My first ever SaaS made me $5 after 2.5 months and 2 weeks of dev time

[southernyankee]

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

 

[jazzper]

@southernyankee I’ll add a small tip, don’t use a gmail email for the contact section, use a domain email, gmail etc, looks unprofessional, good luck!

 

[southernyankee]

@jazzper I definitely will! Thank you

 

[fearofgod]

@southernyankee or just hide the email under a button.

 

[jkb2011]

@southernyankee If you still want to use gmail, with this tool you can create alias with your domain name and all emails you will get in your gmail inbox https://improvmx.com/

 

[kobidobidog]

@southernyankee Your product (if it works) is amazing. Your site and markeitng is awful

 

[southernyankee]

@kobidobidog What do you think should be improved marketing-wise?

 

[gape3434]

@southernyankee I actually think your site is very good. Its clear on what you do and anyone can understand the value of the product and how easy it is in seconds

 

[gape3434]

@southernyankee People get caught up in trying to make there site perfect and look cool, but that doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. As long as you can quickly convey the problem you solve, the value you bring, and how you do it. You are going to do well. The cosmetic stuff is just fluff and a distraction. A good product will sell itself

 

[realdocphil]

@southernyankee Your target audience are people selling on amazon, especially the ones using dropshipping. I would do SEO and fb campaigns focusing on those kind of keywords. Good luck!

 

[jacktheconvict]

@realdocphil I would add AliExpress and other Chinese B2C marketplaces

 

[ratan]

@southernyankee no way. it's impossible you get paid for a service with that site...you rock! maybe it's my browser...IDK...but please add some CSS, at least to improve the placement of the elements LOL

KEEP GOING!

 

[richief]

@southernyankee Amazing job. Keep going. True inspiration!

 

[faze]

@southernyankee This is actually an amazing niche to be in but your landing page is terrible. Also some photos are too similar.

I googled "use ai for product images" and got these two examples: https://www.pixelcut.ai/ai-product-photos and https://creatorkit.com/ai-product-photos. Take those as inspiration and tweak.

 

[kw_pt1287]

@southernyankee Product wise it is awesome.

My two cents on landing page.

1. On the top section move Title to left side and write steps on the right side of the title.
2. Replace steps with nice video.
3. In examples: Add Before-After slider. 2 images are enough instead of 4.

How do you have very low replicate bill? Even you are using GPU.

 

[deborah23]

@kw_pt1287 replicate bill is on GPU compute, pay per second. that's why ig

 

[fearofgod]

@southernyankee Marketing should be easy. The product is great.

 

[nusans]

@southernyankee I'm interested, but I need to check the quality because services like this are usually very disappointing, with some poor usage of SD and Controlnet. If it works fairly okish you have a customer.

 

[derrickb]

@southernyankee Congratulations on your 1st $. Hope you have a lot more.

Your list of problems and potential solutions is helpful.

 

[conguero1]

@southernyankee I like your product - consider what EXACTLY your target customer looks like.

I would also consider trying unique packaging for paid ads. I think this will sell.