SaaS product journey

[kamchatka]

This is a bit different from the other journeys you may have seen here on BHW. I am the founder of a development company and we have worked
on multiple app and web app projects. I have a team of developers on salary, who are awesome and really standup guys and gals. They know
their stuff.

My role is too look after marketing, partnerships, JVs etc. I also program (mostly backend), whenever I get some time, in fact I am the go to
guy in my org when it comes to developing APIs.

During the Covid period, I thought about making a transition from a company that develops software under contract for others to a company that
creates software products and sell them under their own name.

To challenge ourselves, I came up with 12 products in 12 months idea. It is a tall task but it will help us to think differently.

The first product took almost 4.5 months to complete. The 2nd product is almost 50% complete and development time has decreased to 3 weeks.
I think we might be able to complete it within 6 weeks.

The products are going to be in different verticals. Also some in B2C, some in B2B.

Pricing: I am going with life time deals till we get some traction in the market. The products are structured in such a way that a
buyer gets access to everything. But for increased usage he has to buy top ups.

Marketing Channels

a. Affiliates
b. Facebook ads
c. Google ads.
d. Deal sites
e. Bloggers
f. Youtubers

The first product is in the AI powered Audio/Video niche.

There are about 6 worthwhile competitors and I am using spying tools to
find out how they ran their campaigns. There is one unique offering in my product that addresses a significant pain point for the customers.
And none of my competitors have addressed that.

I am signing up to affiliate marketplaces as a vendor to get affiliates for my product.

The marketing materials for facebook and google ads are being created. I will be running A/B tests
for 1 to 2 weeks. I am taking notes from my competitors campaigns to make sure we hit the ground running.

I am yet to contact bloggers and youtubers with deals for my product. I plan to do this after my ads are running.

My target is 400 paid signups for the life time deal in 45 days.

 

[oldguyjoe]

Plans like this should be the goal for most people on BHW, instead of eternal struggle running affiliate offers for others, pleasing google or doing some BH "method" that is about to get "patched".

Quick prototyping, market testing, developing and deploying as many ideas as possible until one or several explode in income. You'll probably still be able to sell underperformers for profit. Then you just conservatively invest a major portion of your money and you are free to pursue whatever you want for the rest of your life. Good luck.

 

[kamchatka]

Plans like this should be the goal for most people on BHW, instead of eternal struggle running affiliate offers for others, pleasing google or doing some BH "method" that is about to get "patched".

Quick prototyping, market testing, developing and deploying as many ideas as possible until one or several explode in income. You'll probably still be able to sell underperformers for profit. Then you just conservatively invest a major portion of your money and you are free to pursue whatever you want for the rest of your life. Good luck.

Thank you! In fact the current product we are developing addresses "Quick prototyping, market testing, developing and deploying as many ideas as possible" point. I searched around but couldn't find a decent service that doesn't expect you to be a company with deep pockets and helps you to validate ideas before you commit to them.

 

[rafark]

Interesting journey. I’m also a developer. Make sure you research your competitors thoroughly. I’m very interested to read your marketing strategies. Following.

 

[kamchatka]

Interesting journey. I’m also a developer. Make sure you research your competitors thoroughly. I’m very interested to read your marketing strategies. Following.

Thanks for your input. I am doing the competitors marketing research for the last 8 weeks. And have a respectable sized folder with all their data, marketing materials etc. Not only that, I scraped all the replies etc to their ads on facebook and ran sentiment analysis on them to see how they are being received by the audience.

I also took a freelancer on board, to sift manually through the data and find out what the majority of users are looking for, their complaints etc.

 

[PrincZ]

thanks for sharing. where are your developers based at?
if there's anyone who are interested to look for your developer/company service, can they reach out? thanks

 

[kamchatka]

thanks for sharing. where are your developers based at?
if there's anyone who are interested to look for your developer/company service, can they reach out? thanks

We are in Bangalore, India. Yes, they can.

 

[GenesisOne]

Kamchatka is one of my favorite movies...
Nice laid out plan.
I'll be glad to watch your success.
best of luck and following

 

[kamchatka]

Day 1:

a. I am waiting for approval from some affiliate network (I haven't applied to JVZOO or WarrioPlus)
b. I have signed up to SaaS LTD Facebook groups. I have been approved by some. I am in contact with their admins.
c. My criteria of choosing Facebook groups, is quite simple (focused, 2000+ members, 7+ posts per day)
d. I am putting together a giveaway campaign for these groups.

Next phase would be to reach out to youtubers and bloggers.

 

[kamchatka]

Day1:

Posted a thread on the JV forum. Waiting for admin / mod approval.

 

[BlueCatServices]

Plans like this should be the goal for most people on BHW, instead of eternal struggle running affiliate offers for others, pleasing google or doing some BH "method" that is about to get "patched".

Quick prototyping, market testing, developing and deploying as many ideas as possible until one or several explode in income. You'll probably still be able to sell underperformers for profit. Then you just conservatively invest a major portion of your money and you are free to pursue whatever you want for the rest of your life. Good luck.

you need some capital for that, not everyone has it.

content sites can be good to free up your time (because you earn passively from them) and to build capital flipping them

 

[crnack]

you need some capital for that, not everyone has it.

content sites can be good to free up your time (because you earn passively from them) and to build capital flipping them

If you can do affiliate marketing, you can do it too.
All you need is workforce and some product. Just make the product in your free time if you can't hire people.

Great journey. I hope it's a real one. There have been similar journeys in the past and they turned out to be fake.

I'm looking forward for inspiration.
Thanks.

 

[kamchatka]

Day2 :

1. The mods have been kind enough to approve my JV thread.
2. Have started receiving enquiries through PM.
3. Two angel funds in my network has shown interest and we are talking about term sheets now.
4. Still contacting Facebook groups and trying to setup deals with the admins.
5. Two SaaS markets have shown interests and we are in talks now.
6. A big name affiliate market is also interested and have sent their requirements (changes in some pages) etc.

 

[TechMeSomething]

This is a bit different from the other journeys you may have seen here on BHW. I am the founder of a development company and we have worked
on multiple app and web app projects. I have a team of developers on salary, who are awesome and really standup guys and gals. They know
their stuff.

My role is too look after marketing, partnerships, JVs etc. I also program (mostly backend), whenever I get some time, in fact I am the go to
guy in my org when it comes to developing APIs.

During the Covid period, I thought about making a transition from a company that develops software under contract for others to a company that
creates software products and sell them under their own name.

To challenge ourselves, I came up with 12 products in 12 months idea. It is a tall task but it will help us to think differently.

The first product took almost 4.5 months to complete. The 2nd product is almost 50% complete and development time has decreased to 3 weeks.
I think we might be able to complete it within 6 weeks.

The products are going to be in different verticals. Also some in B2C, some in B2B.

Pricing: I am going with life time deals till we get some traction in the market. The products are structured in such a way that a
buyer gets access to everything. But for increased usage he has to buy top ups.

Marketing Channels

a. Affiliates
b. Facebook ads
c. Google ads.
d. Deal sites
e. Bloggers
f. Youtubers

The first product is in the AI powered Audio/Video niche.

There are about 6 worthwhile competitors and I am using spying tools to
find out how they ran their campaigns. There is one unique offering in my product that addresses a significant pain point for the customers.
And none of my competitors have addressed that.

I am signing up to affiliate marketplaces as a vendor to get affiliates for my product.

The marketing materials for facebook and google ads are being created. I will be running A/B tests
for 1 to 2 weeks. I am taking notes from my competitors campaigns to make sure we hit the ground running.

I am yet to contact bloggers and youtubers with deals for my product. I plan to do this after my ads are running.

My target is 400 paid signups for the life time deal in 45 days.

Hi Kamchatka,

Could you please tell me how you discovered a "significant pain point for the customers".
Does this mean that customers are searching for the "point" and not finding any results?
If so, how have you identified this, which "spy tools" are you using?

Thank you

 

[kamchatka]

Hi Kamchatka,

Could you please tell me how you discovered a "significant pain point for the customers".
Does this mean that customers are searching for the "point" and not finding any results?
If so, how have you identified this, which "spy tools" are you using?

Thank you

I was a user of a similar service and found out that the lack of that solution was causing me problems.
I also looked up at search figures etc. to come to conclusion.

I am using poweradspy to spy on my competition.

 

[kamchatka]

1. I had the 2nd round of VC pitch meeting today and it went very well.
2. I have acquired about 53 beta testers who are users too.
3. 2 LTD deal launch partnerships is in place.
4. I am waiting for 3 more partners, who showed, interests to finalize.
5. The volley of suggestions I have received from them, will keep me busy for the next 1 week or so.

 

[Baze16]

I can run a cold automated emailing campaign for your products and acquire new leads. I was in search for a SaaS cooperation.

 

[MrSponge]

I love the way you think, journeys like this are what the forum is missing IMO.
Wishing you the best of luck.

 

[hamzaou]

Interesting journey.
best of luck, Following.

 

[macdonjo3]

I built and sold a SAAS few years ago. Was fun but found there are easier ways to make money. Best of luck!