Build a SaaS from scratch (without any $) . Join the free MM Letters to get actionable tips/hacks for launching and running an online biz: milli.to/letters Free SaaS book I wrote:
I've been building SaaS since 2006. We've built out 12 platforms. 3 of them made it to 7 figures. It's HARD building a tool that is being sold to an individual end user. Don't do that! Unless you know what your perfect customer avatar is and know where to find those people. Instead...focus on small businesses or an audience that's dead simple to find through paid advertising, SEO, affiliates, etc..Start by finding a white label software so you're not heavily invested. Learn the business and then build something on your own once you have the expertise.
My first startup failed (App).I found a new company for SaaS 9 Month ago. Software ready to sell but little "process" failes inside so that people confused to use it. But I actually found the SaaS company with a "costumer". He had a problem and want to solve it because no solution exist. So we found and build it but it's really fucking hard and I have to change now a lot so that we actually getting paid users. And 3 more competitors started the same at the same time as we did and they are making already revenue now. Our Product is better but our marketing is not. But will change soon ;) So I would say it takes 1 - 2 years to build a SaaS company without knowing if it works but the chance of winning increase with every project because of experience. Competition is good so you know your idea is working... unless you start a smartphone company because the market is already full
@@nikalags This is great one .. I myslef and my team (other 3, developer,system auditor, embeded engineer) are finding it hard to pick on the project to work on as part of our product because our current company offers IT services and fully registered but we are having that challenge whats your advise for this..
What you're saying about scaling is true. When you're starting out, just make it work. I have an app that's got around 4 million downloads and I've had to refactor the backend code 3 times. It's much more important to prove the idea works first.
Love this kind of content as a guy with ADHD this kind of content help me to think about my past business ideas and new ones, set strategies and paths to ship them and make them sell enough to be worthy the time. It's easier when I'm hearing another guy spitting ideas and concepts out.
Did you get any medical treatment? I found that my Ritalin works better than all of the best techniques out there combined when it comes to focus. I try to only stay in the ADHD zone when I'm coming up with ideas and creative solutions or resting and relaxing
100% agree. The most important thing mentioned is do something that exists but better, cheaper, easier to use, etc… And forget about moonshot projects.
Sometimes we try to look for th things which we harshly need but they do not appear in front fo you. But you randomly scrolling to entertain yourself you got what you needed for today it happened to me This is the video I was looking for. Amazing video Brooo
I have some coding knowledge but still pretty beginner. Been doing larger projects now, building a SaaS seems like a great approach. Javascript, typescript & React.
@Millionaire Millennial I would recommend updating//editng the vid to add in a warning for the validation section to got through a card processor that mitigates storages of card #'s for both their security and the piece of mind of the patron whose card they're not yet going to charge. This can allow a hold for a time for a late processing if the charge is to be green-lit, or released, and the process can be redone when the product is ready and the end client will likely feel comfortable committing to the inconvenience of a second time charge that will actually go through (assuming the hold couldn't be extended until the product was ready - assuming the validation period and production period was close enough. Other wise everything sounded like pretty solid advice, thanks for sharing! But I ain't one to gossip... .
such simple and incredible advice. I've been in software for a long time and I'm trying to work towards building a SaaS product but I was really worried about scalability. "Dont build something scalable until you need to". This makes so much sense. I dont even need to rebuild from the ground up, I could just adjust a few things to make it scalable if and when I actually get to that point. Well now I am ready to start. Thank you
00:00 Learn how to start a software company from scratch 01:50 Starting a software company has high margins, more control, and recurring revenue. 03:40 Starting a software company is becoming less costly with no-code tools and easier access to coding education. 05:22 Start with something existing and do it slightly better 07:10 Validate your idea with a landing page 00:27 Focus on building a working product before worrying about scaling. 10:26 Focus on customer needs, not tech stack or pricing 12:01 Best way to get early customers is to find where similar softwares are getting their customers. Crafted by Merlin AI
The Margin benefit can a bit of a fallacy - since it doesn't take into account 'time spent'. For instance a drop shipping company that sells 10 items verses 1000 items is likely to involve little other direct work since the system is setup to sell automatically - whereas a saas if you're writing bespoke systems will need time to do the work; therefore the manhours need to be taken as a factor ( there's also a limit on hours available per person ); selling a product on the other hand is equivalent, but naturally has a much higher initial cost of the labour intensive work of actually writing the code. It all depends upon how decoupled you are for hours invested per product sale.
You just got yourself a new subscriber. I want to start SaaS and this video was a great motivation. I'm I the only one who cracks up about the emojis and GIFS😂in the the video?
That's great, I too think this is the right time to get into SAAS. I've built so many ERP applications for my client and now I think it's time to start my own. And yes the emojis were hilarious
I recommend python/Django, comes with own admin panel and you won't even need CSS and JavaScript for the start, after that you may hire designers/UI DEVS to make a separate front-end.
I just discovered your channel and have been staring a project from a few months. After working at a software consulting company for 5 years, I gained the skills to build a secure web platform from scratch using cloud technologies. I can confirm the initial cost takes a lot of time especially when I'm holding my day job and working on my side platform at night and on weekends. Great video! Keep it coming Also, compared to ads, your audio is very quiet. I'm on Android Nokia G20 on max volume. Can you increase your volume when posting?
Great video and advice, I recently learned how to code about (2 years ago), and now I'm building a phone app in flutter (which I have not learned how to code with dart before) but I'm using AI to help me thoguh it, since now I know the princaple of developing and logic which is almost the same for all stacks, I'm almost finished with the app. I'm hoping this app would generate some kind of money, but my goal is to start a SaaS later, I used to think I need a ground breaking idea but I now realize that a simple work flow for 1 type of industry could be enough to create a profitable SaaS.
You have to be careful though, you can grow in the wrong way. Working in a well oiled team with leaders willing to share expertise but also allow experimentation is probalby the ultimate.
@@morosis82 yeah sure , but building your own ideas alone will help you grow anyway , it worked for me , i am e dev from 2 years right now, guided by expertises untill now , but I had the biggest jump in skills when i tried to build my own product alone, even if in the end has no value or it is a total failure , you still learn a lot
@@devsimplified21 oh yeah for sure, as a pure exploratory or experimental thing for sure, but I've been building software that runs billion dollar companies for 20 years and theres a lot of learning to be done by people who know how to code a site vs code software that controls the destiny of multiple large companies.
@@morosis82 sure ,but that's another story , that's why your salary is damn high :D, but i mean if your building your first start up or SaaS you don't need to be as professinal as a multibillion company needs
About the pricing if you follow the marked then your at the mercy of said marked. Its way better to create your own in said place then your not compared to everyone else. Lots of car companies do this. They make it insanely priced limited who can bay and then they make a killing. Its really how you value your time and the service your offering. It does not matter that a lot of people can't afford your services that just drive up demand.
Hello, I don't have precisely a SaaS product but I have a software product listed in a marketplace: a freemium chrome extension (one-time payment). And my main problem right now is that its user base stopped growing like it reached a plateau.
Just found this. Lots to say about this topic. I recommend building a product to make an already software helpful and do so as a desktop product and here is why. 99% of apps are web and would of thought to do so. There are no apps that take existing web products coupled together as a new product thus increasing productivity it’s organized and very easy to build. The twist is there are people willing to pay bucks if the hardest parts you build is melted together. Inspiration should come from desperation so for example some web apps are great but there are no desktop apps period. Yet those Sam web apps suck because the company refuses to build a desktop piece which is you IN to building other things that are money makers.
Pro tip: of you want to build a SaaS and don't know how to code or where to start, learn Laravel, it is stupidly fast to create MVPs and integrate stripe and deploy to any hosting/cloud provider
I'd like to suggest looking at what most devs are using as this is a good way to ensure there will be support in the future. The recent stack overflow survey shows that *Node + React* (javascript) is substantially more popular than Laravel (php). This is why I avoided laravel, ruby, etc. It's clear nearly half the devs are using javascript and will likely keep using it in the future. This provides support, expansive addons/libraries/frameworks/etc for the language. I do most of my work in Node/NextJS right now, but I doubt I'll be switching languages unless I see data that supports the idea that people are abandoning javascript. You can _very_ quickly get a site build with NextJS as easy as Laravel as well. Source: survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/ PS: I'm also biased against php in general so sorry if I'm being offensive 😅
How do you, without your competition knowing what you’re up to, find out about their pricing when they make it so you have to contact them for a quote?
If they don't publicly list their prices you can either just ask them for their prices (you don't have to mention you're operating a similar product) OR try to find some of their customers and ask them how much they pay. Most small SaaS' have their pricing listed on the /pricing page of their site.
The irony about this video is that I am in the middle of creating a Saas business. Everything you said I am currently railing against it. Atleast not Everything because I know my market because I use to be apart of it as a musician. But most of what you said is true.
Regarding tech stack, personally i think it is time consuming to build an MVP with just javascript/typescript. If you want something really really fast go for framework like Laravel, yes its PHP and yes people hate it, but the pros far outweigh the cons.Since it has everything already preconfigured such as Queues, Caching, Database libraries, read write instance support, amazing feature and unit testing library and much more. Honestly I see many SAAS platforms using Laravel its not the best but its I think very easy to manage as a Soloprenuer. You don't need to over engineer for microservices so early on.
I have no experience building a software company, but I have experience building software. It makes sense to me to start off with a well oiled monolith and then refactor to microservices if necessary and are these small interactions so you’re not wielding large code changes at a single time. It would take reimplementing architecture, but what say you?
@@WisomofHal Correct, thats how companies scale up usually. Start with a monolith whatever stack you are comfortable with. Eventually there is a limit to a monolith, so I don't like to use it once its a certain size, really hard to keep it all under one codebase with different teams. Ideally a microservice should resemble your organisation structure and size.
@@copaxchannel Ugh yeah maybe, I just don't like using so many third party packages, prefer one giant framework which has official packages for everything. I'd rather spend my time building features than configuring dependencies. But hey like the video said choose whatever you like.
in my experience, Webflow is for noobs and you can not build a marketable and sustainable product with webflow. Had that been the case, all SAAS or ERP companies would have chosen webflow instead of Custom built development. But that's not the case bro
Bro as a millennial could you help me with - how to start freelancing & get clients quickly as a beginner autocad/revit engineer with 6 month of internship knowledge in design of hvac projects ? What points to keep in mind while starting & how to build trust initially without being stuck in competition of the market & get paid well as an effective freelancer ?
Hmm. I did cad work at an old job, but not as a freelancer. I think a good direction early on is to focus on building out your portfolio. This applies to any freelance work. Do work much cheaper than you would just for experience (even do little projects for yourself). Once you have a really nice looking portfolio - see other successful freelancers doing the same work - you can up your prices to match the market. It will also help if you can differentiate yourself from others in a meaningful way. Niche down even further than HVAC. Make sense?
@@millionaire-millennial Insightful tips ! Thanks bro 😊 what books would be USEFUL to read for getting more clarity on subject of Freelancing, from scratch or in general perfectly ? i am starting from this coming week by going through some of my contacts from linked in initially then fiverr.
There are others like the suite from Vendasta as well. They can be really powerful if you already have a: 1. Product where the SaaS could be upsold on or intergrated into. 2. A good sized audience that has shown interest/intent. I wouldn't use white label if you're starting from scratch as you have 0 control over the platform AND you're competing with exactly the same software from the parent + other white labelers. It's hard to stand out at all. It works great if you already have paying customers. Lots of agencies use white-label, for example. Now, if you have a segment of a market in mind that none of the other white labelers are going after, then you could make it work... Pros & cons to both sides, as always 😄
@@omarbader9529 developers and taxes mostly. Talking about taxes how is this guy getting a 99% profit margin? Is he implying he doesnt pay taxes for his saas?
Here in Denmark all of your income gets taxed at ~45% (if your income is above a certain limit, which it should be otherwise there's no point in having a SaaS for an income lol, also higher taxes if you step into a higher income bracket). So no, not all the money would go into your pocket (bank account), not even close
If you run your system on AWS does Amazon have the ability to shut you down if you create something that they may want to acquire in the future (can they access your code?) How is AWS audited?
9:49 that was hilarious, he's like luring in clueless people into the deep deep abyss of a rabbit hole that's called js,CSS,HTML. (This is a joke, because Ifound how he waved his fingers funny, dont take it seriously)
Can you share an example of a sas that you've built? I've learnt html, css, JavaScript, react, mongodb and node.ja but I have no idea what kind of thing to build and how to go about building it.
You should build the idea using all those concepts. Then learn a bit of AWS to host it online so people can reach it. Let me know if you'd like to learn more
Here is one idea. If a parking lot has spaces that are marked by flash light, red meaning that the place is occupied and green meaning that it is free, you could build a web app that will tell you which parking in a city has the biggest number of available spaces. Just a question of contacting a parking lot owner, and asking them if they have an infrastructure to send API status of a parking lot.
Here are some highly competitive but popular softwares Email Marketing software Website Builder CRM Data Scraper Auto Dialer Financial Software - sending money/processing payments All very hard , I would also keep an eye out on make money ideas because you can sell software to people who want to make money online or brick and mortar as a b2b solution
I have 0 experience in building a SaaS or in software at all for that fact. But I have an idea that I think would really streamline and cut costs for the industry I am in. What would the best way be to start building a program or is there somewhere you can share the idea and co-found the business and they will build it for you?
In my experience, I can tell you that if you have a good idea but not the technical skills, you should function as the business and logistics brain of the project and you should hire a skilled developer to actually build it under the guidance of a project manager. Best of luck bud
It can be, but at its core, its just a service business fulfilled by software (SaaS = software as a service). However you choose to fulfill that service is up to you. Some custom code the whole thing, others connect several other tools to get the job done.
I work with my friend his company made two SAAS, both have amazing numbers of users on it, how can I market it? I want to market it in USA, Europe, UK It is a learning management system have huge numbers prolly more than 100k running g users, product is smooth and stable the other is a e-commerce store builder also working for a company that has more than 200 stores Now how can I market it?
@@johnnwabuforudemezue1108Hy actually i wanna ask where should we upload content while we build should we upload on tiktok or youtube kind of stuff but it takes alot of time for the video to get some real views plss can you give a much easier ways to validate ideas
I would love to build my own SaaS but I am a bit scared about what to build, the business side of things, registering a business and last but not least TAX etc for when your SaaS kicks off
Firstly, thank you so much for this amazing on-going Educational series, it is truly an eye opener for many would-be-preneurs like myself, could-be-preneur also comes to mind ;). That said, please point me in the direction of what is likely to scale from 0-100 in the shortest amount of time and something worth capitalizing on immediately? Of course, there are several $Billion dollar ideas in B2B SaaS arena, however I am looking for something that would yield $100k - $150k net proceeds/Month ideally without adding too much Human Capital into the mix - Really appreciate this!
Dude, a “software startup” is not “kind of the same thing” as a SaaS. Netflix is not a SaaS, nor is AWS. SaaS is a very specific business model, your information here is shockingly inaccurate.
He is saying how to start - not giving the defination of SaaS and startup. He is shocking correct. If you don't want to listen then move on to other video.
