SaaS journey - Rebuilding my life from the lowest point

Siddhant654321

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About Me

Hello, it's been a while since I last posted in this forum. I am Sid, a web developer. 2-3 years back, my life was going perfectly well. I had a couple of clients with more coming each month. But, as AI and vibe coding got more and more popular, me and a lot of other developers started losing their daily bread. Over time, I started losing my clients to it, and the replacement rate of clients wasn't generous. So, right now, I have just one client left with no more coming this way. My savings are almost dried up. And I can't ask my family for money either, since they already have a ton of debt to deal with.

This is probably the lowest point of my life financially. Almost no savings. No more income coming in. And some necessary expenses like rent and such to dry up the remaining savings. From my calculations, my savings won't last more than 8-9 months. And that's the time I have got to establish a consistent source of income. What will that be? SaaS.

The Journey

One of my previous co-workers is making $10k+ a month from his SaaS. He started the website a little more than a year ago with almost no marketing budget (kinda like me), but he managed to grow it into quite a successful venture. He is my inspiration for this journey. We are of the same background (web devs), but I am a little better in marketing than he was because I have hustled as an affiliate marketer in the past.

The Plan

Well, there is none. Yeah, I know that you need a plan before you start, but honestly, the path is way too dark for me to have a plan. I do know what I need to do though. Firstly, market research. That is probably the most important part. It is the foundation for the business that I wanna do, and no matter how strong of a building I build upon it, if the foundation is weak, it will all come crumbling down. So, that's step 1. Secondly, I will have to build it. It's a long process, but I am confident in my skills as a web developer. I have built SaaS websites as complex as you can possibly imagine in deadlines that seemed unreasonable. So, this step will be an easy one. Third step, and the one that scares me the most, marketing. I will be honest here, I have no marketing budget. I will have to rely on organic marketing. I will be building a plan for organic marketing as I build the SaaS itself, and slowly, I will come up with the most perfect plan. How? I don't know. I am just hoping I will figure out as I go.

But Sid, you don't know most of the stuff. You can't just start without knowing the most perfect plan. Yes, but I think most people never start because they think this way. I think this way too. But I am taking a slight detour in my thinking and switching on the mindset of "I will figure it out when I get there".

I will try to hold myself accountable here and do my very best that this journey doesn't end up like the hundreds of other "dead" journeys. I will try my very best to make this journey worth your while.
 
What are going to be your First steps for Market Research?
 
What are going to be your First steps for Market Research?
Forums. I am going to browse through a few of them and see what most people are struggling with and "if" they are able to solve it on their own or through someone else.
 
Update

So, I have done a lot of market research and found a pain point with very few competitors solving it. I intend to build an MVP as soon as I possibly can and get the product out there in the open, to validate my idea.
 
Good luck with your journey. I recommend you check Y Combinator's YouTube channel, they have tons of resources on starting a startup.
 
Wishing you the best, Sid. One thing I've noticed is that many SaaS projects fail because founders build first and validate later. If you can solve a real problem and get feedback early, you'll already be ahead of many others. Looking forward to following your journey.
 
Wishing you the best, Sid. One thing I've noticed is that many SaaS projects fail because founders build first and validate later. If you can solve a real problem and get feedback early, you'll already be ahead of many others. Looking forward to following your journey.
Thanks bro. The SaaS app I am building is intended to solve a problem that exists. I would like to validate it ASAP, and that's why, I have been working 12-16 hours a day to get the MVP up and running as soon as I possibly can. Good news? It's almost completed. I still have to test everything out before I start marketing the product, but I am thinking of launching the product by the end of the next week, hopefully.
 
Quick Update

The MVP is almost completed. Among all the marketing ideas that I have, one is SEO. So, I have connected a headless CMS platform with my custom built SaaS and I will be posting content on it pretty soon.

Headless CMS will save me so much time and effort compared to adding each product manually via coding. Also, it will decrease the margin of error and help me with making sure that all the major SEO practices are followed.
 
Quick Update

Still fixing a few bugs on the MVP but I have started posting blog on my website as the first means of traffic. No clicks but some impressions, It's a long way from here. I am also setting up other strategies to bring in the organic traffic later down the road (got 2 free users from these traffic sources. No paid user yet though). So far, things are not looking bad. I will keep everyone updated.
 

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But I am taking a slight detour in my thinking and switching on the mindset of "I will figure it out when I get there".
This is the mindset for life in general as far as I'm concerned. The most intricate of plans can easily fall apart. Good luck with the journey!
 
Good luck on your journey man! I'm also ventured on the same headless journey but not SaaS though. I use astro js + headless wordpress via graphql.
 
If you want a tip, promote your SAAS on Reddit. Especially with comments on posts already receiving traffic from Google.

Posts like "best...alternative" (... = Your popular competitor)

"best ..." (Your niche)

Buy some upvotes to rank better. There are case studies with SAAS making thousands just with that. Since you're in a hurry, I would give it a shot, results are way faster than SEO.
 
If you want a tip, promote your SAAS on Reddit. Especially with comments on posts already receiving traffic from Google.

Posts like "best...alternative" (... = Your popular competitor)

"best ..." (Your niche)

Buy some upvotes to rank better. There are case studies with SAAS making thousands just with that. Since you're in a hurry, I would give it a shot, results are way faster than SEO.
Yes, that is one of the channels I am going to be leveraging, apart from the many other channels that I have thought of.
 
Keep pushing forward and don't give up; if you don't give up, you never lose. Also, check some of what the member said above, as they are giving you some golden nuggets. Also, focus on one thing and don't get distracted.
I appreciate everyone helping me out here, and I am certainly taking notes. About giving up? Ain't doing that. It's either success or die trying.
 
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