Ask HN: Need some advice about my SaaS | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Need some advice about my SaaS

5 pointsrobingarnham6 comments

Long time reader, and read HN many times a day. Feel like it’s time to get some advice about my situation.

I’ve wanted to run a company for years, and finally bit the bullet and left a very successful startup where I was the VP of Engineering. COVID hit a week after I left!

I wanted to build a product company, but wanted control of my destiny and to be able to do it on my terms and without the risk of my IP being taken (contract with employer at the time)

I started a company and was offering consulting services to bootstrap the product side. Two years of consulting success later the wheels started to slow as I got tired of hustling so hard. We launched a product and get great feedback for it, but it’s been a limited commercial success. (https://www.pearler.ai)

I’ve been chasing a big enterprise client and they have helped us to refine the product dramatically- it seems like it’s going to come together but it feels like too little too late. I guess I’m just a bit burnt out.

I’ve stopped all the consulting services and taken a day job. I own all of the company and it’s just me now (after having nearly ten people working in the company). I feel like the company is well setup (legally and financially), and I have the skills to lead and run a company. Just I feel stuck in the chasm of low revenue from Product. We’ve had investors interested but I’ve never sought external capital because I don’t feel confident enough in its prospects. It feels unfair to put someone else’s capital on the line until it’s a confirmed success? I think that’s holding me back.

The product is a typical SaaS product but is still small revenue ($1000 MRR)

I think what I’ve been missing is a co-founder that can help with marketing, customer demos, helping with website and organic content to bring in more customers.

We get great feedback but I’ve always been time poor and never been able to go all-in. I feel a bit stuck.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

I'm a sales engineer and I think this tool could be useful.

I would also look at driving leads based on customer pain points. If I could train your system to use my docs that would also be useful. I would also want to exclude my competitors from my training data.

Maybe also focus your tool around government RFPs. There are a lot of consultants out there who make a lot of money writing proposals for various companies and it is quite time consuming.

Other questions:

Does it make sense to have a salesforce integration? Does it make sense to have a Jira integration? Does it make sense to have a confluence integration? Does it make sense to have Google Doc or Office 365 integration?

Maybe make these plugins and attend a Salesforce and Jira conference or two.

Good luck!

Thanks for your thoughts.

In short - yes, but I am wary of putting more time into a product when I’m being told it’s already achieved product/market fit and maybe it’s a sales problem?

I think by that definition you do not have product market fit yet. You have something though that could lead to something bigger.

I would try to prove to yourself that it is a sales problem. Do you have free trial users who do not convert? Or is it a marketing problem as in you need to acquire leads?

Who are your customers? Where are they? What is their workflow? And how to you get yourself in front of them?

After your recent experience, do you still want to run a company?

While there can be a difference in growth prospects between a product company and a consultancy -- because a product company can have economies of scale and a consultancy can only scale linearly -- both are directly dependent on the hustle of sales closings (and only indirectly on actually providing value to customers or clients).

To be fair to yourself, there was the pandemic and it changed the business landscape.

Yeah, I love growing a team and building a product I love. I feel energised doing it. I just haven’t managed to make it a profitable exercise yet (in contrast to what I was able to do consulting wise - which was a great business I didn’t want to run!)

Running a company is pretty much the same for a consultancy as for a product company.

It is sales and cash flow management and administration.

If you don’t love those things, then you don’t love running a company.

To use a sports analogy, the manager or head coach isn’t the team captain. The captain gets on the field to play. The manager has to love sitting in the office dealing with headaches.

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