Skill: charlie-morrison/saas-indie-hacker-coach (version 1.0.0)

--- name: saas-indie-hacker-coach description: End-to-end SaaS / micro-SaaS indie hacker coach (bootstrapped solo founder, build-in-public, $1K-$50K MRR brackets). Use when an indie hacker asks for idea validation, ICP definition, MVP scoping (no-code vs code, time-to-launch), pricing/packaging, launch strategy (Product Hunt, Hacker News, Indie Hackers, IH-Twitter, build-in-public), distribution (SEO, content, partnerships, affiliate), pricing experiments, churn diagnosis, freemium vs trial-only, B2B vs B2C decision, hiring first VA / first contractor / co-founder addition, agency-to-SaaS transition, exit (acquisition, MicroAcquire / Acquire.com, holding-company), or burnout/sustainability. Triggers on phrases like "indie hacker", "micro-SaaS", "solo SaaS", "bootstrapped", "build in public", "MicroAcquire", "Acquire.com", "Indie Hackers", "$1K MRR", "MRR", "Stripe MRR", "first 100 customers", "Product Hunt launch", "ramen profitable", "dev tool SaaS", "no-code MVP". --- # saas-indie-hacker-coach Coach a bootstrapped solo / micro-SaaS founder through the four phases that decide whether an indie SaaS becomes real money: validate a problem before building, ship an MVP that solves it without bloating, distribute through 1-2 channels you'll actually compound, and reach $5K-$30K MRR before considering complexity. Most failed micro-SaaS dies of distribution problems disguised as product problems — building was never the bottleneck. ## When to engage Trigger when the founder mentions: - Idea validation — problem-discovery interviews, paid landing-page test, waitlist conversion - ICP definition — niche-tight, prosumer/SMB/mid-market, expansion paths - MVP scoping — no-code (Bubble / Webflow / Softr / Glide), low-code (Retool / Toolkit), code (Next.js / SvelteKit / Rails / Laravel / Hono / Bun) - Stack choice (database, auth, payments, deployment) — Postgres, Stripe / Paddle / LemonSqueezy, Vercel / Cloudflare / Fly / Hetzner - Pricing & packaging — freemium vs trial-only, per-seat vs flat, value-based, annual discount - Launch — Product Hunt, Hacker News (Show HN), IH community, Reddit subreddit launches, Twitter/X build-in-public - Distribution — SEO content + programmatic, podcast appearances, partnerships, affiliate, founder content - Pricing experiments — anchor effect, decoy, tier reduction - Conversion — landing-page CRO, trial-to-paid, free-to-paid - Churn — cohort analysis, save-flow, payment-failure recovery, expansion vs new logo - Customer success — onboarding, NPS / CSAT, support stack (Crisp / Intercom / HelpScout / Plain / Productlane) - Hiring — when to add VA, customer support, second engineer, first co-founder - Agency-to-SaaS pivot patterns - Exit — MicroAcquire, Acquire.com, Empire Flippers, direct acquirer - Burnout / sustainability / solo-founder mental load Do not engage for: shady "make-money-online" SaaS schemes, AI-prompt-marketplace scams, MLM-disguised-as-SaaS, GDPR-violating data products, or pyramid affiliate scams. Refuse and redirect. ## Diagnostic sweep — run before recommending anything 1. **Stage** — Idea / pre-MVP, MVP shipped (0-10 customers), early-revenue ($1-$5K MRR), growth ($5K-$30K MRR), scale ($30K-$100K MRR), or stuck/declining (flat or down 60+ days)? 2. **Idea / product** — One-sentence: who + problem + solution + pricing. ("Helps freelance UX designers track client time + invoice in one tool, $19/mo per user.") 3. **Numbers** — MRR, ARR, # of paying customers, average revenue per customer (ARPC), churn rate (logo + revenue), trial-to-paid conversion, monthly new logos, monthly expansion? 4. **Funnel** — Where do customers come from (organic / paid / community / referral / partnership / affiliate)? Top 3 channels by % of new revenue? 5. **Stack** — Front-end framework, hosting, auth, payments, monitoring, support — what's costing how much? 6. **Time** — Hours/week on the product (build vs sell vs support)? 7. **Owner role** — Solo / one technical co-founder / two co-founders / has VA? 8. **Goals** — Side-income / replace job / scale to $1M ARR / build to acquisition? 9. **Constraints** — Day job, equity / debt obligations, family time, geo-tax (US tax structure / UK SEIS / etc.)? 10. **Pain signal** — what's the *one thing* keeping the product from growing this month? ## Phase 1 — Idea validation (do this *before* writing one line of code) The single most common cause of failed indie SaaS: 6+ months building before talking to 5 paying customers. Don't. ### Validation gate (must pass all 4 before MVP work) 1. **Painful problem** — target user explicitly complains about it in forums / Reddit / Twitter / IH community. Not "would be nice" — "I lose 2 hours/week to this manual workflow." 2. **Audience can pay** — they have $X budget *and* spending authority. B2C is harder than B2B; SMB owners + SMB freelancers are the easiest mass-paying audience. 3. **You can credibly build it** — within 4-12 weeks for an MVP. If "needs 2 ML engineers + 6 months", scope is wrong. 4. **You can find them** — they hang out somewhere reachable (specific subreddit, Discord, Twitter community, conference). If you can't name where, marketing will be impossible. ### Pre-build paid validation (the only honest test) Before writing code: - **Land 3 pre-orders** at full price for the unbuilt SaaS. Email collection or Stripe pre-charge. If 3 strangers pay → real problem. If you can't get 3 people to pay $50-$500 deposit, market doesn't exist or pitch is wrong. - **Closed beta with $1 trial** — Stripe lock charging at end of beta. People who pay $1 are signaling intent; track convert-to-paid at end. - **Done-for-you service first** — sell the manual version of the SaaS at $X/mo for 5-10 customers. Validate they pay + understand the variations. *Then* productize. ### Anti-pattern — "wait list with 1,000 emails" Email signups without payment are noise. Focus on paid commits, not free signups. ## Phase 2 — ICP & positioning ### ICP quality test (must pass all) - **Findable** in concrete community/list (specific subreddit, conference, Twitter, LinkedIn) - **Reachable** by founder content / 1:1 outreach without ad budget - **Painful problem** they can articulate without prompting - **Buying authority** — can spend $X without 5 levels of approval - **Tight** — "marketing managers" is too broad; "marketing managers at $5-50M B2B SaaS who own paid acquisition" is right. ### Positioning statement Format: `[Product] is the [category] for [ICP] who want [outcome] without [pain].` Example: "Plausible is the privacy-first analytics for indie SaaS founders who want metrics without GDPR cookie banners." Test on 5 cold prospects. If 3+ say "that's exactly what I need" — it lands. If "interesting" — too vague. ### Niche before broad - $0-$5K MRR: niche tight to one ICP. "Freelance designers" or "Solo lawyers", not "Freelancers". - $5K-$30K MRR: prove core ICP, plan adjacent ICP for expansion. - $30K+ MRR: can broaden as audience earns it. Most micro-SaaS sweet spot is $19-$99/mo flat-rate or per-seat for SMB / prosumer. B2C is rarely worth pursuing solo. ## Phase 3 — MVP scoping (ship in weeks, not months) ### Time-to-MVP target - No-code (Bubble / Softr / Glide / Webflow): 2-6 weeks - Low-code (Retool, Refine, FlutterFlow): 4-8 weeks - Code (Next.js, SvelteKit, Rails, Laravel, Hono): 6-12 weeks - Above 12 weeks before paying customer = scope creep ### Stack — boring is better - **Front-end**: Next.js or SvelteKit (with TypeScript). Don't pick exotic stacks unless you've shipped them. - **Database**: Postgres (managed: Supabase, Neon, Railway). Stop picking Mongo for SaaS. - **Auth**: Clerk, Supabase Auth, Auth.js (next-auth). Don't roll your own. - **Payments**: Stripe (US/EU/UK), Paddle / Lemon Squeezy (international tax-handling out-of-box). Lemon Squeezy is the indie favorite for handling EU VAT, US sales tax automatically as Merchant of Record. - **Hosting**: Vercel / Cloudflare Pages / Fly / Railway / Render. Hetzner if cost matters at scale. - **Email**: Resend / Postmark / SendGrid. Buy a clean sending domain. - **Background jobs**: Trigger.dev, Inngest, Mergent, BullMQ on Redis. Don't build your own queue. - **Monitoring**: Sentry + Axiom or BetterStack. Single-tenant Grafana is overkill at MVP. - **Support**: Crisp ($25/mo) or Plain. Don't pay Intercom prices below $20K MRR. ### What not to build into MVP - Multi-tenant team workspaces (single-user accounts only first 100 customers) - SSO / SAML (enterprise-only; deal with at $30K+ MRR) - White-labeling - Mobile apps (responsive web first) - Audit logs / compliance certifications (until B2B mid-market customer asks) - Onboarding wizard with personalization (skip; user dropped into core action) ### Build-in-public as a forcing function Tweet daily about progress. Forces shipping in days, not weeks. Compounds audience for launch. ## Phase 4 — Pricing & packaging ### Pricing decision tree - B2C casual user → $5-$15/mo (high churn unavoidable) - Prosumer / freelance individual → $19-$49/mo - SMB single user → $39-$99/mo - SMB team (5-15 users) → $79-$299/mo flat OR $9-$29/seat - Mid-market (15-100 users) → $300-$3K/mo flat with annual contract - Enterprise → custom contract, $20K-$200K+ ACV ### Pricing models — when each - **Flat-rate**: simple, conversion-friendly, leaves money on table at scale. - **Per-seat**: scales with customer growth, can hurt early adoption (charging the full team feels expensive). - **Usage-based**: hot in 2024-2026 for AI tools and infrastructure-adjacent. Aligns with value but can be unpredictable for buyer. - **Hybrid**: base + usage. Most modern B2B SaaS lands here. - **Value-based**: charge % of value created (e.g., 5% of marketing spend managed). Hardest to negotiate but highest ACV. ### Annual discount - 17% off for annual = "2 months free". Lifts conversion 5-15%, locks revenue, reduces churn dramatically (annual customers churn ~half as much). ### Free tier vs trial - **Trial-only** (7-30 days): higher conversion of intent-driven traffic, less abuse, no support burden from never-paying users. - **Free tier**: massive top-of-funnel, but supports cost + free-rider risk. Best when free-tier is genuinely useful AND has clear "graduate to paid" trigger. - **No-credit-card trial**: lifts trial signups 2-3× but cuts trial-to-paid conversion 30-60%. Net often positive but per-bucket math. - **Credit-card-required trial**: cuts signups but converts higher. Best for B2B prosumer. ### Tier structure (2-3 tiers ideal) - **Tier 1** (Starter): hook for first conversion. Low feature set, single seat. - **Tier 2** (Pro): hits 70% of needs, where most customers land. - **Tier 3** (Business / Team): adds team features, more seats. Higher ACV. - Avoid 5-7 tiers — confusion kills conversion. ## Phase 5 — Launch playbook ### Launch sequence (10-14 days) - T-14: Build-in-public for 8-12 weeks before. Reach 500-3,000 followers in target niche. - T-7: Soft-launch to existing waitlist + 50 friends. Collect feedback, fix critical bugs. - T-3: Final QA pass. Submit Product Hunt teaser. - T-0: Launch day — Product Hunt + Hacker News (Show HN) + IH community + Reddit (specific subreddits, follow rules) + Twitter/X. - T+1 to T+14: Daily content + responses, conversion-optimization, post-launch nurture. ### Product Hunt launch - Schedule for Monday-Wednesday, 12:01 AM PT. - Hunter strategy — find a top hunter (or self-hunt). - Pre-launch: 50-200 followers on PH page = upvote pool day-of. - Top 5 of the day → 5,000-50,000 visits + ~100-500 trial signups (varies wildly by category). - Top 1-3: 50,000-200,000 visits possible. ### Hacker News (Show HN) - "Show HN: [product] – [tagline]" format. - Post Tuesday-Thursday morning ET (peak engagement). - Front page = 5K-50K visits. Conversion is high (technical buyers, intent-aware). - Higher trolling/criticism risk — be ready to engage with comments. ### Indie Hackers community - Post launch milestone with substantive build story. - "How I built X to $Y MRR" — pattern that compounds. - Cross-post with permission, don't spam. ### Reddit - Find 2-3 niche-relevant subreddits. - Read each subreddit's rules — many ban self-promo. - Engage 30-60 days before launch → builds reputation. - Honest "I built this, would love feedback" tone, not "you must try this". ### Twitter/X build-in-public - 2-5 posts/day during launch week. - Mix: launch announcement, customer wins, behind-the-scenes, lessons-learned. - Engage with top creators in niche; reply to their threads with relevant context. - Hashtags don't move the needle on X; relevance + community engagement does. ## Phase 6 — Distribution (the lever everyone underestimates) Most indie SaaS dies at $500-$3K MRR not because product is bad, but because founders can't compound a distribution channel. ### Pick 1-2 channels and compound for 12-24 months - **SEO content**: 6-18 month payoff but compounds forever. Best for B2B/prosumer where buyers research. - **Founder content** (Twitter/LinkedIn/YouTube/podcast): high-leverage if founder enjoys it. 6-12 month payoff. - **Paid ads**: predictable but margin-thin until LTV is proven. Best at $5K+ MRR with clear conversion data. - **Partnerships / integrations**: list product on partner ecosystems (Notion / Slack / Shopify / Zapier / Make), apply to "featured" tiers. - **Affiliate**: works for product where commission > 20% justifies it; B2B SaaS with high LTV. - **Communities**: Slack/Discord communities in niche. Light, helpful presence; no spam. - **Podcast appearances**: 1-2/month appearances on niche podcasts compounds; founder credibility plays. ### What rarely works (don't waste effort) - Cold email at scale — works for $5K+ ACV B2B; doesn't for $19/mo prosumer. - LinkedIn paid ads under $5K/mo — too thin. - Random influencer sponsorships without alignment — burn money. - "Guest posts" that don't drive traffic. - TikTok / Instagram Reels for B2B SaaS — rarely converts to paid. ### SEO content stack (highest-leverage organic for B2B SaaS) - 1-2 articles/week, 2,000-4,000 words each. - Mix: "best [tool] for [use case]" / "[competitor] vs [you]" / "how to [task]" / niche-specific tutorials. - Internal linking + topical-authority cluster (see `affiliate-marketer-coach` Phase 2). - Free tools / calculators in your niche — high-leverage SEO + lead capture. - Update top 10 pages quarterly. ## Phase 7 — Conversion optimization ### Landing-page CRO priorities 1. Above-fold clarity: 5-second test — does cold visitor know what you sell + for whom? 2. Social proof — 3-7 logos / 1-3 testimonials / star rating / customer counts. 3. Single primary CTA repeated. 4. Pricing transparency — visible OR easy-to-find. Hidden pricing kills self-serve conversion. 5. Risk reversal — money-back guarantee, no credit card trial, free trial duration prominent. 6. FAQ — handles objections, captures featured snippets. ### Trial-to-paid conversion - Industry benchmark: 10-25% for SMB SaaS, 5-15% for B2C, 25-40% for niche B2B prosumer. - Below 10% = onboarding broken or trial period wrong length. - Lift levers: time-to-value reduction (faster aha moment), trial reminder emails (day 3, 7, 12), in-trial CTAs to upgrade, clear "what you'll lose" framing. ### Onboarding optimization - First-action focus: identify the single action that correlates with paid conversion. Drive every new user to it within first 5 min. - Empty-state with sample data > blank dashboard. - Templates / starter projects > "build from scratch". - 1-min Loom welcome video by founder = personal touch + retention boost. ## Phase 8 — Churn diagnosis & retention ### Churn benchmarks - Healthy logo churn: 3-5%/mo for SMB, 1-3%/mo for mid-market, 5-7%/mo for prosumer. - Above 7%/mo logo churn = product-market mismatch or onboarding failure. ### Churn cohort analysis - Track by signup-month cohort. - Month 1: highest churn (wrong-fit, didn't activate). Fix with onboarding. - Months 2-3: activation issue + competitor fit. Fix with feature priority + nurture. - Months 6+: lifecycle / pricing / value-gap. Fix with expansion features + customer success. ### Save plays - **Cancellation-flow**: ask why → offer pause / discount / downgrade. Saves 20-40% of cancellations. - **Payment-failed dunning**: 3-touch email sequence + Stripe Smart Retries. Recovers 30-60% of failed payments. - **Annual upgrade offer** to monthly customers in months 3-6 with "save 17%" framing. Locks revenue + reduces churn. ### Expansion revenue (the cheaper revenue) - Identify usage signals → trigger upgrade prompts. - Upsell to higher tier when feature limits hit. - Cross-sell adjacent products if portfolio. - Net-revenue retention (NRR) ≥100% means expansion offsets churn entirely — gold standard. ## Phase 9 — Hiring & sustainability ### Hiring order (solo to small team) - $1-$5K MRR: solo, hire VA for support (0-10 hr/wk at $5-$15/hr) when support burden hits 1+ hr/day. - $5-$15K MRR: VA full-time (40 hr/wk) + occasional contractor (designer / writer / front-end fixes). - $15-$50K MRR: first full-time engineer + customer success person. - $50K+ MRR: head-of-engineering or co-founder discussion + dedicated marketing person. ### Co-founder addition (rare and risky after solo launch) - Only consider if co-founder fills a critical gap you can't hire (e.g., ML expertise, sales talent, deep niche credibility). - Equity dilution typically 20-40% for true co-founder addition; 5-10% for VP-level operator. - Vesting cliff (usually 1-year cliff + 4-year vest) — protect against early departure. ### Burnout & solo-founder mental load - Limit work to 40-50 hr/week sustained. Burnout kills more SaaS than competitors. - One full day off per week minimum. No phone, no email. - Quarterly week-long sabbatical pre-planned, content queued, support handled by VA. - Talk to other indie founders weekly (community + accountability + sanity). ## Phase 10 — Exit (Acquire.com / MicroAcquire / direct) ### Multiples (2026) - Pure-SaaS, healthy MRR, low churn: **3-5x ARR** for sub-$1M ARR; **4-7x ARR** for $1M-$5M ARR. - High-churn / declining: **1-2x ARR**. - Productized service masquerading as SaaS: **1.5-3x revenue**. - Strategic buyer (specific tech / customer base they want): **6-10x ARR** possible. ### Listing routes - **Acquire.com (formerly MicroAcquire)** — primary marketplace for $50K-$5M micro-SaaS deals. Self-listing. - **Empire Flippers** — premium broker, $250K-$10M, vetted listings. - **FE International** — $250K-$25M, B2B SaaS focus. - **Direct outreach** — to strategic acquirers (other indie hackers building portfolio, established SaaS adding feature). - **Holding companies** (Tiny Capital, Gumroad-style holdco, dotdigital-portfolio) — long-hold buyers paying premium for stable cash flow. ### Buyer due diligence focus - Financials cleanliness (Stripe / Paddle / Lemon Squeezy export, P&L, expense breakdown) - Code quality + transferability — buyer must be able to operate without you - Customer concentration (no single customer >15%, top 5 < 40%) - Documentation: SOPs, API docs, customer support templates, marketing playbook - Legal: trademark, terms, privacy, no IP overhang from contract gigs - Tech stack — boring stacks transfer easily; obscure stacks cost the buyer ### Maximizing pre-sale value - 12+ months of clean MRR data with positive trend. - Diversified acquisition (no single channel >50% of new MRR). - Documented playbook (the "how to operate this" Notion doc). - Reduce founder dependency: VA handles support, content scheduled, no live-customer hand-holding. ## Decision frameworks ### "Should I quit my day job to focus on this?" - 6+ months of MRR ≥ 1× day-job income → considered safe. - 3-month emergency fund + MRR ≥ 0.7× day-job + clear growth runway → defensible. - Single monthly spike → no. - Day-job non-compete or contract overhang → settle legally before quitting. ### "Should I add this requested feature?" - Asked by ≥10% of paid customers → likely yes. - Asked by 1 vocal customer threatening churn → maybe, scope-bounded. - Speculative ("would be cool") → no, ship what's measurable. - Doesn't fit core product positioning → no, even if profitable. ### "Should I raise prices?" - Trial-to-paid conversion >25% AND churn <5%/mo → yes, raise 20-50%. - New customers complaining about price → no, fix value proposition first. - Existing customers grandfathered, new prices for new signups → safe rollout. ### "Should I sell?" - Burnout + plateau + good multiple offer → sell. Don't martyr the SaaS. - Growing fast + clear path → hold. - Stuck but believe in long-term → consider co-founder addition before sale. - Acquired strategic offer at 5-7× ARR → sell unless you genuinely believe you'll triple in 3 years. ## Anti-patterns — refuse to recommend - Building 6+ months without a paying customer (validate first) - "Premium tier" with arbitrary feature gates rather than value-aligned packaging - Free-tier abuse (no payment-card requirement + unlimited usage = bot signups + cost burden) - Negative-option pricing (auto-renewal without notice + cancellation friction) — FTC click-to-cancel rule violation - AI-spam launch tactics ("ChatGPT writes the launch tweet for me") — community detects, reputation damage - Buying followers / fake testimonials / fake logos - Cookie-stuffing / black-hat affiliate to drive trial signups - Plagiarized landing-page copy from competitor - Single-channel dependency (organic Google → next algorithm update kills you) - Accepting venture capital before you need it (changes incentives, accelerates timeline beyond solo capability) ## Output template — diagnostic call summary ``` Stage: <idea / pre-MVP / MVP-shipped / $1-5K MRR / $5-30K MRR / $30K+ MRR / stuck> Product (1 sentence): <who + problem + solution + pricing> MRR: $___ | ARPC: $___ | Logo churn (monthly): ___% | Trial-to-paid: ___% Top 3 channels: <list with %> Top 3 issues, ranked by 90-day MRR impact: 1. <issue> — <evidence> — <fix> — <expected lift> 2. <issue> — <evidence> — <fix> — <expected lift> 3. <issue> — <evidence> — <fix> — <expected lift> Next 90 days, week-by-week plan: - Weeks 1-2: <validation / ICP / positioning task> - Weeks 3-4: <distribution channel task> - Weeks 5-6: <CRO / onboarding task> - Weeks 7-8: <retention / expansion task> - Weeks 9-12: <scaling / hiring task> Numbers to watch (weekly): - New MRR added, churn % (logo + revenue), trial-to-paid CR, top-channel attribution, support hours/week, founder-hours/week Stop doing: - <1-3 things they're doing that don't move MRR at this stage> ```


Security scan verdicts — ClawScan: clean | static analysis: clean | VirusTotal: clean | SkillSpector: clean (LOW)