What is the solo founder’s best strategy for building SaaS product and reaching customers?

Hi Deniz - I built a SaaS product with another person. So not the same as a Solo Founder but perhaps the lessons learned are applicable: - Pick a niche where you can win (e.g., have deeper knowledge about the use case, know the buyer, less competition) - Don't build first and then market; build with customers - Try to set small goals at first to help keep you motivated; it's a marathon and not a sprint

Do you already have an idea for what you want to build? If so, I recommend you start by reading The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick to validate the idea while also gaining a deeper sense of what customers most want/need in terms of a solution to the problem (super important). Then read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares (there is another book by the same name, so be sure it's by these authors). It discusses how to think about marketing right from the start of your project and, as you mentioned, how you should split your time between marketing and product dev. I'm happy to recommend other great reads depending on the specific challenges you are most concerned about facing.

These are some strategies you can try Deniz 1. Build in Public 2. Find communities where your target audience hangs out and help them there 3. Create a waitlist landing page and add it to all your Build in Public content

Agree with comments below. I "built in public" and created a solid waiting list before launching (100ish families). I believe the best way to reach customers at first is to talk directly to them. Build the product and do all the things you need to establish a foundation for the company, but as it applies to customers, decide who they are, and then just go to wherever they are and start talking to them. It sounds stupid it's so simple, but that's it. Also, I don't want to preach because I am trying to figure out the same thing you are, lol. Thanks.

I had read this in a twitter thread sometime ago 1. Start as a service or consulting business / Build audience before product 2. Get a deeper understanding of the problem & product you wish to build 3. Build a product based on the learnings from 1-2

Very useful info here. Here's what you can do from my own experience - 1. Separate out building and marketing. They are not the same thing and need independent focus 2. If you are on $0 marketing budget then only way is to build an audience or you and your product. Try Twitter #buildinpublic. Follow other builders and engage with them 3. I used reddit subgroups to drive traffic. Also reddit gives $100 credit to run ads. Not much success with ads but traffic got ~2% click rate from some communities. 4. A blog is a must, start at least 3 months before you want to launch. 5. Use a keyword research tool like ubersuggest to get SEO ideas for blog articles. 6. Build a landing page. I used carrd.co 7. Use medium if you want to reach to an existing community. Plug in your landing page URL judiciously in your medium posts. 8. Use platforms like 5ver and Upwork to optimize your time and get help in time consuming areas.

I managed a community of 1000+ saas founders for about a year. This is what I recall people mentioning. - Cold outreach. Buying leads from someone like Apollo and building a sequence in lemlist. - Communities for their industry. Building warm connections there and slowly introducing their product. - Lifetime deals for the first 50 - 100 paid users. Pre-sales are your friend. - Partnerships. Paying people a cut for every referral. - Building an audience around the problem you solve (or intend to solve). Separating time spent building vs promoting was always tricky for people. Most would actually start with promoting and getting people involved, and then built around solving specific problems. Some would start by solving the problem manually and then building process / software around having that be done in an automated manner. Hope that helps!!

As a designer I can tell you all the SaaS products I’ve worked on in my 25 years of consulting that were designed by solo engineers were a design nightmare that took years to untangle once I was brought on board. Before you build anything get yourself a solid foundation on UX otherwise it will likely be hot garbage.

Getting a SaaS out there as a solo developer is tough. One of the best things you can do is build a personal brand online and connect with other developers. Having attention at will from people who are interested in your experiences/ share your interested is invaluable as someone pushing products.

I recommend you to use design sprint and come up with MVPs, once you launch your product, get the feedback from users as soon as you can, their feedbacks are the key to building a good product. Also, hire people when it hurts but as long you can do it alone, do it anyway because you gonna need more money in the further.

hiring a reliable team.

I believe @angezanetti is one of the best persons to answer this

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@suryaoruganti any inputs here for Deniz here?

for me we need to solve any pain point for our target market. however not all the tools they will bite. i keep trying until i can find one with an exponential growth. then i keep trying again to find the number two.

I think the key here is to find the community of early adapters who can help you iterate on the product or build it with you. And that means - rather than scaling up to say 100s of customers, focusing on those who want to actually can give relevant feedback. Saying "no" to not so relevant customers at this stage is critical. What I have found works well is finding a community of my end users ( for me its marketers in Web 3.0 ) and then just contributing to it first. Then over time, once you have built that relationship, you can start requesting for product feedback and help. It takes time but ensures you really develop the required empathy.

I had already read this in a twitter thread. 1. Establish a consultancy or service firm first, then focus on audience development. 2. Increase your grasp of the issue and the product you want to create. 3. Create a product using the lessons from steps 1-2. come see it at

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Hi Deniz, If you are a solo founder and more technical that marketing focused, you’ll likely need to invest time in learning the marketing strategies and tools. This is time consuming and can be confusing too if its not your domain. Doing this whilst building your product is a good idea because you can test which channels work for you and which communities resonate with your product idea as you build it. You’ll also have something to talk about - the story of what you are building and why. When we started our first SaaS I wish we had done more of this - its great to share the story with people and awesome to share the journey, ups and downs.