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You can do a lot more than that even. With a high margin SaaS product, you can make a LOT of money by just being smart about your pricing and pricing model, and

You can do a lot more than that even. With a high margin SaaS product, you can make a LOT of money by just being smart about your pricing and pricing model, and learning how to be okay at marketing. Many products have tiny operating costs, often hosting for less than $100/mo. There is a lot of opportunity out there, and VC money seems more unnecessary every day.

byoung2 13y ago
No doubt about it. I wonder how many people give up on promising projects because investors wouldn't be interested in a business that would only attract a 'tiny' market of 1000 people paying $20/month. But if one or two guys can run it and it doesn't take more than a few EC2 instances, why not pursue it?
gnaritas 13y ago
Do you happen to have any examples of those kinds of products? I'd love to see what kinds of small SaaS apps are being run by one or two people as a lifestyle type of business.
- byoung2 13y ago
  https://openexchangerates.org https://openexchangerates.org comes to mind.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Great example, if you know more like this selling SaaS webservices by one or two people please do share.
- yesimahuman 13y ago
  Well, my company Drifty (http://drifty.com/ http://drifty.com/) was largely that (we are 6 people now), though I don't use the term lifestyle business. Not that I don't think it's cool, but it doesn't fit what I want out of the company (I'm addicted to growth). It's not really about just being a lifestyle business though. The point is that there is so much opportunity out there right now that you can just be a few people, with no outside capital and make way more than $20k/mo. I would think followgen was one example of that. I'd be surprised if they weren't doing way more than $20k by the time they shut down the v1 service. Even if you want to go it alone, this guy is going to making way more than $20k a month soon, if I guess right: https://www.baremetrics.io/ https://www.baremetrics.io/
  - paulhauggis 13y ago
    I run a B2B business with 2 other people. Our monthly costs are sub-$100/month and we pull in a little over $10K/month in profit. The business has only been operating for 4 months..and has been profitable from day one. Although this was successful from day one, it was a result of 2 or 3 pivots over 3 years. All of the failures and successes from those pivots were fine-tuned and put into the current company.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      Tell me more.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Thank you, more examples if you have them please; this is inspiring stuff for someone who just wants a lifestyle biz working at home doing my own thing.
gnaritas 13y ago
Tell me about some of this opportunity; as a dev I have a ton of skills building stuff, and would love to launch a SaaS biz, preferably some kind of API that can allow me a lifestyle biz but I'm not so good at seeing what things people need, finding those niches.
- yesimahuman 13y ago
  Well, if you focus on building a product with retention and low operating costs baked right in, you can really grow a big business with little capital or head count required. Imagine signing up 10 people every day at $20/mo. After a year you've accumulated at most $73k per month in recurring revenue. Of course you won't retain everyone, but if you can retain a good amount of those customers, you could easily build yourself a $1M business just on your own.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Of course, but the issue as always is where are those niches, what do people need that's simple enough to be built by one or two people? How does one find such a niche? I'm a developer and thus practically by definition I can't think like my customers, things that might seem easy or worthless to me might not be to someone else, or maybe not. Having a SaaS product with monthly subscriptions would be my ideal, but you gotta know what people want and will pay for and how to find them.
    - yesimahuman 13y ago
      Well, I think the trick is to not think in terms of niches. A great way to start is to find something people already use, and then make it better. The trick is it should actually be better, otherwise it'll be a crappy clone. Then, you are entering a market where people already pay for stuff, and they can hopefully understand why yours is better. If you get their attention, you have a good chance of starting to build a subscriber base. Being unique and new is great, but it's a incredibly tough way to get off the ground.

byoung2 13y ago

No doubt about it. I wonder how many people give up on promising projects because investors wouldn't be interested in a business that would only attract a 'tiny' market of 1000 people paying $20/month. But if one or two guys can run it and it doesn't take more than a few EC2 instances, why not pursue it?

gnaritas 13y ago

Do you happen to have any examples of those kinds of products? I'd love to see what kinds of small SaaS apps are being run by one or two people as a lifestyle type of business.

byoung2 13y ago
https://openexchangerates.org https://openexchangerates.org comes to mind.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  Great example, if you know more like this selling SaaS webservices by one or two people please do share.
yesimahuman 13y ago
Well, my company Drifty (http://drifty.com/ http://drifty.com/) was largely that (we are 6 people now), though I don't use the term lifestyle business. Not that I don't think it's cool, but it doesn't fit what I want out of the company (I'm addicted to growth). It's not really about just being a lifestyle business though. The point is that there is so much opportunity out there right now that you can just be a few people, with no outside capital and make way more than $20k/mo. I would think followgen was one example of that. I'd be surprised if they weren't doing way more than $20k by the time they shut down the v1 service. Even if you want to go it alone, this guy is going to making way more than $20k a month soon, if I guess right: https://www.baremetrics.io/ https://www.baremetrics.io/
- paulhauggis 13y ago
  I run a B2B business with 2 other people. Our monthly costs are sub-$100/month and we pull in a little over $10K/month in profit. The business has only been operating for 4 months..and has been profitable from day one. Although this was successful from day one, it was a result of 2 or 3 pivots over 3 years. All of the failures and successes from those pivots were fine-tuned and put into the current company.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    Tell me more.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  Thank you, more examples if you have them please; this is inspiring stuff for someone who just wants a lifestyle biz working at home doing my own thing.

gnaritas 13y ago

Tell me about some of this opportunity; as a dev I have a ton of skills building stuff, and would love to launch a SaaS biz, preferably some kind of API that can allow me a lifestyle biz but I'm not so good at seeing what things people need, finding those niches.

yesimahuman 13y ago
Well, if you focus on building a product with retention and low operating costs baked right in, you can really grow a big business with little capital or head count required. Imagine signing up 10 people every day at $20/mo. After a year you've accumulated at most $73k per month in recurring revenue. Of course you won't retain everyone, but if you can retain a good amount of those customers, you could easily build yourself a $1M business just on your own.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  Of course, but the issue as always is where are those niches, what do people need that's simple enough to be built by one or two people? How does one find such a niche? I'm a developer and thus practically by definition I can't think like my customers, things that might seem easy or worthless to me might not be to someone else, or maybe not. Having a SaaS product with monthly subscriptions would be my ideal, but you gotta know what people want and will pay for and how to find them.
  - yesimahuman 13y ago
    Well, I think the trick is to not think in terms of niches. A great way to start is to find something people already use, and then make it better. The trick is it should actually be better, otherwise it'll be a crappy clone. Then, you are entering a market where people already pay for stuff, and they can hopefully understand why yours is better. If you get their attention, you have a good chance of starting to build a subscriber base. Being unique and new is great, but it's a incredibly tough way to get off the ground.