Learning Web Development & Launching a SaaS in 50 days
- Thread starter Aulig
- Start date
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- saas web development
Aulig
Senior Member
- Jun 15, 2018
- 870
- 545
Still going strong! Pretty much fully automated the day-to-day work now. Hired a VA for customer support, training him currently. Apart from that, I need to do more marketing if I want more than just to stay afloat
Aulig
Senior Member
- Jun 15, 2018
- 870
- 545
Been a while since the last update again!
After 1 year of one-time payments I've decided to switch to subscription pricing again, since I could resolve a lot of the issues I had with it (remember this post?):
I've completely automatied dealing with failed payments now. Also I get a lot less of them now that I increased my prices, which also resolved the issue of low value high effort customers.
Why did I switch back? More predictable revenue and more new customers (currently getting 3/week instead of 2-3/month) with a similar LTV (turns out my long-term churn is only around 6%, I estimated it higher). These aspects are very important for selling the business too, which has been my end-goal since day one, but I'm far from the revenue goals I have before that.
Obviously switching back to subscription was a big hit to the monthly income but well worth it, since I'm now quickly increasing my MRR and should reach the levels I had with one-time purchases in a couple of months. And at that point
Also, here's a ranking update (hilarious looking back at those 60 Google impressions per day!):
Now:
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My biggest keywords are hovering between 6 and 17. I'm in position 1 or 2 for the same keywords in other languages though, which brings in the majority of customers.
After 1 year of one-time payments I've decided to switch to subscription pricing again, since I could resolve a lot of the issues I had with it (remember this post?):
Holy smokes, I haven't posted an update since 6 months?! Thank you very much for reminding me @RealDaddy
I'll try to list the most important things that happened since then:
- SEO hasn't improved a lot sadly, but I must admit that I have been lazy in that regards, as always
- Managed to automate a lot of stuff, fix bugs etc.
- Hired 2 VAs that can take care of some of the difficult to automate work
- Currently at ~$840 monthly recurring revenue
Some things I learned that you might find interesting too:
I decided to switch from a subscription payment to a one-time payment.
Currently the OTP equates to around 2 years of monthly payments. In contrast, currently the average subscription time is around 3 months at the moment (= around $120). However it's higher than that in reality, because that includes about half of my customer base that (hopefully) won't cancel soon. I guess in a year or so I'd have more accurate stats on how long the average customer stays subscribed. But with this calculation the switch to OTP would be an 8x increase in revenue per customer.
Why did I switch?
- Initial setup for customers always takes a couple hours of work, so it was not really worth my time when they canceled after just 2-3 months
- Having to deal with failed payments is super annoying, you won't believe how often people forget to load up their credit card, switch banks etc. All of which makes the payments fail and you have to try to get ahold of them so they update their payment information -> super annoying and often times I couldn't reach them
- Less low value, high effort customers: by providing a cheap monthly price you get cheap customers that expect unrealistic stuff for a tiny price point
These 3 aspects were super frustrating and I don't want to be pissed off because that increases the chances of giving up
- Subscription fatigue: lots of people don't like paying for subscriptions and would rather pay a one-time price (even though they might be cheaper off in many cases)
Was the switch worth it?
While using the subscription payment I got on average 1 new customer every 4.5 days. Now it's around 1 every 2 weeks. So ~3.1 times less customers, but currently around 5.8 times (not quite the 8x i mentioned above, but the sample size is low so it might change still) higher revenue per customer. Even from that calculation alone it's worth it, but you also need to keep in mind how much less work I have to do then
Going to bed now - might post another part tomorrow if i remember to do so
I've completely automatied dealing with failed payments now. Also I get a lot less of them now that I increased my prices, which also resolved the issue of low value high effort customers.
Why did I switch back? More predictable revenue and more new customers (currently getting 3/week instead of 2-3/month) with a similar LTV (turns out my long-term churn is only around 6%, I estimated it higher). These aspects are very important for selling the business too, which has been my end-goal since day one, but I'm far from the revenue goals I have before that.
Obviously switching back to subscription was a big hit to the monthly income but well worth it, since I'm now quickly increasing my MRR and should reach the levels I had with one-time purchases in a couple of months. And at that point
Also, here's a ranking update (hilarious looking back at those 60 Google impressions per day!):
Not doing a crazy lot atm, have an exam I need to prepare for. Google rankings are improving steadily though which is awesome
Here's my search impressions:
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View attachment 137022
Here's my keyword rankings, the ones at the bottom are around 45 - 80. Once I get those on the first page I should be set lol.
View attachment 137023
So yea, there's an upwards trend with both search impressions & rankings. Search clicks/page visits are still really low, but I think the CTR will improve a lot with higher rankings. I hope the trend continues like that, then I can expect page 1 rankings in about 2 months I'd guess
Until then I will keep posting articles & getting some backlinks and hopefully get my product to a well usable state.
Now:
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My biggest keywords are hovering between 6 and 17. I'm in position 1 or 2 for the same keywords in other languages though, which brings in the majority of customers.
Aulig
Senior Member
- Jun 15, 2018
- 870
- 545
It's been another year, so welcome back to my diary
After 4 years, the business is picking up speed. I've learnt a lot and I guess that's just how long it took me to develop the product, get rid of the biggest mistakes and rank on Google. Speaking of Google, here are the latest numbers of the past year:
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I'm also making enough monthly recurring revenue to easily live off of it now (even with my ever increasing business expenses). Switching back to subscriptions was a very good choice, since it gives me predictable revenue.
What else is there to say really. I'm mostly writing this here these days because I enjoy looking back on the early days, so in a few years I'll read this exact post again too haha. I'm thankful for having found BHW sometime in 2017, it has shaped my mind and truly impacted my life. Learning SEO and in general thinking about making money in various ways. Even though I don't come by here regularly anymore, I'd probably not have this business without BHW, so I guess I have a part of BHW in my day to day life.
After 4 years, the business is picking up speed. I've learnt a lot and I guess that's just how long it took me to develop the product, get rid of the biggest mistakes and rank on Google. Speaking of Google, here are the latest numbers of the past year:
1414×359
40,2 kB
1414×359
40,2 kB
I'm also making enough monthly recurring revenue to easily live off of it now (even with my ever increasing business expenses). Switching back to subscriptions was a very good choice, since it gives me predictable revenue.
What else is there to say really. I'm mostly writing this here these days because I enjoy looking back on the early days, so in a few years I'll read this exact post again too haha. I'm thankful for having found BHW sometime in 2017, it has shaped my mind and truly impacted my life. Learning SEO and in general thinking about making money in various ways. Even though I don't come by here regularly anymore, I'd probably not have this business without BHW, so I guess I have a part of BHW in my day to day life.
nextlvlig
Regular Member
- Jun 24, 2018
- 463
- 162
Super cool to see - congrats on the success! Besides seo, did you have any other ways to market? I launched my saas a few months ago, but having trouble getting consistent traffic. Mainly getting bursts from subreddits I post in which isn’t sustainable
Congrats on your SaaS business and it's good to see you coming back to update us after 3.5 years as most people just give up after a year. May I know what's your MRR now? Do you think you are satisfied with your growth? Good to see you ditching Google as we should never be reliant on Google or those tech giants. Subscription model is always a safe choice in SaaS.
Aulig
Senior Member
- Jun 15, 2018
- 870
- 545
Not really to be honest - I mostly still get my traffic from SEO. My strategy:
- Post blog posts (on my own website) so Google sees new content regularly
- Translate my website to other languages (a lot less competition)
- Make sure your page loads quickly
- Make sure your technical SEO is good (do it once and it should be fine forever mostly)
I'll just say that I make more than I would as an employed programmer
Combined with the added freedom of working for yourself, it's a dream come true. Although you sadly get used to it, as with everything. I remember dreaming of making enough money to survive from the business to make sure I don't have to take a regular job. I thought that would make me happy forever, but the hedonic treadmill knows no exceptions Currently I'm in the process of trying to selling my business. Not sure if it will work out - if it does, I'll let you know in a few months