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They wrote another article about how they went about building a $1M ARR open-source SaaS [1]. This details some of their approach to building the product in pub
by bkq 4y ago
They wrote another article about how they went about building a $1M ARR open-source SaaS [1]. This details some of their approach to building the product in public as a form of marketing. The building in public approach works, if you already have a platform to stand on in my opinion. As someone who also has an open-source SaaS they're trying to market, I sometimes think if I should have also taken this approach, despite not having any reach at all.
[1] - https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas
- tpetry 4y agoThe building in public didn‘t work either. The solo-founder (developer) wasn‘t getting any traction with what he did. The the co-founder (marketer) joined and only then they started to get customer and a lot of traction. It‘s not the build in public approach, it is someone doing marketing.
- mxuribe 4y agoOr maybe both, in that, the marketing brings good attention (presumably from real buyers), but you still need a solid product/service to offer.
- austinjp 4y agoTo be fair, I think it's both. If the "sausage making" is grotesque, even an exceptional marketer would struggle :) A coder who understands what public signals are valuable can give a marketer something to work with. That might include "code quality" but it's probably more than that. Visible activity, responsive processes, valuable features, etc. Just guessing, though.
- nicbou 4y agoTo be fair, Plausible is a good product with effective marketing, and the paid version is just very convenient for most people. This approach might not work so well for libraries and tools mainly used by developers.