I run http://letscodejavascript.com, which is a screencast for professional JavaScript developers. It's not exactly a SaaS, but as a subscription business, it runs on the same fundamentals: rate of acquisition, churn, customer lifetime value, cost of acquisition, etc. We have X00 subscribers and gross low six figures. The show is bootstrapped and profitable, but not yet enough of a success to allow me to hire additional employees. I launched five months ago, at the beginning of February.

> When did people start paying for your SaaS?

I launched on Kickstarter, so in a sense, people started paying right away. There were two pivotal moments in the Kickstarter: First, I got a nice bump from posting it here on HN[1]. Second, I sent announcements out to a bunch of JavaScript blogs and newsletters. The only one that posted about it was JavaScript Weekly, but that led to a lot of people backing the project, and that led to an additional surge of publicity and backers. Part of the reason JS Weekly posted the project was because it was already successful, thanks in part to the HN surge, so there was this definite sense of success leading to success.

When I launched to the public, the series had already been airing to KS backers for about seven months. I had been collecting email addresses the whole time from people who wanted to subscribe but missed the Kickstarter, and I had somewhere north of 1,000 addresses by the time I went public. So I sent out three "you can subscribe now" emails to that group, over the course of a month, and got a large number subscribers as a result. One of those people posted to HN[2], which led to about 70 more new subscriptions, and JS Weekly posted about the announcement as well.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3977240

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3977240

> How many times did it take before you got it right?

This particular venture was a modest success from the beginning, but I'm still working on getting it right. :-) I have a pretty compelling product (based on subscriber feedback), and it's profitable, but I think it could be a lot more successful than it is.

However, this is the latest attempt out of several to launch a SaaS business. The rest were all complete failures, in that they never generated a dime.

> What have been the biggest factors in your success in terms of gaining traction with your SaaS?

1. Let's Code JavaScript is based on a similar screencast I produced for free on YouTube[3]. That screencast was done as an experiment, but it got pretty good traction. So one smart thing I did was to recognize the appeal of the format and turn it into a subscription product.

2. The timing was right. JavaScript is essential to the web, and increasing numbers of people are dealing with large codebases that need serious software engineering. I'm filling a significant need that a lot of programmers are facing.

3. I'm well known in the Agile community and already have a decent following. That provided the "seed capital" to make the Kickstarter successful--and as I said before, success has bred success. It's also made it much easier to get the word out once I opened the show to the public.

4. Posting to twitter, then my blog[4], then Kickstarter, allowed me to conduct a series of low-cost market tests and fine-tune my pitch. The Kickstarter took a surprising amount of effort, but it was all focused on the market. Building the market first and the product second was a great experience, especially compared to previous product attempts, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

[3] http://www.jamesshore.com/Blog/Lets-Play/

[4] http://www.jamesshore.com/Blog/Proposing-Test-Driven-Javascr...

> In particular, what marketing/promo tactics have served you best?

1. My existing network and reputation.

2. The copy on the Kickstarter page resonated with people[5], and I've gotten a lot of compliments on the demo video[6]. Both of these reinforce the existing need people have for professional JavaScript.

3. Being linked on news sites (such as HN and JS Weekly) and link aggregators (such as [7] and [8]).

I wouldn't say that I've found the "right" marketing and promo tactics yet, though. I put a lot of effort into a "press tour" after the public launch in February. I spoke at a user group and several international conferences. It took a huge amount of effort (mostly because I had to pre-produce videos to air while I was away on those trips) and I can only point to eight subscriptions that directly resulted from those talks. I'm sure it helped raise awareness of the series, so it wasn't a total loss, but it seems pretty low bang-for-buck.

Next I'm going to focus on (free) content and in-bound marketing. I've always been good at this, so I have high hopes. My conversion numbers are very good, so if I can get more people to visit the site, I think I can go from "scraping by" to "major success." Time will tell.

[5] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/188988365/lets-code-test...

[6] http://www.letscodejavascript.com/#demo

[7] http://pineapple.io/resources/lets-code-tdjs

[8] http://devblog.avdi.org/2013/06/21/a-list-of-programming-scr...

I hope this helps! One last note: I found this video from Constant Contact about their experiences marketing their SaaS to be enlightening: http://businessofsoftware.org/2013/02/gail-goodman-constant-...

Good luck!