[HN Gopher] How I took my SaaS from idea to sold in 14 months
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How I took my SaaS from idea to sold in 14 months
Author : joemasilotti
Score : 148 points
Date : 2022-01-05 17:46 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (masilotti.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (masilotti.com)
| micahcc wrote:
| joemasilotti wrote:
| Ha, I'm with you there. But everyone I spoke to said it
| resonated so I kept it.
| jtap wrote:
| There are a couple negative comments here. Don't let that get you
| down. You've done more than most. You built a product, validated,
| and made real money on that product. Then you exited with a
| positive payout. Great job!
| joemasilotti wrote:
| Appreciate it - thank you!
| LenP wrote:
| This is actually an underserved niche, speaking from personal
| experience. Kudos to OP for acting on it! Family always comes
| first, I can't help but think that OP could likely have 10-20x'd
| MRR with just a little more focus on marketing?
| rgbrgb wrote:
| That's why there was a buyer!
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > This is actually an underserved niche
|
| I find this comment very interesting.
|
| The vast majority of SaaS businesses that are
| shown/sold/started here on HN are complete mysteries to me in
| terms of their domain and customer base. It's rare that I see a
| business about which I can say "OK, I can see a need for that
| product." This one is yet another example: I simply can't
| fathom ever finding a use for this feature.
|
| Please understand, I don't mean this in a negative sense. OP
| has definitely accomplished something to be proud of. It's just
| that my section of the industry (embedded systems) is so far
| removed from general web apps that I have no context for the
| use cases of a lot of what is introduced here.
| lloydjones wrote:
| Any site that gets traffic from social sharing on Twitter /
| Facebook.
|
| The visits via those sources are competing with other
| tweets/posts in the feed. If there's a visually compelling
| social image, the likelihood of the URL being visited and/or
| shared increases.
|
| Source: https://buzzsumo.com/blog/how-to-massively-boost-
| your-blog-t...
|
| (Obviously this doesn't 'prove' that a more-visually-
| compelling image does better than a basic one, but it seems
| like it'd follow, given the inclusion of the image at all
| performs better than no image).
| joemasilotti wrote:
| Maybe! I just didn't have the appetite. And I know that the
| folks who bought it do - so let them grow it to what it can be.
| altdataseller wrote:
| How much did your SaaS sold for in terms of multiple of annual
| revenue?
| Rastonbury wrote:
| Tapered growth so I'm guessing 2x-4x (high), at $218 MMR that's
| $5-10k after 14 months.
|
| Person put in 1-2 hours of work after the first two months.
| rgj wrote:
| So basically it was not worth their time. Why is this framed
| as a success and not a failure?
| pianoben wrote:
| Because to the author, it _is_ a success. They got to
| build, learn, taste progress, have fun, and then hand it
| off for some $$$ when their priorities shifted.
|
| Does everything need to be measured in millions here?
| cercatrova wrote:
| >Be respectful. Anyone sharing work is making a
| contribution, however modest.
|
| >Ask questions out of curiosity. Don't cross-examine.
|
| >Instead of "you're doing it wrong", suggest alternatives.
| When someone is learning, help them learn more.
|
| >When something isn't good, you needn't pretend that it is,
| but don't be gratuitously negative.
|
| From the Show HN guidelines (yes this is not technically a
| Show HN but it serves the same purpose)
| chrisgd wrote:
| You are going to work on a thousand side projects looking
| for a business over the next 10 years. To sell one for
| anything is an achievement.
| underdeserver wrote:
| Because he got to learn and to experience something he
| wanted. Why not?
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| Because the term "exit" has a different meaning to those
| that haven't actually run / managed a startup. Same reason
| you see kudos to startups for their exit or acquisition,
| when the reality is they were going under and or where an
| acquihire. Not that it's bad, but it's not the crazy exit
| they project it to be.
| darkwater wrote:
| Being a tiny side project to scratch an itch he had, I
| wouldn't say it was a failure even at 5k.
| rgj wrote:
| Maybe I need to explain what I said, I realize I came
| across a bit rude. I called it a failure because the
| emphasis in the article was completely on the sales/"exit"
| process and not on the product. I wouldn't have called it a
| failure if the article was about how they built a cool
| product, how they marketed it and how much they learned
| while doing all that.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| I still dont understand how you could class it as a
| failure.
| rhizome wrote:
| To be sure, you're assuming Rastonbury is correct.
| paxys wrote:
| Launching a real product, earning a single dollar in
| revenue from customers and selling a business for >0 are
| feats most entrepreneurs here are never going to be able to
| achieve. Just because it wasn't a billion dollar exit
| doesn't make it a failure.
| abraae wrote:
| Just because you earned a single dollar from a customer
| doesn't make it a success either.
| paxys wrote:
| Different people have different parameters for success.
| Clearly the author is happy with the outcome, why spend
| time arguing with them over it?
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>Different people have different parameters for success.
|
| True, but I would say close to 100% of people who build
| and business and try to sell it have a pretty singular
| definition of what success really means - and it isn't 'I
| learned something doing it'
| Ostrogodsky wrote:
| Because that is the whole idea of a discussion forum?
| This is not a "Validate me and cheer me up no matter what
| I did" kind of site, at least not in principle.
| altdataseller wrote:
| Exactly, and while it may not have been a massive
| success, there's a good chance he could parlay that
| success into something bigger in the future, since he now
| has a better understanding of how to achieve product-
| market fit, marketing, growing a business, etc.
| [deleted]
| sonofaragorn wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that's what everyone who clicked on the link
| was interested in LOL
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| The SaaS was only doing $218 MRR
| https://twitter.com/joemasilotti/status/1460706255874318338?...
| runako wrote:
| Personally, given the number of people who never even launch, I
| congratulate every dollar of MRR. Everyone has to start
| somewhere, and lessons are learned with every incremental win
| or loss.
| drorco wrote:
| lol my brain was automatically adding K each time MRR was
| mentioned. Completely missed that.
|
| Nevertheless, nice work.
| joemasilotti wrote:
| $218 MRR and damn proud of it, too!
| tofuahdude wrote:
| How much did you sell it for?
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Maybe a 1000 or 2000. Not worth spending 14 months in my
| opinion.
| giarc wrote:
| Definitely more than that. I sold something doing $5MRR
| for $2000 on MicroAcquire.
| creeble wrote:
| Any idea how the buyer did after that?
|
| I'm a big microacquire lurker.
| giarc wrote:
| Hard to say really. They revamped the webpage but left
| the product mostly the same (was a Google Sheet add-on).
| The only insight I have is the "# Users" that gets listed
| in the Google Workplace Marketplace. I think it's up to a
| few hundred, so likely they haven't made their money back
| yet.
| warent wrote:
| the lessons learned are definitely worth if you apply it
| going forward. making successful products and wealth is a
| skill. that value snowballs into making one rich
| dutchbrit wrote:
| You deserve to be proud, well done Joe. Most side projects
| fail, yours didn't. Enjoy being a dad!
| aeturnum wrote:
| I would be really interested to see a rough $/hr estimate from
| OP. Like, if he really did get $200/mo for 1-2 hours of work a
| month - that's ~$100/hr! It's a good rate! But any increase in
| time demands is going to sink this as a productive side gig and
| obviously it's unfit to use as a main gig.
| joemasilotti wrote:
| I wish I had that data... sadly I didn't time track for this
| in the beginning when I was working on it the most. But in
| the end I was definitely making less than $100/hour before
| the sale.
| aeturnum wrote:
| That makes sense - and congrats on getting any revenue out
| of a side project! It seems like a good experience even if
| it's hard to judge it on economic grounds alone.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| But also nothing per hour for the busy setup time - surely a
| more realistic assessment would be the total number of hours
| on the project divided by the total income?
| stuckkeys wrote:
| How much did you sell it for?
| sabhiram wrote:
| Anyone who has boiled water understands the difference between
| the working enough to make steam vs working enough to keep the
| water hot.
|
| Regardless of how much this made, the OP sold a business and
| crossed a chasm many find very uncomfortable to cross. Congrats
| on breaking past the inertia to ship, and then sell; it is truly
| commendable regardless of the naysayers.
| [deleted]
| dm03514 wrote:
| I see that the author is affiliated with
| https://jumpstartrails.com in some way (not sure whether they are
| a contractor or user or w/e). Does anyone have any direct
| successes with jumpstartrails or any other similar all in one
| frameworks?
|
| I started a company a couple of years ago and sunk weeks/months
| into the boilerplate, eventually to abandon the project, package
| the core product as an CLI and open source it. Hoping to avoid
| that again in the future :p
| joemasilotti wrote:
| I'm in charge of Jumpstart iOS! It's a similar template but for
| Turbo Native-powered iOS apps.
|
| Jumpstart takes care of a _lot_ of the boilerplate code in
| building a saas. I think it's worth the investment, but I'm
| involved in the project, so I'm pretty biased.
| joshmlewis wrote:
| I used Jumpstart on a recent side project. It's pretty good but
| because it comes with so many things baked in, you have to
| agree with most of their stack/gem decisions and methodology
| (which I do for the most part) but you need to consider that
| going into it.
| excid3 wrote:
| Creator of Jumpstart Pro here!
|
| There have been a couple huge successes with it. One of them is
| processing millions in revenue a month. A lot of others are
| doing well and chugging along. Can't share the exact ones
| without permission, but I've been blown away it.
|
| At the end of the day, it's nice to help people focus on their
| unique business features and not payments, teams, etc.
| joshmlewis wrote:
| Thanks for all you do for the Rails community with videos,
| etc. besides Jumpstart. It was actually a smart way to market
| Jumpstart (even though that wasn't the original intention).
| aantix wrote:
| Jumpstart is incredibly productive and well tested. You get
| full access to the codebase, so anything can be
| changed/customized.
|
| The scaffolds are already updated to utilize the latest Rails
| 7/Hotwire patterns .
|
| I'm currently developing with it on a personal project.
| brobles wrote:
| Does exactly that, it provides you with a stable and ready-to-
| build foundation with very little configuration
| javajosh wrote:
| Cool story, although I can't help but notice that the product is
| a tool to automate twitter, and twitter turned out to be a
| critical piece in marketing the product, and later, marketing
| (and even selling) the business. That is, it all seems very self-
| referential, revolving around twitter, and this is why the turn-
| around was so fast. Also, it was all very low stakes.
|
| This comment probably sounds a little like sour grapes. But let
| me clear: this was a remarkable and laudable accomplishment. The
| time and place were right for OP, and it's bad sportsmanship to
| take anything away from a pilot that tacks with the wind to win
| the race.
| rhizome wrote:
| "Your company makes equipment used to build roads, yet at the
| same time you use roads built by other companies.
| _Interesting_. "
| coorasse2 wrote:
| Actually this is supported also on Telegram for example. I
| guess also other platforms?
| joemasilotti wrote:
| It's supported on any platform that works with Open Graph
| tags, which is most social networks. Twitter was the primary
| target because I spend most of my time there and that's where
| my audience is.
| joemasilotti wrote:
| Huh, that's a really good point. I never thought about it like
| that! To farther prove your point, my audience is also entirely
| on Twitter, so building in public worked really well _for me_.
| saasly wrote:
| Can't help but feel like you should have kept the SaaS and grew
| it more and sold it later, or at least keep it running and
| leverage it for an llc/business/tax deductions.
| giarc wrote:
| Not OP, but as someone with multiple projects on the go, I can
| attest to the feeling of release when you offload a project
| regardless of the size.
| mandeepj wrote:
| Good job and effort, but $100 MRR. I think there should be a
| threshold for claiming a 'acquired\sold' tag
| mellavora wrote:
| I completely agree. The threshold should be $1 or the
| equivalent in local currency (adjusted for average hourly
| wage).
|
| Sold is sold. Crossing that threshold is a huge step. Congrats
| to the author.
| joemasilotti wrote:
| At the time of sale it was doing $218 MRR. And why gatekeep? It
| sold, right?
| runako wrote:
| This is garbage gatekeeping, and it misses the fact that
| entrepreneurship is usually a journey of learning as much as a
| financial journey. Look closely at bios of home-run
| entrepreneurs and you will frequently see a smaller win or loss
| before the exit for which they become known. What is the point
| of denigrating people for not having sold a SaaS as
| successfully as you have?
|
| I wish them hearty congratulations on the sale and good luck
| with the next adventure.
| allendoerfer wrote:
| He could clearify, that he sold a SaaS project, not a whole
| company. But he did sell the software.
| joemasilotti wrote:
| I sold the domain, the IP, the design, and the marketing
| tactics along with the code. What more is there in a company?
| andi999 wrote:
| Technically the name.
| allendoerfer wrote:
| At least in Western law, a company a legal entity, but that
| is just me being pendantic. More importantly, a company to
| me is something which has employees and is at least
| somewhat able to sustain them, even only by burning money.
| So I would not even count self-employment as having _a
| company_ , only in the strictly legal sense. To me, you
| literally need _company_ to have a _company_.
|
| Edit: Still congratulations to you and thank you for
| sharing!
| aerovistae wrote:
| Frankly, I always find these stories miraculous. Even though I'm
| a full-time web developer, I find it daunting merely to design a
| landing page with user sign-up, let alone a feature worth paying
| for and an account subscription flow. There's just so much to do.
| It seems like years of work.
|
| I know there's things like SaaS pegasus, but that forces Django.
| SaaS Pegasus and Bullet Train are also very expensive with no
| real options for trial. I wish tools like that - automating the
| basics of an ecommerce business - were more developed and
| available, preferably open source in the long run. I feel like
| it's the future we're slowly moving towards but we aren't there
| yet. We have widely-used open source frameworks for technical
| foundations - rails, django, etc - but no higher-abstraction
| equivalent that handles "features" like subscriptions and
| accounts.
|
| It is infinitely easier to build and deploy things in 2020 than
| it was in 2010, and I'm hoping the time between now and 2030
| represents a similar jump.
|
| edit: found this list though https://github.com/smirnov-
| am/awesome-saas-boilerplates
| DanHulton wrote:
| I mean, it is years of work, speaking from experience. I make a
| similar tool (but for Node.js/Vue, if you're not a fan of
| Django), and it took around two years to get it to where it is,
| with user account creation/management, subscriptions, teams,
| admin dashboard, scripting, etc. I'm definitely not charging as
| much as Bullet Train, but also I feel fully justified in
| charging instead of open sourcing it. It's been my sole serious
| side-project for years now after all.
|
| The problem for trials of stuff like this, is that you have no
| real way of enforcing it. You just have to hope that trialers
| feel like doing the right thing and paying if they continue to
| use it, because trying to recover a few hundred dollars through
| legal means is just not worth the time and money you'd have to
| spend.
|
| In the end, I settled on a 60-day money-back guarantee, and
| I've already issued a few already, to folks who thought it had
| a feature it didn't yet, or ended up not pursuing their idea,
| etc, so it seems to work pretty well.
| eloff wrote:
| You missed a great opportunity to plug your product on HN,
| give us a name and a link :)
| ZhangSWEFAANG wrote:
| nodewood.com
| joemasilotti wrote:
| I didn't build this app on it, but if I did it again I would
| probably use Jumpstart. https://jumpstartrails.com
|
| There's also an open source version that handles a good chunk
| of the stuff needed to get a Rails saas up and running.
| weaksauce wrote:
| yeah I was going to plug that too...
|
| the open source one handles a basic devise, admin backend and
| some other things. the pay one adds stripe and payments and
| stuff like that. but the open source one is really nice for
| hitting the ground running
| loh wrote:
| This is exactly why I built Molecule.dev. It's brand new, using
| all the latest and greatest battle-tested tools.
|
| I started it because I recognized that it took _entirely too
| long_ to implement some of the most basic core functionality
| for cross-platform apps in a way that is up to my standards
| (i.e., minimal with no real vendor lock-in). It actually
| boggles my mind that nothing of the same quality as
| Molecule.dev exists yet. It 's obviously a problem that
| developers everywhere run into when building custom apps. I've
| seen a few solutions, but (again) they're all either not up to
| my standards or they try to lock you in.
|
| I think most developers prefer to implement things themselves,
| as they have their own preferences and may (like me) not trust
| that the code quality is up to their standards, so the
| difficult part here may actually be to convince developers that
| the code is high quality and something they themselves would
| write.
| tomrod wrote:
| Interesting. If I did my math right, you have 917,294,284,800
| combinations of configuration available, not counting the
| "other" option in each category.
|
| That's a lot! Most are coming from things like the deployment
| OS (720 options since you aren't limited to only one choice).
| amackera wrote:
| How can something be both state-of-the-art and battle tested?
| I thought battle tested meant something more like "tried and
| true" (AKA not new).
|
| Cool product though!
| loh wrote:
| Most of the tools have been around for quite some time (on
| the web tech timescale, at least), and they've each evolved
| and improved as they've been battle-tested. For example,
| React is pretty state-of-the-art as it has changed
| (improved) significantly over the years, while still being
| used in production everywhere.
| aerovistae wrote:
| What you've built here is GORGEOUS and is exactly what I'm
| imagining the future of development will look like. It's a
| dream.
|
| Until you get to the end and it says "$400" -- then I
| remember it's still 2022 and we're not there yet. You deserve
| to be compensated for this work, absolutely. I just look
| forward to a future where tools like this are no longer
| privately held.
| loh wrote:
| Yeah. I wish I could release this for free but it requires
| so much time and effort to do it right that I would end up
| homeless.
| techsin101 wrote:
| how can you be 'latest' and 'battle-tested' at the same time?
| loh wrote:
| A good example is probably React. I would consider it to be
| battle-tested, but it's evolved significantly over the
| years. "Latest and greatest" would refer to e.g. hooks in
| the particular case of React.
| rockbruno wrote:
| I think the key is having at least something done. Nowadays,
| most of my new projects are done by copy pasting things I've
| done in previous ones. This reduces the time spent setting
| things up considerably.
| shrimpx wrote:
| My question is will this product be successful in the hands of
| the new owner? The signal of success is so low -- a few hundred
| dollars in revenue -- that it could well be random noise. I'd
| like to see any data showing the success rate or these projects
| post "micro acquire".
| joemasilotti wrote:
| I'm confident that it will continue to be a successful product.
| Lot's of the paying customers have been around since the
| beginning and churn is pretty low, especially for a $9/mo
| service.
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(page generated 2022-01-05 23:00 UTC)