My view on "launch a unique new idea" vs "enter a market with lots of existing solutions" has flipped over the last few years.

I used to think you needed something new. Be first to market, get all the customers!

Now I think the existing markets are a better bet, here's why... Validation already done - this is often the hardest part of an early stage startup.

If you’re entering a big market with lots of existing products, this is essentially already done for you. You get to skip a very time-consuming step.

Here is the miraculous story of how I increased my SaaS trial to paid conversion rate by 700%

🧵 below if you don't want to click through to the post

bannerbear.com/blog/how-i-inc… Bannerbear has always had a low-ish conversion rate from signups to paying customer.

But at some point in mid-2022 it settled down to 2% and we even had a 1% month recently.

Here's why I'm not so bullish on OpenAI / ChatGPT. Circa 2016 every corporation was obsessed with "chatbots" thinking that it would be the new UI for the web. All these experiments failed. (contd) In the end consumers did not want to "chat" to get things like insurance or holidays, they wanted to be presented with a list, explore, and make a decision based on their own judgement.

New Year New Features! You're probably going to be working on something new this year, perhaps a new feature or a new product. How do you come up with the best solutions?

Here are a few ideation methods that will help you think more creatively: Infinite Resources

If you had infinite cash, designers, programmers at your disposal... what would your startup look like?

I think quite a few indiehackers are trying out my 1 week code / 1 week marketing style of working 👍

One question that often comes up though, is what do I actually _do_ in my marketing week?

Here's my list: Send a Newsletter

Every 2 weeks I send an email to a list of about 4000+ people. It's a summary of; what I've built, what I've done for marketing, and I usually include some business insight, if I learned anything.

Subscribe at the bottom of this page!
bannerbear.com/open

My SaaS journey so far...

0 - $1k MRR
- What should I build?
- Who am I targeting?
- How much will they pay? $1k - $5k MRR
- How can I get the word out more?
- Is my pricing right?
- Are there features I can remove, so I can focus better?

Important milestone! Bannerbear.com my solo bootstrapped startup is now earning more MRR than my salary at my last job.

For anyone who has left a job to pursue an idea or try to build something from scratch, this is a moment to remember.

It has taken 3 years 🥲 I’m fortunate to have amazing customers whose problems are the same that I have personally experienced - which makes solving their issues or adding requested features honestly delightful.

I’m excited to get up in the morning. It doesn’t feel like work.

Something that doesn’t get talked about enough is how much money do you need to become an Indiehacker?

Well here’s what my own finances looked like when I went all-in…

A thread 1/n 2/n

Kudos to @jrleonr for sharing a vulnerable post on IH.

Personally I don’t think $12,000 is enough financial cushion to go all-in, start an idea from scratch and get to ramen-profitability. It’s just too short of a runway.

indiehackers.com/post/after-los…

My SaaS @bannerbearHQ just reached $50,000 ARR 📈

Halfway point to my initial goal of $100k which I set almost a year ago 🤯

My number one piece of advice for new SaaS founders is: you must be prepared to commit for the long term! My /open revenue chart now has 1 year of data. As a new founder you aren't going to get everything right at launch. It takes time to:

- build the right features
- talk in the right language
- optimize your product for conversion
- optimize your pricing

bannerbear.com/open

1/n. Thread! I found this post by @mccrmx interesting. Of 17207 users on Indiehackers, only 12 solo founder products earn above $10k MRR. And only 54 products earn above $2k MRR. There are caveats, but the broad picture this paints is: this stuff is hard

indiehackers.com/post/holy-heck… 2/n. I took an unscientific look at the products at the top and most have been around for *years*. I've said this before, but I think the biggest advantage you can have as a bootstrapped founder is the willingness to grind it out for a year plus before you start seeing returns.

I'm shutting down Talkshow.team this week. 4 months of coasting on zero revenue, 2 weeks after a pivot that failed to positively affect any metrics - I'm calling time of death on Friday 13th.

(thread) I'll write a proper post-mortem at some point. No doubt some people will say I need to give it more time, but I think I've given it plenty :)

The variables could be things like how much customization they need, how much training, what sort of SLA we sign, do they want to use it for 20 forms or 2000 forms... and so on.

https://twitter.com/yongfook/status/1095612187865899008

The reason you never see published enterprise pricing isn’t because tech companies are playing profit margin games, it’s because enterprise requirements can be so wildly different from one another.

1. Last month I launched an MVP of an enterprise SaaS product. I did a quick write up in this post. yongfook.com/startup-5-hype… 2. Right now I’m elbow deep in code for a more conventional “self serve” SaaS product, launching in 14 days. It’s already blatantly obvious to me which of these is more fun to work on...

1. My new startup is hyperjump.co - it’s an enterprise SaaS aimed at financial institutions. The product offering will eventually be expanded, but for now the main offering is a form builder that works within the specific constraints of the financial industry. 2. For example, being WCAG compliant and never storing personal data in the cloud. Hyperjump is a hybrid cloud / on-premise product.

I'm launching my 5th startup of the 12 month challenge on the 31st of Jan. This will be my first startup after announcing a bit of a realignment in this blog post: yongfook.com/realigning-my-… (thread) I hope I don't disappoint people following along with my progress, but the 5th launch will be different. I've had lots of fun building indie tools over the last 4 months, but I'm shifting gear now - the next launch will look a lot more like an actual startup than a tool.

That said, I *did* do it hardcore style the last time I was a full time indie maker. This was back in 2012. I had only about 3 months worth of savings in the bank and launched a SaaS product. It was a case of "make it work or be homeless".

https://twitter.com/_rchase_/status/1089011167542956033

I can't say I'd recommend that strategy to anyone. It's very risky. But there's something to be said for the motivating power of not wanting to be homeless! I hustled like crazy to make that product sell.

1/ I’ve had a few days to reflect on the last 4 months of my startup challenge and I think it’s time for a pivot / recalibration

Thread 👇🏻 2/ The challenge began with me wanting to practice execution again, after almost 3 years in a senior corporate role where I didn’t touch any code. I missed building things, had the luxury of free time, so it seemed like a good goal to just “practice shipping”.

Not many people go from launch to sustaining lifestyle in just a couple of months. Maybe that happens to some in survivorship-bias-land. But back in the real world it takes a lot longer. My last SaaS took 6+ months to get to just a few thousand $ MRR.

https://twitter.com/Kunalxp/status/1080432019119788034

And that was when I was focused on ONE SaaS product and spent a good amount of time on content marketing every day.

All I want for 2019 is... (warning, some real personal sharing coming up)👇🏻 In 2019 I want to find my ikigai. My purpose. My superpower. This has always been hard for me as I’m sort of a jack of all trades. Pretty good at many things, but not a deep expert in one area.

Out of the people in my network running successful lifestyle online businesses, I think around 50% or more are simply running a blog in a niche that they have monetized over the course of a decade. There’s something to be said for consistent quality content and traffic x10 years. Just something to be mindful of. In the maker community there’s a lot of “get Rich quick” or “build something cool” mentality. When in the end, success can be as simple as writing lots of good content in a niche that you love.

A drone is something I increasingly feel uncomfortable about owning. What other device can you freely buy off the shelf and then through improper use endanger the lives of hundreds of people or disrupt the lives of thousands? That’s the extreme version of events. But there’s a whole spectrum of trouble a drone can get you in. Flying it in prohibited areas (that the software doesn’t know about) accidentally will get you a bollocking or a fine.