Bootstrapping your SaaS product (with freelancing)

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“Bootstrapping your SaaS product” (with the help of freelancing)

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@thibaut_barrere ‣ Remote freelancer (Ruby) ‣ SaaS bootstrapper (WiseCash)

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•Building and selling (a product) •In a sustainable fashion •Without VC funding Bootstrapping?

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Raising VC money? • Good for world leaders / homeruns (eg: DropBox) • Not so good for a lifestyle business (start small / stay small) • Not everyone knows how to get VC money! • My priority is my own independence and control of my pace (family life, roadmap, goals, working schedule). • I want to master my own risk and do my own bets.

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Savings alone

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Savings + Freelancing

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How long is it sustainable? • Started freelancing in aug. 2005 • Started experimenting online in 2007 • (Left Paris for a cheaper place in may 2010) • Plenty of time to experiment and learn

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Afﬁliate marketing Adsense Amazon Tout pour mon iPad.com Learnivore.com Hackerbooks.com The lighting shop.com Evolving worker.com Faire autrement.fr Mind Mappeur .fr Selling featured ads Nice place.fr 2007 to 2011: learning SEO

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2011: 30x500 course by Amy Hoy My super-condensed output (0.01% of the course maybe): •Sell recurring subscriptions to B2B •Start super small •Start by picking and understanding your audience •Solve pain points and/or help them multiply their money No ads, no afﬁliate marketing, no one shot sales, no selling to large companies, no freemium, no marketplaces, learn to charge and promote. @amyhoy

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• Started building in sept. 2011 • Private beta in jun. 2012 • New baby at home in dec. 2012 • Going public/paid jul. 2013

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Monthly Revenue

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A newborn SaaS is like a baby •It needs care and time to walk alone •$500/mo is not enough for my small family •But it grows 10% month to month

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Long, Slow, SaaS Ramp of Death (Super insightful video by Gail Goodman)

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Sustainable cash ﬂow control I just realized WiseCash helped bootstrap WiseCash. This is so meta!

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9 bite-sized chunks of advice

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Sell recurring subscriptions

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Learn to accept recurring payments online (technically) http://bit.ly/recurly-rails-app

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Get comfortable using MailChimp. Build a list and keep it “warm”.

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Focus on B2B (higher prices - don’t forget: saas ramp of death)

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Try to ship (paid) in 2 weeks (eliminate ideas that require a lot of work) http://joshpigford.com/baremetrics-stripe-analytics

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Do the maths: http://bit.ly/bootstrap-calculator

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Master your cash ﬂow so you can fail, learn, restart without risk

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Max. 2 freelancing clients at once (otherwise you won’t be able to satisfy their needs - stress for them and stress for you. With your SaaS, 3 projects at once)

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Organize up! Book days with a calendar, use Trello, Kanban etc to avoid brain explosion.