I made $3k in 16 attempts to launch my SaaS | Hacker News Reader

I made $3k in 16 attempts to launch my SaaS

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54 pointsAlexandrBel26 comments

> All my earnings so far are only lifetime deals. No one has yet bought a subscription. This is a little disappointing.

Your lifetime pricing is about the same as 6 months at the monthly rate. If everyone is choosing that option, its likely the lifetime price is too low, your monthly price is too high, or both.

There was a separate page for lifetime deals and those who signed up from the main page did not even know that there were lifetime deals. It was today that I added them to the main page, before that they were available only through a specific link.

that would further reinforce my point - if people signing up dont feel its worth the monthly fee, but people with access to the secret link thought it was worth a one-off purchase.

Personally, I'd drop the lifetime access pretty quickly and bank on the fact that customers will renew for a quality product/service.

Last thing you want is an income time bomb in 3 years where your most active and loyal customers no longer need to pay.

Maybe an alternative could be to offer free months subscription and a tshirt for every successful recommendation

another quick point, if customers are happy paying for the lifetime offer, maybe you can raise prices for the Enterprise offering

I also thought that I would quickly refuse a lifetime deal and already refused. But after 3 weeks I decided to temporarily return them, since there was not a single sale of a subscription, and the extra money will not interfere with me now.

Lifetime annual discount might be more palatable depending on your cost of delivery.

Grandfathering can also be rewarded with a higher referral fee (as long as referrals are active, they can discount permanently).

It takes some planning up front with account, feature and billing management but can be worthwhile in general for flexibility.

While fewer than expected people might activate and use a lifetime deal, the ones that do can be a fun bunch support wise.

I know this sounds shitty but what's to stop you from periodically removing some of the features from the lifetime deal until it's just barebones and no support?

Other than being a decent human being that actually sticks to the agreements they made, nothing. But there is a surprising amount of value in "being a good person" when you're not a mega-corp.

Ask your customers and learn

I regularly keep in touch with some clients, but they are unlikely to tell you how to get people to buy a subscription :)

Many will tell you what they think it's worth, and if the app went away (even with lifetime), what they would be willing to pay elsewhere.

Asking lifetime customers may not provide a full picture though.

I think they meant to say you should directly ask those customers why they didn't buy a subscription.

This is such an underrated comment. Not being afraid of your customers and establishing communication goes a very long way especially when you're starting out.

That's a good thing to do anyway, but keep in mind that your customers are not a random sample of your desired customers.

Keep going, that's all I have to say. Keep going, kind your market fit, and your customers. They are out there.

Thanks!

FYI I don't know what your website contains but my corporate firewall is blocking it.

It's weird that no one has reported this issue yet.

Hmm. So far they only sold lifetime subscriptions priced at less than a years worth of monthly subscriptions. I would be scared to fail my subscribers if I run out of money and have to shut down.

To be fair, you're developing in an insanely saturated market niche. I can think of 9 tools offhand that do the same thing.

Yes, but I've tried making products for non-competitive niches and they've all failed. And only when I made a product in a competitive niche did sales appear.

I think this is a good idea. If there are a products there means money to be made and I think you found that out in a good way! Next step is to figure out what you can do different to start capturing market share, and turn that into captured revenue.

I think the more niche your product is, the more you need to be plugged in to the market, i.e. know people and understand their needs. You have to find a balance between niche and general.

How much talking have you done to your end users and potential customers? Just curious

I don't think it's enough. My target audience is marketing agencies. I have several clients with whom I communicate regularly and find out what they need. There is also another audience, these are single startups, I also keep in touch with them, but they are not ready to pay a lot

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