churnbuster.com https://www.churnbuster.com I built ExpeditedSSL - https://www.expeditedssl.com https://www.expeditedssl.com - after getting fed up with adding SSL to client sites. Josh Pigford built BareMetrics - https://baremetrics.com https://baremetrics.com after getting frustrated with trying to understand his metrics from other SAAS projects. In general freelancing is a great spot to be in to observe what pains businesses have that are sufficiently difficult that they'll shell out actual amounts of money to deal with.

otto_ortega 11y ago
There are a few things that have some potential, but then I enter in the ethical part of if its OK to take something I have been paid to built as a base for my own business. Specially because those few things that might be interesting enough are projects that I developed to give some competitive advantage to a specific client on a specific area, so If turn it into a SaaS I burn them.
- michaelbuckbee 11y ago
  You definitely can't take code you wrote for other people, but attacking similar problems is usually fair game. Even better, I've seen a few instances where a freelancer agreed to tackle something for a reduced rate with the express agreement that they would also be re-using, reselling that portion of their work. This struck me as very clever as it was a way to keep cash flow up by continuing to freelance, but also to get that crucial first paying customer who can help guide you in building a product.
mrfusion 11y ago
How'd you make such a compelling sales site for expeditedssl?

otto_ortega 11y ago

There are a few things that have some potential, but then I enter in the ethical part of if its OK to take something I have been paid to built as a base for my own business. Specially because those few things that might be interesting enough are projects that I developed to give some competitive advantage to a specific client on a specific area, so If turn it into a SaaS I burn them.

michaelbuckbee 11y ago
You definitely can't take code you wrote for other people, but attacking similar problems is usually fair game. Even better, I've seen a few instances where a freelancer agreed to tackle something for a reduced rate with the express agreement that they would also be re-using, reselling that portion of their work. This struck me as very clever as it was a way to keep cash flow up by continuing to freelance, but also to get that crucial first paying customer who can help guide you in building a product.

mrfusion 11y ago

How'd you make such a compelling sales site for expeditedssl?