5 ms·

I'm a founder of 3 small saas companies that I run by myself, generating about $1M ARR. 1. First one I started 10 years ago. I built a bot that auto DMed peopl

by buf 2y ago

I'm a founder of 3 small saas companies that I run by myself, generating about $1M ARR. 1. First one I started 10 years ago. I built a bot that auto DMed people in various internet forums. My first 100 users came from that. The product is highly shareable, so it quickly grew. Now it's 1.6M users (most of them free). 2. Second started 3.5 years ago. My first 100 users came from simply emailing the newsletter list from my first company. This product has no free plan, so it became profitable instantly. 3. Third started 1 month ago. And it's been a struggle. I got 10k free users just by emailing my list, but 0 paying users. So I tried ads and had similar results from the ads. Now I'm taking a step back and understanding why they aren't paying, which involves just emailing them. Summary: once you have an email list and viral social loops built-in, marketing gets easier.

jainvivek 2y ago
Ripple effects of success! How do you manage customer support for so many users in 3 different companies alone?
- buf 2y ago
  I have them all wired up to helpscout. Then a contractor checks the inbox every 8 hours to clear them out. She covers the hours I'm asleep as well. I also have it posting to a slack channel so we can quickly scan any urgent ones while I'm working. Bugs pop in heavily on new feature launches but then it's the usual "my email didn't arrive" type of questions.
staplers 2y ago
Now I'm taking a step back and understanding why they aren't paying, which involves just emailing them. Maybe too anecdotal, but inflation has hit everyone I know really hard in the last year. Especially in tech. Subscriptions, insurance, bills have skyrocketed. I believe many are taking a step back and rethinking necessities.
namanyayg 2y ago
Awesome! Followed you on X. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by "viral social loops"?
- buf 2y ago
  Any b2c product I build has huge incentive to share the product, creating more users. In the product itself, social is part of the value. So the more they interact, the more value they get. Similar to any social network you see today. I do this a number of ways, none original. Reactions, upvotes, achievements, streaks, creating summary videos (like Spotify year in review), public recommendations, etc
  - buf 2y ago
    If you want some great reading material on this, I recommend Reforge's viral loops info. I believe it's free.
    - fuzztester 2y ago
      I checked, there is a membership to access the full content. I see what you did there.
      - buf 2y ago
        I thought they were still doing one free lesson. It's been a while since I was on Reforge though.
        fuzztester 2y ago
        ha ha, i was just kidding :)
- ignoramous 2y ago
  Not OP but there are more than one ways to tap in to the distribution channels that exists thanks to influencers (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Substack, Telegram). I, personally, don't see it any different than Nike hiring Lionel Messi or Uniqlo hiring Roger Federer. Where Nike is a global company, indie developers (especially the ones in Software) are smaller and thus could focus on just the right content creators, ie rely on marketing to boost sales. This phenomenon isn't new. The book The Long Tail posited (way back) that even niche software could make millions now that the Internet had made it cheaper to reach just the right audience. Teenagers, Zach Yadegari (calai.app) and Blake Anderson (apex.inc), who built million dollar app-based businesses in 6mo, plan to release a book on it: https://x.com/zach_yadegari/status/1845842051314614681 https://x.com/zach_yadegari/status/1845842051314614681 / https://archive.md/xXf9a https://archive.md/xXf9a
areoform 2y ago
> Third started 1 month ago. And it's been a struggle. I got 10k free users just by emailing my list, but 0 paying users. So I tried ads and had similar results from the ads. Now I'm taking a step back and understanding why they aren't paying, which involves just emailing them. I looked at the product! And I think I know why you're struggling. (I am in your target demo) It's just not worth the price. You're competing against CapCut by ByteDance & that's "good enough." Their platform is freemium, uploads directly to tiktok etc. & can get you serviceable subtitles quickly. There are a bajillion and one ways to cut videos. And they're all extremely price competitive. You aren't competing against DaVinci's studio license. You're competing against the free one. And at the stated price point, I might as well buy Adobe After effects for $23 & use it alongside DaVinci's free license. The value just isn't there.
- buf 2y ago
  I'm realizing this a bit too late I think. My only value over something like capcut is the API, which most users don't care about. But I see products like submagic doing $1m arr and I'm at loss. How are they doing so well? It can't just be their editor. So I think the way forward for my product, if any, is to just target b2b for API usage or target users who want long form video cut into viral clips automatically. I need to niche it down.
  - areoform 2y ago
    > How are they doing so well? It can't just be their editor. Their B-roll feature is amazing. People often spend time hunting down B-roll and it seems they solve that. They make it easier to make videos by splicing in applicable B-roll + cleaning up audio so that it sounds nice.
Crazyontap 2y ago
> First one I started 10 years ago. I built a bot that auto DMed people in various internet forums. My first 100 users came from that. Isn't this by definition Spamming people as you were using bots to mass DM people?
- brailsafe 2y ago
  This might be the reminder bot
- davedx 2y ago
  Yes. Surprise surprise, most businesses generate most of their initial sales via cold calls/emails/DMs/other automated marketing. That’s the real world
  - jainvivek 2y ago
    And because they create so much noise, no option left for a new comer other than trying to shout louder than them. All-in-all a vicious cycle of spamming!
    - gryn 2y ago
      This is older than the ideas of the internet itself. Channels get saturated and marketers start looking for new ones with les noise/competition. The oldest that I can think of is old school markets where is shops yells to tell you how good of a deal you're gonna have if you buy from them. I think they date back to the middle ages, no?
      - mlhpdx 2y ago
        Older, almost certainly. The discovery of advertising murals and graffiti in Hereculum makes me smile a little. Humans have been humans all along.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
joshdavham 2y ago
Am I correct to assume that each of these 3 businesses are roughly in the same problem space? I’m not sure how useful re-using an emailing list would be if each business was wildly different.
- buf 2y ago
  Yes, I generally build new products around my current audience.
cameronvoz 2y ago
How is it working for you to just email users? I've done this in the past and didn't get great response rates.

by buf 2y ago

jainvivek 2y ago

Ripple effects of success! How do you manage customer support for so many users in 3 different companies alone?

buf 2y ago
I have them all wired up to helpscout. Then a contractor checks the inbox every 8 hours to clear them out. She covers the hours I'm asleep as well. I also have it posting to a slack channel so we can quickly scan any urgent ones while I'm working. Bugs pop in heavily on new feature launches but then it's the usual "my email didn't arrive" type of questions.

staplers 2y ago

Now I'm taking a step back and understanding why they aren't paying, which involves just emailing them. Maybe too anecdotal, but inflation has hit everyone I know really hard in the last year. Especially in tech. Subscriptions, insurance, bills have skyrocketed. I believe many are taking a step back and rethinking necessities.

namanyayg 2y ago

Awesome! Followed you on X. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by "viral social loops"?

buf 2y ago
Any b2c product I build has huge incentive to share the product, creating more users. In the product itself, social is part of the value. So the more they interact, the more value they get. Similar to any social network you see today. I do this a number of ways, none original. Reactions, upvotes, achievements, streaks, creating summary videos (like Spotify year in review), public recommendations, etc
- buf 2y ago
  If you want some great reading material on this, I recommend Reforge's viral loops info. I believe it's free.
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    I checked, there is a membership to access the full content. I see what you did there.
    - buf 2y ago
      I thought they were still doing one free lesson. It's been a while since I was on Reforge though.
      - fuzztester 2y ago
        ha ha, i was just kidding :)
ignoramous 2y ago
Not OP but there are more than one ways to tap in to the distribution channels that exists thanks to influencers (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Substack, Telegram). I, personally, don't see it any different than Nike hiring Lionel Messi or Uniqlo hiring Roger Federer. Where Nike is a global company, indie developers (especially the ones in Software) are smaller and thus could focus on just the right content creators, ie rely on marketing to boost sales. This phenomenon isn't new. The book The Long Tail posited (way back) that even niche software could make millions now that the Internet had made it cheaper to reach just the right audience. Teenagers, Zach Yadegari (calai.app) and Blake Anderson (apex.inc), who built million dollar app-based businesses in 6mo, plan to release a book on it: https://x.com/zach_yadegari/status/1845842051314614681 https://x.com/zach_yadegari/status/1845842051314614681 / https://archive.md/xXf9a https://archive.md/xXf9a

areoform 2y ago

> Third started 1 month ago. And it's been a struggle. I got 10k free users just by emailing my list, but 0 paying users. So I tried ads and had similar results from the ads. Now I'm taking a step back and understanding why they aren't paying, which involves just emailing them. I looked at the product! And I think I know why you're struggling. (I am in your target demo) It's just not worth the price. You're competing against CapCut by ByteDance & that's "good enough." Their platform is freemium, uploads directly to tiktok etc. & can get you serviceable subtitles quickly. There are a bajillion and one ways to cut videos. And they're all extremely price competitive. You aren't competing against DaVinci's studio license. You're competing against the free one. And at the stated price point, I might as well buy Adobe After effects for $23 & use it alongside DaVinci's free license. The value just isn't there.

buf 2y ago
I'm realizing this a bit too late I think. My only value over something like capcut is the API, which most users don't care about. But I see products like submagic doing $1m arr and I'm at loss. How are they doing so well? It can't just be their editor. So I think the way forward for my product, if any, is to just target b2b for API usage or target users who want long form video cut into viral clips automatically. I need to niche it down.
- areoform 2y ago
  > How are they doing so well? It can't just be their editor. Their B-roll feature is amazing. People often spend time hunting down B-roll and it seems they solve that. They make it easier to make videos by splicing in applicable B-roll + cleaning up audio so that it sounds nice.

Crazyontap 2y ago

> First one I started 10 years ago. I built a bot that auto DMed people in various internet forums. My first 100 users came from that. Isn't this by definition Spamming people as you were using bots to mass DM people?

brailsafe 2y ago
This might be the reminder bot
davedx 2y ago
Yes. Surprise surprise, most businesses generate most of their initial sales via cold calls/emails/DMs/other automated marketing. That’s the real world
- jainvivek 2y ago
  And because they create so much noise, no option left for a new comer other than trying to shout louder than them. All-in-all a vicious cycle of spamming!
  - gryn 2y ago
    This is older than the ideas of the internet itself. Channels get saturated and marketers start looking for new ones with les noise/competition. The oldest that I can think of is old school markets where is shops yells to tell you how good of a deal you're gonna have if you buy from them. I think they date back to the middle ages, no?
    - mlhpdx 2y ago
      Older, almost certainly. The discovery of advertising murals and graffiti in Hereculum makes me smile a little. Humans have been humans all along.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]

joshdavham 2y ago

Am I correct to assume that each of these 3 businesses are roughly in the same problem space? I’m not sure how useful re-using an emailing list would be if each business was wildly different.

buf 2y ago
Yes, I generally build new products around my current audience.

cameronvoz 2y ago

How is it working for you to just email users? I've done this in the past and didn't get great response rates.