5 Lessons I Learned Building A $400/month Micro-SaaS Side Hustle
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- Опубліковано 23 лип 2024
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Timestamps:
0:00 - 1:23 What SaaS Did I Build?
1:23 - 2:16 Lesson 1
2:16 - 5:10 Lesson 2
5:10 - 6:16 Lesson 3
6:16 - 6:50 Lesson 4
6:50 - 8:37 Lesson 5
I built a database of case studies of startups that have successfully grown through organic social media marketing for you to learn from their playbook: thecontentmarketingblueprint.com/?
I just came on to back up the idea that it's totally a good idea to steal other ideas. No matter what, you will make something that's a little different and you'll have your own flair. Steal Like An Artist
Yeah, a good business trainer in my country always said: steal as much as you can from a successful business in your niche
Regarding the subscription vs one time payment, you have to look at your audience. If you are targeting businesses, a subscription model would be more suitable otherwise you are leaving money on the table. Monthly payments aren't that of a turn off for businesses in my experience as a consultant (I often recommend purchasing something that helps them be more productive), they will easily spend monthly + they can easily write it off.
New sub! 👏 Thank you for this advice!
Thnks for that Marketing point/part, Because i think most of us developers usually only tend to focus only on building and building. Without thinking of the marketing part
100% engineers need to either find a marketing/growth cofounder or dedicates multiple weeks of pure marketing and no engineering imo
u just got a new subscriber
Great video and thanks for sharing your insights 👍
Glad it was helpful!
Such useful content ❤
I’d say the pricing model depends on the product. For instance, if you’re building or have an AI product, offering a one-time purchase is not feasible because you need to pay for the AI API. For other products it’s doable.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKING, I'm integrating the open ai API to my project and was just thinking how is he doing it because I believe his product is also a AI product
Credits could be a good option. It's still a one-time purchase in that it is not automatically recurring, but still usage based. Also, unless you're rate-limiting the AI API requests, there is still room for abuse even if you're using a subscription model. That goes away if you set up the credit system correctly taking into account your token usage.
Gold.
Thanks
I like the one time payment model but how do you handle that in an AI app where you are covering the cost of the AI api calls? Can you give specifics on what works?
First thank you for the video, about the one time purchase vs subscription, how to manage long term costs? if your app uses open IA for instance, how you deal with long term costs of using those services?
Great work and advice bro.
Hi! love watching your videos coz I find them interesting. BTW you can add your new and/or old app(s) URL in your video description.
sure thing, will do.
How much time did you take to build this app?
Thank you for your transparency, a struggling app dev here
Happy to help! Planning to make more content talking about marketing/growing an app. I feel like a lot of devs (me included) the building part comes pretty naturally and it’s the marketing/growth part that is hard for us to wrap our head around.
What are your monthly running costs? I saw you mention Vercel in another reply. What do they charge to host? Any dns costs or ssl cert costs?
thats crazy i was literally thinking about making an app like this lol good to know its a good idea
just need a marketing edge and if you have one you can definitely still make some money
Cool video. How about a credits purchase billing system?
New users could get a limited amount of credits that could be quickly used up and then they'll be required to buy more credits to keep accessing the service.
Totally possible as well and a model I love since it is also pretty similar to a one time purchase system. My apps never really needed it but with the right app I think the credit buying system is great. iirc OpenAI even just changed their billing to be credits based too.
@@YourAverageTechBro nice. I'll use it in my saas
Last sentance is gem.. Not an overnight success...
Hey! just have a quick question about Webstorm. Is it ever laggy to you? Laggy to where any action takes about 3-5 seconds to execute and display on the screen. Initially it was working fine but just recently its been unusable
I think once in a blue moon it freezes up when refactoring code? but force closing usually fixes it. I haven't had any issues of really bad lag outside
Hey man, been loving your content!
just a quick comment- not sure if it was on purpose but when you said free trial, video said free trail. @ 5:49
Anyway, keep up the videos man!
woops, forgot to correct the typo. thanks for pointing that out!
Hi, thanks for sharing your experience with us.
I'm just wondering: how do you sustain a One-Time-Purchase model over the time, like forever? How can you plan and budget future growth, features and current users support if there's no recurrent income to support it?
I'm not saying it cannot be done or it is not a good approach. I just cannot see how it can be done and I need some light to find my way to implement a On-Time-Purchase model. Being a custumer, I also like the One-Time-Purchase over subscriptions. But, what happens if at some point you stop getting new users to your SaaS?
Thanks for sharing your experience. It's very inspiring and helpful. Cheers!
I think if you stop getting new users on your SaaS then that is a separate problem that needs to be looked at. I mean, even huge companies like Airbnb/uber are still getting new users to this day too so I think your TAM is quite large.
Also looking at your LTV/how regularly your users use your product is impt. I don't think one time purchase works for all tools necessarily but I think it works for a lot more SaaS tools than people think.
Nice video. If you setup a one-time purchase, would that affect your cost of running the software and MRR?
Yes but that's where you have to figure out what the usage of your product is going to look like. Not every SaaS is ideal for one time purchase, but I do think a lot more SaaS is better as a one time purchase than people think.
Fantastic insights on leveraging existing ideas and targeted marketing! This approach not only validates the market faster but also maximizes reach efficiently, especially when paired with content that resonates with your audience. 🚀
how did you learn?
As a SaaS builder, if you're developing a service with a subscription plan that generates an MRR of $400 which means ARR of $4,800, then you can typically exit your SaaS at a multiple of 5x, which is approximately $24,000. On the other hand, with a one-time payment model, it is more challenging to exit the business. therefore, A subscription plan is still a very attractive option
that is true. there are pros and cons to each. I will say (imo) reaching $400 MRR is much harder than $400 one time purchase. very different game
What tools do you use to make demo video for your site?
www.screen.studio/ is the tool I use
Thanks!
No problem - hope you found it helpful!
My router (eero) wouldn't allow me access ur website: "The site you are trying to visit is not secure."
new to your channel, good stuff.
About the subscription and one-time payment, marc louvion has the same opinion on this, in his recent videos he has said something similar.
gonna go with pros advice.
May I ask what kind of tool did you use to build your application?
I have a video up that goes over my entire tech stack 🙂
How to purchase your app?
You're right about one-time-purchases...
However, especially AI software that needs to use APIs that cost money cannot be financed that way, because ppl will use your app till their api usage eats all your profit
Yep it is very app dependent. Not every SaaS fits the one time purchase model.
Question tho, having a one-time payment plan.. What if only few people buys your product, and then you decide after some time to shut down the app. As the people paid for the product already - can you even do it? So does it mean you need to maintain your app forever then if they paid for it to not get into troubles ? :D thanks for the answer eventho this might sound as a stupid question, but i was thinking about this
eh I think it's one of those things where you cross that bridge when you get to it. Worst comes to worse i'll probably just keep the website up to allow them to use it for as long as they want
Great video with lots of excellent insights. However, please do a video where you breakdown all the apps that you have built and the profit you are generating from each.
hahaha they are all $0 😬 but i can look into reviving old apps
@@YourAverageTechBro Alright thanks for the honesty
This one comment has so much honesty in it that it would be enough for me to subscribe to your channel. 😊
I’d say become inspired by others ideas instead of stealing them. Definitely want to have your own unique twist. McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy’s all sell what? Burgers, Fries, etc. in different shapes and sizes!
Yep, agreed!
Hey, i love your videos, i'm a total beginner in coding, i want to start learning to build a web application/ SaS, since you are the expert, can you please guide me with a learning path, i though about html/css- JavaScript with nod.js or express (backend)/react(front). Or ruby on rails (backend) and react frontend. Otherwise Can you please guide me with ur experience which learning path is best for me ?. Regards
I'd say just use NextJS and host your app on vercel. that should be more than enough to deploy your first web app!
How do you build your apps? From scratch or no code/low code tools?
from scratch - my day job is a developer so I code everything myself
@@YourAverageTechBro Impressive - I really get inspired by your videos and account!
Don't you think a one time purchase is more of a drawback since you need to maintain the saas overtime??
It varies for each product for sure. I just think a lot of builders immediately default to subscription when they should try to offer as one time purchase as one time purchase increases conversion rate.
Am I missing something? Isnt Nexus research a subscription model?
Yes it is but I have another app (perfectinterview.ai) that's one time purchase - sorry I should've clarified :)
Hi man , Glad to see your video. I want to learn python... Can I build such apps with it??
Yep you definitely can!
@@YourAverageTechBro I will definitely love to know how. The internet is very vaste and intemiditing. Like what to use for the front-end and back-end.
@@footballfrenzy365 Python is a great language, but it depends what your goal is. If you want to make web apps like the one in this video, I recommend you look into React and JavaScript instead of Python!
I am HR at your company. You are not permitted to work on separate app. I will be talking with you tomorrow and we will be taking all money that you made since you made that app while employed with us and therefore that app and all of its profits belong to us. However if the app has any losses, you are free to take them, in fact I insist you take all losses.
very cool thank you blasttrash
+1 - read NGINX story....
tell me this is a joke lmao, how is that legal in the first place
@@sukremez1870 I am the HR involved in this case and I have ensured that this person loses all his profits related to this side hustle.
P.S. I am just kidding. But I have heard similar crazy things on reddit. Also there is an exaggerated version of this in the tv show called "Silicon Valley"
@sukremez1870 because you are working on this app on company time. I don't agree with this but this is what companies do.
would you provide the link of that app
nexusresearch.ai/
I think you’re wrong about a lot. I run a very similar app, and it’s monthly vs yearly subscription. I’ve tested everything. MRR is extremely important since you are paying for the underlying AI. And you are missing out on so much by not running meta ads. For reference, I make 11k MRR, LTV of a customer is 57$ and cost per acquisition is 2$. Pure viral marketing leaves very little in your control and is not sustainable.
Hi how do you handle the ai cost.or do you train your own ai?🎉🎉
I pay for OpenAI 🙂
Hi!
For which one(AI)? Are you planning to make a full course, where you'll teach us from the beginning to the end?
BTW you got my sub. even if this is the 1st video i watched from your channel!
Solid content what you bring, nothing fluffy :)
What if someone pays for your product (nexus $10/month) but the user uses it so much that it costs you $500 of OpenAI API ?
We have rate limiting in place to prevent that. Plus if we have bad actors that try to do that, we can always stop them/reduce their allowed usage. Also if the issue is that a user loves the service so much that they use it that much, that's a problem I would be very happy to have haha.
Can you make a video of how you built this app?
very ali abdaal like thumbnail
He is definitely an inspiration for content and 100% thumbnail style as inspired by ali abdaal
Free trail
So is your 400/month app also a single-time purchase and not a subscription based one? :o
The one I talked about in this video is a subscription one but I have another app called perfectinterview.ai that’s one time purchase doing ~$500/month
How do you know that apps that you copied earn mone?
because the creators of the apps reveal their revenue on Twitter :)
Make more in-depth video on how to advertise. Starr ting from 0
Planning to!
That sound whenever you display a caption is painful -_-
935th...Thanks
TBH I think, marketing is the key right now when it comes to AI wrappers.
Agreed
There are people out there who make hundreds of thousands even millions in monthly revenue who sell subscriptions. I guess you need to start producing 20--30 apps to gain more real experience.
and there are people making hundreds of thousands/millions in revenue with one time purchases. I'm not saying one is better than the other - I only bring up one time purchases because it is a payment model that isn't talked a lot about in SaaS, that's all. I know I can def gain more experience I'm still very early in this whole product building thing. relaxxxxx my friend
*Please timestamp your videos*
thanks for the suggestion - just added the timestamps.
Hey Man , really nice video ! I was wondering if I could help you with Viral Content ideas in your niche , Script , editing , thumbnail , SEO , Growth and analysis , Leads and appointments for your business , etc in all to you ! Pls let me know what do you think ?
nah i'm good
Ok
Without your own brain don't work on someone's idea.
😂
Ye to Aisa hua andhi bheed me chalna
Bhedchal😁
And a worthless app
Bro you need to learn how to market your videos. “$400:month”??? You should
Call it $400k / month to get more views 😂😂😂
Hello and thank you for the video. Have you got an email. I can contact you with regards to this ? I am really struggling with living costs in the UK and would like to give this a try. I would be grateful for some help. Thank You
Hello and thank you for the video. Have you got an email? I can contact you in regard to this ? I am really struggling with living costs in the UK and would like to give this a try. I would be grateful for some genuine help. Thank You
keep lying
Thank you eygs493 very cool!
Hi, I love your content, I'm currently founding my second saas startup. Want to connect?
No thank you - just doing my own thing for now. Best of luck!
@@YourAverageTechBro No worries! Wishing you the best of luck too