southernyankee
New member
Two and a half months ago, I embarked on a two-week coding sprint to build an AI SaaS platform that, at its core, was a simple API wrapper hosted on replicate.com. Today, I've made a total of £3.50 from it.
Here's a snapshot of my journey and some honest introspection on what went right and what didn't.
Metrics after 2.5 months from launch:
Page Views: 1900
User Visits: 656
Free Signups: 121
Paid Subscriptions: 1
Revenues: $5
Costs: $12.78
-Domain name: $10
-replicate.com GPU & Model API bill: $2.78
-Supabase DB: free tier-Railway server: free credits (but should be at least $5 per month)
What I Could Have Done Better:
Marketing: It's tough. I've been tweeting into the void, trying to make noise in AI/SaaS directories. It's often demoralizing, but I've learned that it's a critical part of the process I need to invest more in.
SEO Basics: Missed out on implementing robots.txt and sitemap.xml, which could've helped with search engine visibility.Product Differentiation: The reality check that my product, being a simple API wrapper, lacked a unique selling point. Need to innovate more.
Video Content: The video on the landing page turned out too lengthy and dull. It's essential to capture attention quickly and effectively.
Pricing Strategy: Other sites had flexible models like pay-as-you-go or one-time payments. In hindsight, I see that my pricing could've been more competitive or creative.What Went Wellevelopment Efficiency: Leveraged open-source templates, like the next-subscription-payments repo on GitHub (https://github.com/vercel/nextjs-subscription-payments), which was a game-changer. It integrated Stripe, cutting down on development time significantly.
First Sale: Despite the odds, I made my first sale, which was a small win but a win nonetheless!In essence, it's been a rollercoaster.
Marketing is an area I'll be focusing on heavily moving forward, and product differentiation is going to be at the forefront of my strategy.I'm sharing this to give a real look at what it's like to launch a SaaS product with minimal experience. To those of you in the trenches, keep at it. And if you've got tips, especially on early-stage marketing, they would be golden right now.
the product is here if you are curious: https://productad.co
Cheers,P.S. formatting is buggy
Here's a snapshot of my journey and some honest introspection on what went right and what didn't.
Metrics after 2.5 months from launch:
Page Views: 1900
User Visits: 656
Free Signups: 121
Paid Subscriptions: 1
Revenues: $5
Costs: $12.78
-Domain name: $10
-replicate.com GPU & Model API bill: $2.78
-Supabase DB: free tier-Railway server: free credits (but should be at least $5 per month)
What I Could Have Done Better:
Marketing: It's tough. I've been tweeting into the void, trying to make noise in AI/SaaS directories. It's often demoralizing, but I've learned that it's a critical part of the process I need to invest more in.
SEO Basics: Missed out on implementing robots.txt and sitemap.xml, which could've helped with search engine visibility.Product Differentiation: The reality check that my product, being a simple API wrapper, lacked a unique selling point. Need to innovate more.
Video Content: The video on the landing page turned out too lengthy and dull. It's essential to capture attention quickly and effectively.
Pricing Strategy: Other sites had flexible models like pay-as-you-go or one-time payments. In hindsight, I see that my pricing could've been more competitive or creative.What Went Wellevelopment Efficiency: Leveraged open-source templates, like the next-subscription-payments repo on GitHub (https://github.com/vercel/nextjs-subscription-payments), which was a game-changer. It integrated Stripe, cutting down on development time significantly.
First Sale: Despite the odds, I made my first sale, which was a small win but a win nonetheless!In essence, it's been a rollercoaster.
Marketing is an area I'll be focusing on heavily moving forward, and product differentiation is going to be at the forefront of my strategy.I'm sharing this to give a real look at what it's like to launch a SaaS product with minimal experience. To those of you in the trenches, keep at it. And if you've got tips, especially on early-stage marketing, they would be golden right now.
the product is here if you are curious: https://productad.co
Cheers,P.S. formatting is buggy