Laid off. Broke. Depressed. & idk how to market my SaaS | Hacker News Reader

Laid off. Broke. Depressed. & idk how to market my SaaS

15 pointstouseefbuilds25 comments

I live in a third-world country with a family who's dependent on me. I used to work as a Software Engineer specializing in MERN Stack. I was laid off a month ago, didn't have any saving cos I was already hand-to-mouth, supporting a family of 5 with funding my brother's University fee.

I am really depressed and have done nearly everything I knew to market my SaaS products but nothing's working.

Tried: 1. Submitting my product on SaaS directories + on LTD ones (got rejections & some didn't respond), 2. Built in Public (no response), 3. Got Permanently Banned from Reddit (cos I did self-promotion as I wasn't aware - my mistake, i accept), 4. Wrote Articles & submitted on GSC, almost a month has passed & still not indexed, 5. Cold outreach (0 response rate, did personalized outreach, researched about each person + their products & mentioned I'll give free 3 months access) 6. Approached micro-influencers & told them I'll give them commission + other perks (0 response)

I don't know what else to do.

Really losing hope in everything...

The reality is that SaaS is hard to sell these days. It's not 2010 any more, the gold rush is over.

That's not to say it's impossible, but it's so much harder than 15 years ago.

Everyone and their dog is starting a SaaS. Very few are selling them. And almost no one is turning one into a job.

The people who are self employed by their SaaS started them 5 years ago.

Get a job, support your family, and protect your mental health.

Sorry to hear that. I feel for you. Getting an SaaS off the ground is hard and there's no guarantee that it will work. I know nothing is ever that easy and circumstances are complex, but my advice would be not to focus on the SaaS. Not that you should abandon it, but it should probably not be your only hope. You can't force an SaaS to work out. Focus on your mental health and the relationship with your family. Focus on job search. Continue with your SaaS but limit the time and money you invest.

I know its never as easy as just do this, this and that and everything will work out fine. I wish you the best.

Thank you so much for your kind words, they mean a lot to me, believe me.

There's an uncomfortable truth about SaaS, especially about B2B. It takes enormous resources and time to lift a SaaS.

Unfortunately, the internet is full of all sorts of growth strategies and gurus saying it's feasible, but in reality it's nearly impossible. And when I talk about time, I mean 2-3 years for B2C and easily 5+ for B2B on organic growth.

Moreover, the current spread of LLMs is only making things worse, compared to if you'd started before COVID. People are overheated with SaaS, it's not fun anymore, and everything is considered a privacy or security threat. All of this only lengthens the path to customers.

I don't want to give any advice on what to do, but based on my nearly 20 years of experience in web entrepreneurship, income from B2B SaaS is not something you can count on in the early years.

I respect you since you've been in this field for decades but I've seen people make it to hundreds of thousands of dollars starting from zero on X. I've done the same, being consistent on X for 3 months but nothing was clicking, then moved on to different platform to test if another would make it but nothing's working. I am doing something wrong but i don't know what.

Because most probably their business is not SaaS, they're 'selling' their success.

It's also possible that people just cover illegal activity with some sort of SaaS.

> consistent on X for 3 months

Is the audience of your SaaS on X?

Yes, majority of my audience is on X.

Your list is all channels. Channels are rarely the issue. An unclear target and unclear promise usually is. Pick one role, one painful moment, one outcome they would talk about, then DM 20 people who match that, and ask what they are doing about that problem today. Think of it as learning how they think rather than pitching them. Then ask yourself this magic question: "Who is the one propspect whose problem I can solve this week?"

If you can't answer that, then you know what's wrong. Either you don't know who your prospects are, or you don't know what problem you solve for them.

A lot of developers focus on the build part because that's what they know best. Selling and marketing a new product is really hard and takes way more time than you think - unless you get lucky.

If you believe your SaaS can actually make money then you should continue but I would focus on outreach. Things like articles and online posts are fine to establish your credentials and make a potential customer comfortable paying but they aren't good for getting sales. I'm not sure I would spend time on SEO unless you already have a ton of experience with it - personally I think the combo of chatGPT and Google search getting worse made people use search engines less.

If I were you I would prioritize finding gig that pays and use your free time to market your SaaS.

> If I were you I would prioritize finding gig that pays and use your free time to market your SaaS.

Wholeheartedly agreed. As much as people make it seem easy to generate magic internet money, in reality it's not. Having a stable job while working on your SaaS is the way to go

I’d suggest getting a job, any job and Especially a part time one

Will stop you getting depressed as you will be active and socialising.

How long have you been selling the SAAS?

I am really heart broken so I didn't apply to any jobs but I am trying and getting myself together and have started applying to jobs. It has been a month that I am trying to sell my SaaS.

Your expectations are wildly off: a month is not enough time for anything meaningful in any domain. If you can't weather at least a year then you shouldn't even start, and you should be prepared to work with little reward for 3-5 years, maybe 10 years if starting from 0.

It would help immensely if you posted your website so we could look at your product and marketing.

Working on SEO is a lot of work and it can take six months to see results but it has always been the bootstrappers friend. If you have the time now this might be a good use for it. AI is fine for doing research for articles but you are far better off writing them yourself. If you want what you write to look more professional take a look at lex.page. Had a friend use it and he said it was like having a good copywriter looking over my shoulder.

I am not sure if I can link my product as I don't want to get banned just like I was perma-banned from Reddit. But hopefully comment will be save, here it is: useproofly(dot)app

Pretty certain Dang won't ban you on here for listing the URL of your company. Not that you can't go over the line in self promotion but I specifically asked you to post it.

pff, I think I am save. Posting links on these platforms scare me now honestly

I run an Adobe user group for over 25 years and I have been banned twice on Reddit for merely posting notices of livestreams and YouTube links of finished videos. Never failed to get less than 10-15 upvotes yet I still got banned.

That is Reddit's problem, not yours. However it does help to spend some time in the forum, answer a few questions and get known before posting about a product. It is also not a problem when answering a question to have a link to your product in the signature.

Oh! I'd have been more cautious on Reddit about self-promotion if they gave me a second chance. I've been appealing but no response is being given.

Here are three quick things I see:

1. Always have price on the top menu bar. don't make me scroll to the bottom of the page to see what it costs

2. Need on Chrome at least some padding between the headline and the green box

3. Why are all the videos cockeyed? Its possible it is a styling thing but you are better off having them level

I love the idea, just not certain that people giving testimonials will submit video ones. If they do a video testimonial could be a much stronger one because you could see emotion in a video which would make it far more powerful.

Thank you so much for going through my product and actually reviewing it, it means a world to me. I'd definitely make the changes you've mentioned.

i feel you brother.

I'm on a worse situation, wife has disabilities, father has cancer, I have glaucoma and dual labrum tear. My job is at risk and I've been building apps and SaaS tools for a year and couldn't make any money.

i CAN'T even post my new tool here. my x account got suspended; my comments got permanently banned on Reddit. my posts got removed from Reddit.

I feel you, brother.

Feeling sorry for you and hope things will get easier on the financial side. My advice would be first find any job which pays you, so that you can cover your family expenses. 1 month for a SaaS is toooo little time.

My first SaaS took actually 28 months before i get a first subscription of 18 USD/month. You need to keep working on the SaaS on the side. Do not stop it if you believe it is geniuenly good and there is market for it. Build SEO, GEO profile, do outreach like send 10 emails everyday post content on relevent communities and in around 6-8 months once you have planted enough seeds you will start to see a steady flow of traffic and eventual conversion, but this is too much you need to know, seo, geo, growth hacking, outreach, content etc, see what sticks and then narrow on that.

I was listening to this https://www.pmf.show/blog/solidroad-product-market-fit-cold-... maybe worth a listen. But bro I really wish you good luck, do not loose hope, find some work, keep working on your side projects. I am also an immigrant from a third world country to Denmark and I know, life is hell if you are not able to afford finances for your family. Best of Luck!

Been there. We built Rixly to catch buying intent from social conversations. It helped us find customers when cold outreach failed. Stay strong.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com