5 things I did to turn my SaaS pipedream into reality.
Tags: saas, buildinpublic, marketing
Published: 2023-08-27 04:20:14

_Here are my 5 steps to help make that pipedream a reality:
People don't give a shit about your SaaS, here's how you can make 'em._

1. People don't give a shit about your SaaS, here's how you can make 'em.

2. Make 1 Good thing vs 9 crappy things.

3. Provide 10x the value

4. The 10-5-20 Rule

5. Ditch Freemium

---

## 1.✅ People don't give a shit about your SaaS, but here's how you can make 'em.

Look, people are busy, their time has already been allocated between fleeting moments of hard work, youtube shorts and season 6 of Black Mirror. They're not looking for your product, nor have any intention to spend money with you.

Nobody wakes up in the morning saying I want to buy a new SaaS, I want to pay another $9 month No one cares, nobody wants new subscriptions, they have Excel & Email, and everything else is shit.

And therein lies the problem, how can your crappy SaaS compete with Excel & Email? The short answer is, it can't, but the good thing is that really doesn't matter. As long as you know how to fulfill your customer's desires and aspirations.

What your customers really want in their heart of hearts 💖, are small desires, their pain points to receive some some tender love and care. You're job is to find out these desires and fulfill the crap out of it by communicating your value, but how?

**Get emotional in your messaging.**

If you're able to communicate your value in your copy, you've hit the jackpot, you've reached your customer's midbrain, the amygdala 🧠, you know that part of your brain that causes you to salivate.

Your goal is to convince your ideal customer to: Get it, eat it, order it, or click it, instantly without hesitation. Give your customers instant gratification when they log in, signup, and register, it doesn't matter if your goal is to harvest subs, pre-order a book, or buy egg cartons (sidenote, eggcartons.com recently sold for $20mn)

But Rishi, you ask, what happens if my product is not desirable? Then you have one of three problems:

**A) Your product stinks, like it genuinely sucks.
B) You need to create the desire if none exists.
C) You're not targeting your ideal customer.**

You know your product stinks if your only cheerleaders are your mom or spouse, and you seem to think that a shiny new laptop or that swanky new feature will solve your problems. STOP IT, nothing will help, PIVOT and read on.

Remember no one wants more software, they want results, get emotional with your messaging and fulfill their desires, however small.

---

## 2. ✅ Make 1 good thing vs 9 crappy things

Don't be a serial entrepreneur, multitasking on several businesses only works for Elon and folks like [@levelsio](https://twitter.com/levelsio?ref=levels.io), the rest of us have 97% chimp DNA, which means we're good at doing one thing at a time.

Try rubbing your belly clockwise and patting your head while saying my name 3 times fast. You failed, you don't even know my stinking name and you're almost halfway done with this post, well maybe one of you passed, hi mum!

This would be a good time to follow and share your anguish with me here or on [medium](https://medium.com/@RishiU)

How do you find that 1 good thing? Well here are a couple of ways that worked for me:

1. Find a market segment that interests you, look for a problem in that market and solve it, and solve it better than others. Look for areas where you believe there should be a better consumer experience than what currently exists and iterate from there.

2. Start with a problem you've experienced firsthand, then see if others have the same problem, ask yourself if you're motivated enough to solve it for other poor humans?

Once you find your 1 good thing, aim on getting product market fit. If you have 5 paying customers and none of them is your mum 🤶🏼, you're halfway there. If your 6 months in and broke like shattered glass with zero sales well then, continue reading.

---

## 3. ✅ Provide 10x the value

It took me years to figure out the 10-5-20 rule, let me explain.

Early Adopters, friends & family may be the exception but the rest of us need to be sold too. Your SaaS better offer more value than you charge, and you do that by providing 10x the value. For example, if your SaaS is $9, $69 or $999/month, ask yourself this, are you offering $90, $690 or $10k worth of value to your customers? 💶

Can your ideal customer perceive the 10x value? Or in other terms, are they saving 10 times more than what they would have without your software? Time and money go hand in hand 🤝, if you're saving your customers time, that has immense value. Spell this value out for your customers in your above the fold sales copy.

---

4. ✅ Increase pricing by 5% until you have a 20% churn
I
 leached this pro tip from [Kevin Hale from Y Combinator](https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/author/kevin-hale) and tweaked it a little.

Always be testing what your customers would be willing to pay. You've heard it before:

> "Founders always be undervaluing their product".
> -- Someone smart.

Once you have 10 paying customers, raise your price by 5% every 3 months, and wait for pushback. If you're still growing, keep increasing prices by a further 5% for new customers only, and grandfather the rest. Your early adopters will stick around knowing that they have a super deal and will spread the word for you, don't penalize them, rather thank them for supporting you in the early days. Continue to increase pricing for new customers, rinse and repeat until you've found resistance.

Resistance is measured by a 20% churn rate, anything less is negligible, keep increasing until you hit this number. Once you've found your upper limit and can't increase pricing any longer, sit back, and take a break. Come back refreshed, for a couple of sprint weeks developing those long-awaited features from your roadmap.

Viola, now you have Add-ons or maybe a whole new pricing plan, your customer will love this.

By nudging your price up every so often you will find your pricing strategy, and you're then forced to deliver 10x more value. Your customer wins with a higher-quality product and you win by producing value for your ideal customers.

Summary: Offer 10 times the value, increase 5% until you have 20% pushback.

---

## 5.✅ Ditch Freemium (Controversial)

In 2022/23, there were 200 new product hunt launches per day.

Look, I get it, you have a well-intended generous free plan and all you want are some paying customers, say a ballpark of 25%? Typically SaaS industry conversion is anywhere between 1% and 7% at best.

I hate to break it to you, but almost all of the free users you're supporting have no intention of paying. I'm not throwing shade on your users, you've just targeted the wrong demographic, they're a lousy audience that will consume your freemium services because you've allowed them to.

It's alright to provide widgets for free, but so does everyone else.
If you had bothered to target your ideal customer from the very beginning, with the right messaging they would be paying you today, I promise you.

The problem with having a free plan is two-fold, one, **you're seducing the wrong demographic** and two, you're free pricing plan isn't differentiated enough from everyone else.

There's too much noise with freemium, so I'd say drop the coupon-cutting customer and target somebody more lucrative.

Sure, it's alright to give customers a little taste, perhaps a super short 7-day trial, most genuine customers who are outside your ideal customer profile, forget they ever signed up within the first 24 hours anyway.

In summary, stand out from the rest, and ditch your freemium plan, focus your efforts on paying customers with 100% effort.

---

I previously wrote 7 opinionated tools to go to market faster which is on Medium, [linked here](https://medium.com/@RishiU/7-opinionated-tools-i-always-use-to-build-my-saas-and-how-i-go-to-market-faster-8ac7d72ac5b6). 

If you found this helpful, sub and stay tuned for the next 5, where I will discuss more topics such as:

- Do unscalable things first.

- Your quitting too early.

- Get ideal customers fast.

- Build your email flywheel with the right tools.

- Don't change you product, change your audience.


_I currently work at [Sinosend](https://sinosend.com)
Track docs like Fedex, Transfer Like DropBox._

Comments, criticism and friendly banter always welcome.