https://mattmazur.com/2023/01/04/going-full-time-on-my-saas-after-13-years/ Matt Mazur Matt Mazur Menu Skip to content * Home * About * Archives * Contact * Projects Going Full Time on My SaaS After 13 Years [climb] In January 2010 I soft-launched launched Preceden, a web-based timeline maker tool, followed a few weeks later by a larger launch on HackerNews: [screenshot] Today - almost 13 years to the day since the initial launch - I'm going full time on it and I couldn't be more excited. A brief history of Preceden At the time of Preceden's launch, I was serving as a first lieutenant in the US Air Force and about halfway through a 5-year service commitment I incurred by attending the Air Force Academy, a military college. I knew I didn't want to make the Air Force a career, so decided to start learning web development with the hope of eventually working full time on a startup after my service commitment ended in 2012. The first web app I built during this time period was Domain Pigeon (a domain search tool), followed by Preceden, followed by Lean Designs (a WYSIWYG web design tool), followed by Lean Domain Search (another domain search tool I built while deployed to Iraq), plus a few smaller ones not worth mentioning. By the time I left the Air Force, I had shut down all except Preceden and Lean Domain Search. I did go full time for a few months, but focused entirely on Lean Domain Search. That tool was eventually acquihired by Automattic in 2013, where I joined full time as a software engineer helping with the domain name experience on WordPress.com. With Lean Domain Search in Automattic's hands, I was left with just Preceden, which at that point was about 3 years old. It didn't make much money at the time, but I decided to continue working on it as a side project and see where it went. Four years later in 2017 I left Automattic to join Help Scout as their first data team hire (during my time at Automattic, I gradually shifted away from software engineering to more of a data analyst/ analytics engineer role). I continued to work on Preceden (then 7 years old), and in 2018 I switched to a contractor role so I could put more time on Preceden. And now, after 4 years of contracting, I'm finally going full time on Preceden. Here was my announcement at Help Scout from a few weeks ago: [help-scout] Why not sooner? It was a combination of things: * I made a lot of rookie mistakes over the years that limited Preceden's growth including not focusing on a specific niche, not spending enough time marketing, not talking to enough customers, trying to do too much myself, and just in general picking a difficult product and business to build (something I didn't give any thought to initially). * I was learning a ton, doing a lot of interesting work, and enjoying the camaraderie I had with my teammates at Automattic and later Help Scout. * Financially it made more sense to keep Preceden as a side project. On the last point - it's much easier to launch a SaaS than it is to grow it to the point where it can replace your income. As the sole breadwinner in our household with 4 young kids, I was not comfortable going full time and merely being ramen profitable or anything close to it. I wanted to replace or mostly replace my other income, and with Preceden's SaaS metrics being what they were, it just took a really, really long time to do that. The long slow SaaS ramp of death is something I now have a lot of experience with . But here I am, finally. [image]Preceden in 2010 [image-1]Preceden in 2019 [preceden-2]Preceden today in 2023 What's next? I plan to focus mostly on Preceden, but will spend some percentage of my time on other pursuits. I recently launched LearnGPT.com, a fledgling GPT education site, and will likely work more and more on AI projects including integrating it into Preceden itself. Also, it's been a busy few years, and I'm very much looking forward to relaxing more and spending more time with my family including my two younger kids who aren't in school yet. I don't know what my future holds long term. Preceden's finances are good enough for now, but not at a point where I can just stop working on it and coast for years. With a little luck, Preceden will continue to grow and will continue supporting me full time to either focus on it or other pursuits. There's also some chance I get bored with it or stumble across some promising new startup and I wind up going back full time somewhere else. We will see! I do hope to blog more frequently so if you are interested in following along, you can subscribe via email, RSS, or just follow me on Twitter at @mhmazur. Thanks for reading . Comments on HackerNews Share this: * Twitter * Facebook * Like this: Like Loading... Related Posted on January 4, 2023 by Mazur. This entry was posted in Domain Pigeon, Help Scout, Lean Designs, Lean Domain Search, Preceden. Bookmark the permalink. Post navigation - AOL Underground Podcast Interview about AOL-Files.com 2 thoughts on "Going Full Time on My SaaS After 13 Years" 1. [4211] AB says: January 4, 2023 at 4:33 pm Wish you good luck! Reply 2. [e47a] Marjorie says: January 4, 2023 at 5:34 pm Congratulations, Matt! What a fantastic milestone! Pre-Automattic, I ran my own agency, and while it obviously wasn't a SaaS project (unless you're referring to Service as a Service haha), I definitely ran into the Slow Ramp of Death. It was like after every big, celebratory milestone, I would run into what seemed like an even bigger, hairier, steeper climb to the next milestone. I admire folks who can keep plugging away, climbing those mountains, because I eventually decided that I was done with that journey. I don't regret that decision, but I appreciated the learnings. Looking forward to hearing more about *your* journey! Reply Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here... [ ] Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: * * * * Gravatar Email (required) (Address never made public) [ ] Name (required) [ ] Website [ ] WordPress.com Logo You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change ) Twitter picture You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change ) Facebook photo You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change ) Cancel Connecting to %s [ ] Notify me of new comments via email. [ ] Notify me of new posts via email. [Post Comment] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] D[ ] Subscribe for Updates Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address: [ ] Follow Join 957 other subscribers About Hey there! I'm the founder of Preceden, a web-based timeline maker, and LearnGPT.com, a GPT education site. [gmail] [twitter] [linkedin] [rss] Search [ ] [Search] Follow me on Twitter My Tweets Blog at WordPress.com. * Follow Following + [wpcom-] Matt Mazur Join 957 other followers [ ] Sign me up + Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now. * + [wpcom-] Matt Mazur + Customize + Follow Following + Sign up + Log in + Copy shortlink + Report this content + View post in Reader + Manage subscriptions + Collapse this bar Loading Comments... Write a Comment... 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