6 ms·

I'm building a SaaS for just one person

126 points by elliotbnvl 7y ago

elliotbnvl 7y ago
tl;dr: I built a glorified spreadsheet app called Bicycle (https://usebicycle.com https://usebicycle.com) in seven days. Now I'm refining it for one user's needs based on principles from Do Things That Don't Scale by Paul Graham and the 1000 True Fans theory. Also, working 90hrs in a week is draining.
- bobblywobbles 7y ago
  Only 90 hours? /s If part of a test project, are you spending the time to fit within the guidelines or are forced to for some reason?
  - elliotbnvl 7y ago
    Haha right? I seriously don’t get how Elon Musk pulled 120/hr weeks on the regular. Well, actually I guess I kind of do, a little... if you are super passionate and invested that makes a big difference. Anyway, I did this as part of my Seven Day SaaS Challenge (https://sevendaysaas.com https://sevendaysaas.com), where the goal is to constrain the amount of time behind a keyboard coding in order to force real world interaction with potential users, alongside marketing and the businessy (aka critical!) parts of building a SaaS. But, I’m an overachiever and I had high goals for this app, hence cramming a lot into one week. :)
    - michaelmrose 7y ago
      If you sleep 8 hours and consume 90 minutes showering, relieving yourself, eating that leaves you with 101.5 hours per week. If you had to you could probably spend all this time running your mouth but probably not intellectual work. This assumes that you have no responsibilities of any kind and everything is done for you.
    - fitzn 7y ago
      Agreed that 90+ or 120 are just insanely difficult to do on the regular. I think I could have 1 such week per month, maybe once per quarter. One thing that might be a bit different in your example is if all 90 hours were for the same product. It might have been tougher for you to pay some time context switching between the two. Whereas, Elon Musk is doing all his hours for the same task. (Well, actually he's a terrible example because he probably has 100 tasks he does for 1 hour each week, but you get my point for the general case.)
- LaundroMat 7y ago
  Thanks for pointing me to this book and that theory. As per my other comment, they should prove helpful to me.
  - elliotbnvl 7y ago
    Absolutely! Best of luck.
- Scarbutt 7y ago
  With server-side-rendered HTML, this could have been done in ~3 hours :P
  - elliotbnvl 7y ago
    Sir, I challenge you to a duel! A speed-development duel. ;)
- icedchai 7y ago
  Interesting. What is the revenue model?
  - elliotbnvl 7y ago
    As of right now, I'm planning on directly targeting enterprise users for access to projects with varying levels of permissions at a low monthly rate per user, something like $10 to $20/mo per user (possibly less, if that's too high). Enough that I'm making $$, but also not something an individual contributor couldn't just expense without turning heads. And then enterprise plans on top of that.
    - icedchai 7y ago
      How much do you plan to spend on customer acquisition? Often with small SaaSes, this is overlooked or grossly underestimated. The problem is building it and almost nobody showing up.
bobblywobbles 7y ago
I appreciate people like you, who see a need that someone has, and takes the initiative to help them. The project matters, but less so. Being a person who is willing to help others is what makes the world go round. I have no need for BI software myself, but I appreciate the fire you have inside of you and wish you good luck if you take this further.
- elliotbnvl 7y ago
  Thank you. I sincerely appreciate it!
LaundroMat 7y ago
Haha, I'm working on my second SaaS for one person :) The first is drfreezr.com , something I built for a friend who manages a bioresearch lab and had trouble enforcing diligent bookkeeping about what samples are stored where in what freezers. He and his lab colleagues are very happy with it, and they use it on a daily basis. But now I have to start marketing it. So the typical thing I do is optimize the code/UX/data model instead of finding more customers. And now I'm working on a small-scale CRM for my wife (prototype phase) and her colleague who's she's started a consulting business with :)
- elliotbnvl 7y ago
  That's awesome, man! Congrats on launching a successful SaaS! Now get your butt in gear and start marketing that sucker :) Jokes aside, this is exactly the point of Seven Day SaaS and why I challenged myself to build ONLY for a week, then focus on all the rest after that. I set a rule for myself: no more feature releases or UX tweaks (aside from egregious bug fixes). Marketing and outreach only from now on! Don't build something new until you validate what you have built. It's like that analogy of the guy mining for diamonds: you have no idea how close you are to success.
- kindly_fo 7y ago
  Did your friend know that 50%+ of saas can be replaced with speadsheets (google/Microsoft)?
  - LaundroMat 7y ago
    Good question, but yes, he did. Their main issue with spreadsheets was the lack of roles and permissions. The tool makes it easy to allocate fridge space to users, which in turn makes it easier for the users to keep track of things. Also, users can't touch other users' stuff. Also, the data per fridge cell itself is more complex than what fits in a spreadsheet row. All this adds up to a much more user-friendly (and manager-friendly) experience, which leads to higher uptake among users and ultimately cleaner data.
christiansakai 7y ago
I'm really really amazed how creative and productive someone can be. Meanwhile I can't even find one ideas. It doesn't help that I'm not an app user. I keep my digital stuff minimal.
- larrik 7y ago
  In this case, he's solving a real problem for a real person. This means you need to know people with problems, and recognize that they are problems (they may not think so!) and believe you can improve it. Of course, you can make something way better than what they have, and they still not use it...
- amelius 7y ago
  Most of these apps are basically just visualizing database data, with some very simple business rules for transforming the database. If you use the right framework, it becomes very easy and building an app is basically like filling out a template. Of course, if you start from the wrong framework, writing such an app can be a real challenge.
- elliotbnvl 7y ago
  One thing that seems to affect my creativity levels is how much I'm consuming. You're either a consumer or a creator. You can't be both at the same time.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    That seems... unlikely. Most of the writers I'm aware of, for example, read quite a lot. Maybe it's the type of consumption?
    - elliotbnvl 7y ago
      Yeah, passive consumption is the issue. TV, videogames, etc.
      - wink 7y ago
zolland 7y ago
This is awesome! I'm working on a very similar mission. When do you plan on monetizing the product? Also, a bit off topic but how much time do you allocate for your blog?
- elliotbnvl 7y ago
  Ideally, ASAP. If I can find people that are willing to pay, I'm happy to sell. If I can't, then I'm going to toss this idea. Hmm, I'm trying to post maybe twice a week right now, so I guess probably five or six hours a week?
duck 7y ago
This looks great, but just wondering if you have looked at something like Airtable (https://airtable.com/ https://airtable.com/) to solve this? I had a couple custom tools that were similar, but I've been able to replace them w/ Airtable and it has been nice to not maintain those anymore.

126 points by elliotbnvl 7y ago

tl;dr: I built a glorified spreadsheet app called Bicycle (https://usebicycle.com https://usebicycle.com) in seven days. Now I'm refining it for one user's needs based on principles from Do Things That Don't Scale by Paul Graham and the 1000 True Fans theory. Also, working 90hrs in a week is draining.

bobblywobbles 7y ago
Only 90 hours? /s If part of a test project, are you spending the time to fit within the guidelines or are forced to for some reason?
- elliotbnvl 7y ago
  Haha right? I seriously don’t get how Elon Musk pulled 120/hr weeks on the regular. Well, actually I guess I kind of do, a little... if you are super passionate and invested that makes a big difference. Anyway, I did this as part of my Seven Day SaaS Challenge (https://sevendaysaas.com https://sevendaysaas.com), where the goal is to constrain the amount of time behind a keyboard coding in order to force real world interaction with potential users, alongside marketing and the businessy (aka critical!) parts of building a SaaS. But, I’m an overachiever and I had high goals for this app, hence cramming a lot into one week. :)
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    If you sleep 8 hours and consume 90 minutes showering, relieving yourself, eating that leaves you with 101.5 hours per week. If you had to you could probably spend all this time running your mouth but probably not intellectual work. This assumes that you have no responsibilities of any kind and everything is done for you.
  - fitzn 7y ago
    Agreed that 90+ or 120 are just insanely difficult to do on the regular. I think I could have 1 such week per month, maybe once per quarter. One thing that might be a bit different in your example is if all 90 hours were for the same product. It might have been tougher for you to pay some time context switching between the two. Whereas, Elon Musk is doing all his hours for the same task. (Well, actually he's a terrible example because he probably has 100 tasks he does for 1 hour each week, but you get my point for the general case.)
LaundroMat 7y ago
Thanks for pointing me to this book and that theory. As per my other comment, they should prove helpful to me.
- elliotbnvl 7y ago
  Absolutely! Best of luck.
Scarbutt 7y ago
With server-side-rendered HTML, this could have been done in ~3 hours :P
- elliotbnvl 7y ago
  Sir, I challenge you to a duel! A speed-development duel. ;)
icedchai 7y ago
Interesting. What is the revenue model?
- elliotbnvl 7y ago
  As of right now, I'm planning on directly targeting enterprise users for access to projects with varying levels of permissions at a low monthly rate per user, something like $10 to $20/mo per user (possibly less, if that's too high). Enough that I'm making $$, but also not something an individual contributor couldn't just expense without turning heads. And then enterprise plans on top of that.
  - icedchai 7y ago
    How much do you plan to spend on customer acquisition? Often with small SaaSes, this is overlooked or grossly underestimated. The problem is building it and almost nobody showing up.

bobblywobbles 7y ago

I appreciate people like you, who see a need that someone has, and takes the initiative to help them. The project matters, but less so. Being a person who is willing to help others is what makes the world go round. I have no need for BI software myself, but I appreciate the fire you have inside of you and wish you good luck if you take this further.

elliotbnvl 7y ago
Thank you. I sincerely appreciate it!

LaundroMat 7y ago

Haha, I'm working on my second SaaS for one person :) The first is drfreezr.com , something I built for a friend who manages a bioresearch lab and had trouble enforcing diligent bookkeeping about what samples are stored where in what freezers. He and his lab colleagues are very happy with it, and they use it on a daily basis. But now I have to start marketing it. So the typical thing I do is optimize the code/UX/data model instead of finding more customers. And now I'm working on a small-scale CRM for my wife (prototype phase) and her colleague who's she's started a consulting business with :)

elliotbnvl 7y ago
That's awesome, man! Congrats on launching a successful SaaS! Now get your butt in gear and start marketing that sucker :) Jokes aside, this is exactly the point of Seven Day SaaS and why I challenged myself to build ONLY for a week, then focus on all the rest after that. I set a rule for myself: no more feature releases or UX tweaks (aside from egregious bug fixes). Marketing and outreach only from now on! Don't build something new until you validate what you have built. It's like that analogy of the guy mining for diamonds: you have no idea how close you are to success.
kindly_fo 7y ago
Did your friend know that 50%+ of saas can be replaced with speadsheets (google/Microsoft)?
- LaundroMat 7y ago
  Good question, but yes, he did. Their main issue with spreadsheets was the lack of roles and permissions. The tool makes it easy to allocate fridge space to users, which in turn makes it easier for the users to keep track of things. Also, users can't touch other users' stuff. Also, the data per fridge cell itself is more complex than what fits in a spreadsheet row. All this adds up to a much more user-friendly (and manager-friendly) experience, which leads to higher uptake among users and ultimately cleaner data.

christiansakai 7y ago

I'm really really amazed how creative and productive someone can be. Meanwhile I can't even find one ideas. It doesn't help that I'm not an app user. I keep my digital stuff minimal.

larrik 7y ago
In this case, he's solving a real problem for a real person. This means you need to know people with problems, and recognize that they are problems (they may not think so!) and believe you can improve it. Of course, you can make something way better than what they have, and they still not use it...
amelius 7y ago
Most of these apps are basically just visualizing database data, with some very simple business rules for transforming the database. If you use the right framework, it becomes very easy and building an app is basically like filling out a template. Of course, if you start from the wrong framework, writing such an app can be a real challenge.
elliotbnvl 7y ago
One thing that seems to affect my creativity levels is how much I'm consuming. You're either a consumer or a creator. You can't be both at the same time.
- icebraining 7y ago
  That seems... unlikely. Most of the writers I'm aware of, for example, read quite a lot. Maybe it's the type of consumption?
  - elliotbnvl 7y ago
    Yeah, passive consumption is the issue. TV, videogames, etc.
    - wink 7y ago

zolland 7y ago

This is awesome! I'm working on a very similar mission. When do you plan on monetizing the product? Also, a bit off topic but how much time do you allocate for your blog?

elliotbnvl 7y ago
Ideally, ASAP. If I can find people that are willing to pay, I'm happy to sell. If I can't, then I'm going to toss this idea. Hmm, I'm trying to post maybe twice a week right now, so I guess probably five or six hours a week?

duck 7y ago

This looks great, but just wondering if you have looked at something like Airtable (https://airtable.com/ https://airtable.com/) to solve this? I had a couple custom tools that were similar, but I've been able to replace them w/ Airtable and it has been nice to not maintain those anymore.