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We launched https://emailoctopus.com https://emailoctopus.com around 3 years ago as a side project. The most difficult thing with launching a SaaS is the early

We launched https://emailoctopus.com https://emailoctopus.com around 3 years ago as a side project. The most difficult thing with launching a SaaS is the early days, where you've spent hours upon hours building the app and are only bringing in £400 a month. We stuck with it though and today have a full-time team of 5 working on the app, are paying ourselves a similar wage to what we were earning in our full-time jobs and most importantly have almost complete ownership of our work-life balance. I'd really recommend a SaaS business if you are after recurring, side revenue and as mentioned before https://www.oppslist.com/ https://www.oppslist.com/ is a great place to get some initial ideas. Your marketing skills will improve too - just stick with it for a year or so if you do go that route!

thakobyan 9y ago
Thank you! Very helpful. Never heard of oppslist but excited to check it out.
- cdiamand 9y ago
  Hey Thakobyan! Cory@oppslist.com here. I've got around 2000+ of these "saas" ideas, so feel free to drop me a line if you're looking for something in a specific field!
comsci-bro 9y ago
How do you even get started with building (and then marketing) a SaaS? Can you share some helpful resources?
- 02thoeva 9y ago
  We did write an article here: https://medium.com/emailoctopus/the-road-to-one-billion-emails-4ed7d441e190 https://medium.com/emailoctopus/the-road-to-one-billion-emai... Although in short, we built a product to serve our own need, launched it totally free for everyone and ended up gaining around 2000 users very quickly. Within a year we had grown MRR to the £3k mark, so we contracted alongside running this 2 days a week. Now, another further year on we're full-time with a few employees.
iovrthoughtthis 9y ago
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "almost complete control of our work-life balance means". How specifically does this impact your working week/day?
- 02thoeva 9y ago
  So we work the hours which work for us now and are free to work from anywhere in the world. For example, I'm not an early riser, so start work at 10am and if I want to leave early, I do. We're very relaxed on exact hours as long as we hit our commitments for the week, which we outline on a Monday.

thakobyan 9y ago

Thank you! Very helpful. Never heard of oppslist but excited to check it out.

cdiamand 9y ago
Hey Thakobyan! Cory@oppslist.com here. I've got around 2000+ of these "saas" ideas, so feel free to drop me a line if you're looking for something in a specific field!

comsci-bro 9y ago

How do you even get started with building (and then marketing) a SaaS? Can you share some helpful resources?

02thoeva 9y ago
We did write an article here: https://medium.com/emailoctopus/the-road-to-one-billion-emails-4ed7d441e190 https://medium.com/emailoctopus/the-road-to-one-billion-emai... Although in short, we built a product to serve our own need, launched it totally free for everyone and ended up gaining around 2000 users very quickly. Within a year we had grown MRR to the £3k mark, so we contracted alongside running this 2 days a week. Now, another further year on we're full-time with a few employees.

iovrthoughtthis 9y ago

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "almost complete control of our work-life balance means". How specifically does this impact your working week/day?

02thoeva 9y ago
So we work the hours which work for us now and are free to work from anywhere in the world. For example, I'm not an early riser, so start work at 10am and if I want to leave early, I do. We're very relaxed on exact hours as long as we hit our commitments for the week, which we outline on a Monday.