Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by michaelbuckbee 2177 days ago
This is likely going to sound too harsh (and the folks behind this seem lovely), but content creation efforts like this are a red flag to me in terms of evaluating whether or not a bootstrapped SAAS is going to "make" it.

This isn't because they're inherently bad or that the people writing them have bad intentions, but that they're a time/attention trap.

Meta articles like this, "How I made my first $10", "Breaking $1k MRR" and similar tend to do really well in attracting clicks but fail to connect with an actual target audience for whatever it is you're making. This makes them really dangerous as when you're starting out you don't have any "signal" as to what's working and these types seem positive.

Unfortunately, they're the equivalent of handing out free candy when your intention is to open a restaurant.

These folks would be much further ahead if they instead:

1. Started writing/learning about specific tactics and skills for starting and marketing a SAAS.

2. Randomly picked some industry or vertical and just started writing articles about learning that industry and the problems they had.

I say all this as someone who has drunk too deeply of the bootstrapped startup literature well, don't make my mistakes.

2 comments

One of the trends I’ve noticed is that people who have minor SaaS success can 5x their income by creating an ebook + course + masterclass about how they did it. Selling shovels in a gold rush....
Similar to how most of the money in dropshipping is in selling learning materials and a dream to people who want to do dropshipping
Every success story is really about people selling the secret of success, which is to sell the secret of success. Twitter is full of this. Every success guru is selling a course about selling courses.
Yes, there is some guy on Twitter, who recently grew his followers (like 100x) now he sells courses on how to grow your Twitter audience
If your target audience is other startups, then it is absolutely worth it.

But if its not, you shouldn't bother at all. Focus on creating content that solves core pain points for your target customers.

(And if you don't know these pain points, you don't have a product)