If you are an indie hacker stuck at $0 MRR trying to run a SaaS then we are in the same boat. If you are inspired by indie hackers and aren't sure on how to get started, come join us losers to avoid the mistakes we made.
SaaS mistakes are common to make for new indie hackers
Creating a successful SaaS as an indie hacker is the same as trying to make money with a startup. Maybe one out of 100 will make any significant money.
When you come across posts on Twitter (X), LinkedIn or Instagram about famous indie hackers who make $10K MRR (monthly recurring revenue) it is plausible for you to get entrapped in the allure.
Let's see where you might be wrong about indie hacking, building a SaaS and the mistakes you are making
Who is an indie hacker and what is indie hacking?
If you have never heard about the term indie hacker or indie hacking before this then first let me assure you that this is not about hacking into someone's computer or logging into someone's Instagram account to see who they talk to.
An indie hacker is someone who builds successful SaaS (software as a service) products and sells them at scale like a software company, usually on a monthly subscription like Netflix.
Indie hacking involves learning, building, publishing and monetising such SaaS projects that help the creator become independent.
In short, an indie hacker is someone who tries to find the most straightforward route towards financial freedom. That's at least my way of describing it - other indie hackers may have different meanings and ideologies based on their journey and thoughts.
The journey of building a SaaS as an indie hacker
A new indie hacker on the scene will of course try to find the best route to get to financial freedom leveraging all possible platforms and networking opportunities.
Usually, these are the steps involved:
- Learning to code to create a SaaS; some might use no code builders, Cursor or Claude AI to build their SaaS.
- Creating a social media presence for product distribution.
- Engaging with the indie hacker community on various platforms for networking.
- Showcasing progress on recent projects. This is a part of the #BuildInPublic initiative where you post progress on your upcoming SaaS.
- Collecting an email list of interested buyers; this can be great to gauge interest for a SaaS and talk to people.
- Cold DM users on X to beta test, promote, or share about the upcoming project. This can also be used to gather data and understand user requirements.
- Launching the SaaS; usually, this is done on ProductHunt although the platform has faced criticism lately and indie hackers are building their own versions of it - like Launching Today.
- Offering lifetime deals and early signup bonuses to ensure maximum impact.
- Post launch surveys and a Nolt board so that users can add feature requests.
- Checking revenue, MRR churn and other metrics.
Common SaaS Mistakes Indie Hackers Make
Now is the time for accountability, indie hackers. And for newbies, this is the perfect time to take a note of common mistakes indie hackers usually make.
Not doing enough research before starting work on the SaaS
This is the mistake I made when trying to create Dwoth, the emoji journal. I wanted to journal on the go in a minimal fashion and using emojis made the most sense.
Therefore, I decided to create a SaaS for the same: choose from 10 emojis, tap on one to enter an empty journal entry with a timestamp and then tap to write about the activity.
There was zero research that went into that; my line of thought was: "I face the problem, others probably do too. Journaling is hip, I can sell to many people; can't wait to make $1 million and exit for $10 million."
Stupid, stupid mistake. Never again.
Research is important. It is necessary to understand what the current market is like before heading into the field:
- Understanding who are your competitors; if it's a niche product, do not overlook the broader market where they can replicate your features.
- Understand your ideal customer profile or ICP; these are the main folks who will buy or subscribe to your SaaS. Do not try and sell to other indie hackers unless it's a one solution fits all package.
- Get a grip on how much money you can realistically make; set projections from 1 month down to 5 years.
- Start a waitlist of those interested in trying these out; beta test your SaaS and then think about launching.
Learning to code is important for an indie hacker
I was able to launch 3x SaaS projects because I was lucky to find an amazing developer in Parik as he was starting out; his exceptional work and ethic has helped me launch effortlessly.
The thing is, I cannot code. Nor can Aavin (my co-founder). If there's a problem because of the platforms you use (usually Firebase in our case) then you will need to wait to solve problems - this is not feasible as an indie hacker, especially if your users really rely on your product.
For us it meant that we constantly had to bother Parik for changes and fixes. He has saved our ass multiple times here. Even if they are unsuccessful projects it does not mean that we fray away from providing quality customer support.
This issue can arise if you are using Claude, Cursor or any of these AI app builders or no-code builders. One minor change from a platform supplier can render your project redundant.
If you are not a coder who can solve these issues then you will be facing the heat with constant downtime.
STFU about your ProductHunt launch, there's a lot more marketing to do.
A lot of SaaS creators be it indie hackers or full blown studios rely on ProductHunt to gain traction.
It used to be a nice platform, being the #1 Product of the Day strokes your ego better than you stroke your [redacted].
But, once the momentum dies out you are left with probably a few paying customers, some nice queries, congratulations in the comments and a few grifters asking if you'd like to pay for upvotes.
Marketing your SaaS is a difficult thing to do for those into coding. You are essentially an entrepreneur who HAS to do many things but then you are stuck with the notion that if you build they will come.
Attention span is hard to grab, people get distracted. It is difficult to get users back to your app each time.
There's a lot that goes into building a successful SaaS and you are scratching the surface.
You might need to resort to shameless promotion each day, maybe cold DMs and cold emailing if the product is super niche and you don't have money to run ads.
My Mistakes Launching SaaS products.
I am Anthony and I have launched various SaaS projects out of which none made any significant amount of money.
Here are my mistakes launching SaaS over the years:
- Not doing enough research.
- Banking on ProductHunt viral factor.
- Inability to understand where my audience hangs out.
- Building B2C - I love building for customers but maybe Dwoth can be used as a work journal and Chibaku operates better for teams.
- Not being able to fix issues - Calendope was down for a long period and I was unaware. I wasn't using it, nor were others, it was an empty land as good as being abandoned.
- Being bad at marketing - building a SaaS in itself is tiring, then marketing it while adding new features and optimising makes life tiring.
You may be better off applying for a role as a developer in a full time role using your experience with SaaS as leverage or perhaps a successful SaaS maker will take you under your wings.
As for me, I am currently building Uhtend, an events subscription.
If you have any questions, find me on the bird app.
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