9k visitors, 700 registered users, 30 calls, ZERO customers

[khan1123]

I launched a SaaS 5 months ago, and since then I've got:
1. 9k organic visitors
2. 700 free users
3. 70 activated users (that performed an activation action)
4. Around 30 calls
5. Zero customers

All the traffic is organic, people are very interested in what I've built, a lot of the traffic is from HackerNews, direct, or google search (users searching by company name).

However, there are zero customers and it's driving me crazy.

The product is working well, it's an MVP but works very well for an MVP, and I use it daily, so I can't say that it's because the product sucks.

We have a free 14 day trial.

This is driving me crazy, this is not my first product, I had a few other projects before, and none of them were successful, and they had no customers either.

However, with the interest I saw from the people for this one, I thought that I'd get at least a few customers by now, but I didn't.

This is really depressing sh#t, and it's driving me crazy.

I'm thinking about what the f##k is the problem? How is this possible? It's like the universe banned me from making money online.

It's not about the money though, I make decent money as a software engineer because I'm good at it, and this is why I love to create my own projects, and I want to start my own business, but I just can't take off, it's like something's pulling me down.

I see people creating new projects every day, getting like 200-300 visitors, and 2-3 paying customers, and I'm just wondering what on earth am I doing wrong?

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not complaining, I'm just trying to understand this, why it's happening and clear out my head a little bit.

Not sure if I'm asking for advice, but if you have anything to offer, please do. I just wanted to clear out my head, see what other people think about this.

Edit: one of the calls was with a team from Amazon, and another one with a large transportation company from Europe.

Final note: I will never give up.

 

[newme2017]

@khan1123 looks like you’re targeting a right problem so people spend time to sign up and test. The reason why you are not having $$ because those users simply can’t make a decision to buy in their companies and they might struggle to sell this internally. During sign up process, do you ask for company name? If yes, I would advise to reach out to people higher up in those companies saying “hey, - reaching out because I’ve noticed your team has been active on [send a link to your site]. It’s typically an indication they struggle with [describe the problem and how you solve it]” and try to connect with them.

Think of this: figma has millions of free users. Designers who work in big enterprises sign up for figma and use its free version. They don’t buy, but not because they don’t see the value (damn they love figma!) they just don’t know / or don’t want to deal with a company purchase. Figma sales reps go and pitch people in those companies who have buying power.

Again, I have no idea what your product is and who you are targeting, but the problem might be in your assumption that B2B companies buy touchless which are not always the case for B2B sales.

And good luck!!

 

[khan1123]

@newme2017 Very good idea, thank you. We're not asking for company name now, but I think we'll start asking soon and I'll try to reach out to other people from those companies, as you said.

Thank you!

 

[saralynn1]

@khan1123 Not sure about this. Feels a bit intrusive. Plus I don’t think that’s why Figma have a lot of free users - that’s just part of their model now they are so big.

Do you have any analytics about how much people are engaging with the product during the trial?

Like are the leaving after a day? Or are they using up the full 14? How much data do they create? What pages do the visit and what buttons do they click?

At this point you have to know what people are doing otherwise it’s just a black box and you have no evidence on which to make any changes to try to improve things.

Plus 14 days sounds a bit long, I’d try 7 to put in the pressure more. 14 days doesn’t really create any sense of urgency which customers need to convert.

Also how are the calls going? Are customers saying they like the product? Does it seem the understand it’s purpose?

If they’ve had a call with you - really they should be converting so follow up as much as you can.

I wouldn’t offer charity as that’s kind of unrelated to your product - but I would offer discounted subscriptions on calls to get conversions.

Hope that helps. Plenty more on the whole process of building SaaS on here.

 

[khan1123]

@saralynn1 Thank you for the advice

 

[nilsa]

@khan1123 Maybe even change to 7 day free trial and then offer them a 7 day extension (so it’s 14 days total like it is already) in exchange for filling out a feedback form

 

[anonymous2008]

@khan1123 Yeah, SaaS can be a tough nut to crack. As much as I wanna help, it's hard to give precise feedback without the specifics of your situation...

But I do understand your preference for anonymity. And I do have one suspicion on what's causing all your problems...

Product-Market Fit.

It's great that you have a decent amount of traction. But I just wanna make sure we look back at one of the major reasons businesses fail – product-market fit. Did you build the product and then look for a market for it? Or did you start with the market's problem and build a product to solve it?

The former usually leads to failure more than the latter. If you took that first approach, I would highly suggest revisiting the fundamental pain point that your market has and reflecting on whether your product truly solves it...

In the way that they want.

But the truth of the matter is even if you take the latter route, it may well be that your product still needs to be tweaked. In those cases, you may want to conduct win-loss interviews to find out why your potential customers went with an alternative.

B2B interviews are notoriously hard to come by since B2B stakeholders are usually very busy. Offer an Amazon Gift Card if you have to – it's going to be worth it. Your goal is to talk to the CORRECT decision-maker, and you'll need to use your intuition to identify who really calls the shots.

You clearly have users. The question now is if your product solves the problem well enough, to the point that your users CAN'T live without it once you take away the free trial.

Marketing a SaaS platform when you don't have product-market fit can feel like you're pushing a boulder up a hill. You're throwing everything at it but NOTHING is working.

But the reverse is also true. When you have that fit PLUS an excellent marketing/sales team, you'll see a consistent flow of customers coming into the door.

I'm a seasoned PMM and my day-to-day job literally involves product-market fit, finding out the reason why free trials don't work, telling salespeople what to say to win deals, etc.

I'm more than happy to help with any questions you may have...

But if you just needed to vent, I totally get ya. Some days, cracking a market makes me want to pull my hair out. BUT YOU WILL GET THERE IF YOU FOLLOW THE RIGHT STEPS.

Best of luck!

 

[khan1123]

@anonymous2008 One of the most helpful and detailed advice I got here, thank you very much. I will gather more feedback, try to find out what's not working, who are the decision makers.

After that I will adjusted either the product to match their expectations, or the people that I target.

Thank you for the advice and for understanding my preference to stay anonymous.

 

[jonz84]

@khan1123 Have you done loss analysis with the trial users that didn't convert?
Offer them a gift card or a charity donation and get them to speak freely about why they didn't convert. Target the ones that fit your ICP.
You should quickly see a pattern emerge about what they didn't like and what they need to cough up money.
You need to put in the hard work and actually speak/communicate with your target users.

 

[khan1123]

@jonz84 Tried, no one replied. I guess I'll have to be more aggressive.

Do gift cards or charity donations actually work? I get a lot of requests for feedback in exchange for gifts cards and I never accept them.

 

[jonz84]

@khan1123 If they see potential in the product you should get some interest. And you probably do need to follow up a couple of times with busy professionals.
You can ask them, what would it take for them to spend 15 minutes of there time to give you some direct and honest feedback.
Most people won't ask for anything in return if they have any chance of benefitting from your product.

 

[khan1123]

@jonz84 Got it, thanks. I'll definitely hit them up a few more times.

 

[rmacfarland]

@khan1123 They work.

 

[oort7]

@khan1123 Can you DM a link?

 

[khan1123]

@oort7 Sorry, I want to keep this anonymous

 

[forgivenacceptedsaved]

@khan1123 Wait a minute... if you keep your product anonymous how will anyone help you figure out why you're getting no customers?

Edit: there's alot of benefits to sharing what your product is - since youve mentioned its a b2b product you might even get your first sale from this thread

 

[khan1123]

@forgivenacceptedsaved As I said, I am not necessarily searching for help, but I did gave a lot of details - nr of visitors, users, activation rate, etc,

Just trying to clear my head out and maybe understand a few things.

 

[knownunknown]

@khan1123 The reason you have no customers is you're not searching for help and want to keep your product anonymous in a group of SaaS owners. You're basically tying your hands behind your back and being sad that you can't catch anything.

30 calls and no sales, that says either you product doesn't actually solve any problems. Or you suck at sales.

 

[charmaine93]

@knownunknown This feels like the meme of the guy riding a bicycle that puts a stick on the front wheel

 

[khan1123]

@knownunknown It could be both. Yes, I am not good at sales, but sales is not the only way to get customers.

And why would I need an advice necessarily? I said, if someone wants to say anything, I'll be happy to hear it out, and if not then I'd be happy for other people to share their experiences.

I have ideas of my own, and things that I want to try, this is why this is not a need help post, just trying to clear my head off.