Do not index
Do not index
What does the ideal SaaS journey look like?
For most people, it sounds something like this -
- Get up, and think about ideas, until one day you find a magical one
- Spend months building the perfect app, something the users have never seen before
- Do a public launch, get millions of impressions
- Those viewers turn into buyers
- You get a 5 figure head start on your journey
If you think there is nothing wrong with whatever I’ve written here, I have some hard news to tell you.
The world doesn’t work like this.
You don’t get ideas, you go and talk with people to find them. You don’t spend months building a product, instead, you launch every week. And well, the main launch?
Maybe you don’t need a launch (or at least don’t need to rely on it)
My friend Nico launched his new app recently — 40k followers, and 150k+ impressions on the launch. But the result? only 2 sales.
Today, let’s talk about the 2 kinds of apps and maybe why you won’t succeed with a launch:
The SaaS duality
There are 2 types of software -
- The big viral launches — easy to buy the software, and very easy to leave too. Nothing is keeping on for ex Tweet Hunter if you don’t want to.
- The silent backend mammoths — these are the ones never in the limelight. Very difficult to join (have to migrate the whole setup there) and super difficult to leave too. Imagine HubSpot, which is a $30B company. No one leaves them as they have all of their systems and marketing on the app.
Now before we proceed, there is no correct answer here. Both kinds of software can make a lot of money and we have successful examples of both.
But you need to have an awareness of what you’re building so you can market it accordingly.
Honestly, for me, I’d much rather build in the first category, the big launches, the quick customer journeys, short sales cycles, and most of all, the category plays into my strength.
You might prefer building in the second category and that’s fine too.
Now, here’s how you grow both of these software:
Growing the big viral software
I have built all my businesses in this category, so most of it is my experience.
Here’s how you do this -
1 - Launch every week first, then every month after PMF.
I talked about this in last week’s newsletter, but to recap, launching every week with a small feature is the fastest way to gauge customer needs. Once you get the validation, start launching 1x per month with a new feature/tool
Our launching schedule -
July 2021: launch of ‘top 100’ on Tweet Hunter
August 2021: launched scheduling in Tweet Hunter, acquired ‘what to tweet’ (for a very low amount)
September 2021: Twitter Launch
October 2021: Product Hunt launch
This helped us stay relevant and on top of people’s minds whenever they wanted to buy a growth software.
2 - Partner up with an influencer
For Tweet Hunter, we partnered with JK Molina (on an equity level) his role was to help us with growth. And it worked!
Mindset shift: don’t worry about the equity that you give as long as you get the results.
100% of 1,000 is smaller than 70% of 10,000
The size of your slice of the pie matters more than the shape.
Many people's egos want 100% of the pie (circle shape), whereas your bank account only cares how much it weighs. Get people other people tied & compensated for the achievement of your vision.— Alex Hormozi
When I look at it now, I am the ‘influencer‘ in many of the deals I do as I have the distribution and I partner with great makers.
Growing the slow (but big) products
If you look closely - a lot of these are B2B and backend products. Something that fits in the business’s workflow.
And if you expect that kind of commitment from a customer, you have to earn their trust.
Trust is earned by education.
Tweets. Posts. Videos. Newsletters. Every single medium.
For example - if you build a CRO (conversion rate optimization) software, you better make sure that YOU educate your customers about -
- Why they need CRO
- How it’s done in the first place
- Why the other software is broken
- What makes you different
- How will this impact their business
When you do this… your market respects you, and buys from you whenever they are ready.
Education is your moat.
What do you think about this framework?
Is your business in the first category or second?
Think about this, and post this analysis for you on Twitter! (tag me @tibo_maker)
Let me know what you think by replying to this email!
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