I launched Blogmaker (initially named blogstatic) 5 years ago, on April 2021.
During the 5 years of building, marketing, selling, supporting, and constantly upgrading Blogmaker I grew up a ton. Learned a ton of new things. Things I didn't know, I didn't know.
For context, these lessons come from a solo builder doing everything alone and wearing many proverbial business hats.
The goal has been clear throughout: Bootstrapping. Not looking to make millions. Max $20K MRR, running completely solo with a +90% net profit.
These are some of the lessons that stand out.
1. Embrace what your product is
Sometimes (most times) the difference is night and day between what you think your product is and what your customers want it to be. Embrace that. Don't fight it. Shine with that.
2. SaaS is a rollercoaster
One day you'll feel at the top of the world. The next day you'll regret starting your business.
If the regret days keep overpowering the good days, maybe it's time to do something else.
Life is too short to be spending it on something that doesn't bring you joy and success.
3. Enjoy the work
There are days when you'll hate it and question every life decision that you've ever made. Take a break during these days. Get away. Do something different.
Don't work tired. Don't work frustrated. Gather yourself and come back energized.
4. Keep adding features
People will tell you, don't add features. However, this is your super power. Now, don't add features just for the sake of adding them. Listen to your customers. Talk to them. See what they need to shine. Don't bloat your UI. Introduce new features subtly. Compartmentalize. Don't make your product hard for those using it for the very first time. And make it powerful for power users. It's possible and magical when done right.
5. Keep your infrastructure lean
You don't need fancy frameworks, microservices, external APIs, plugins, libraries, etc.
Nowadays is even easier with AI. You can build your own monolithic SaaS.
Blogmaker runs on a dedicated server on Hetzner (not AWS), uses Postmark for sending emails, Approximated for subdomain/domain proxies, and that's that.
Everything is super easy to manage. Not many things to update or keep track of.
6. Stick to one pricing
Initially you may experiment a bit. Get a sense of what works and stick to a pricing strategy.
Try to find a space in between existing products.
Example: Usually there are cheap products in the market, which aren't great, and expensive products, which should be great and not always are (but that's for a different post) —— see if you can sit right in the middle. This is not a blanket advice by any stretch, but that's what I've tried with Blogmaker and it luckily worked.
I don't need to compete with existing products in any segment of the market.
Pricing is powerful when guessed right.
7. Don't raise your prices
"Val, you have to charge more! Blogmaker is too cheap!"
The only person who knows your product is You. Not your friends who mean well, and don't have the insight and the gut feeling to know what's right for business.
Pricing is branding and positioning.
This as an extension of the point 6 above, but keep your prices low, if you want, but not too low.
Blogmaker started with yearly prices and kept them for 3.5 years. They worked great. But then I wanted MOAR MRR and switched to monthlies, because "monthlies are better and you make more money". Not the case with Blogmaker.
After about 16 months of experimenting with monthly prices of all kinds, I'm happy to have switched to yearly pricing.
This ties in with the lesson below.
8. $49/year clients are better than $19/month clients
Try to hear me out on this one. It's hard to explain.
The traditional thinking goes like this: Monthly paying clients are better than the yearly ones. I'm here to completely disagree with that, as I have witnessed something entirely different.
During 5 years of running Blogmaker, I've tested all sorts of pricing, and I've noticed that my $49/year clients are way better than the $19/month ones. I don't mean "better" as people : ) Blogmaker customers have all been amazing historically. The difference lies in expectations and the level of expertise.
The $49/year customer signs up, sets up their blog. Barely every writes support. Their blog is a solid 9.
The $19/month customer signs up, writes in almost immediately in chat support. Writes often with trivial requests. Their blog is not as great.
Technically speaking, the $19/month customer is paying $228/year. Almost 5 times the $49/year customer. Theoretically they should be "better" in terms of "clients spending more are better", but that hasn't been the case with Blogmaker. And I think it has to with the amount of cash the customer is parting ways at the point of purchase, not over a period of time.
Read this again: It has to do with the amount of cash the customer is parting ways at the point of purchase!
$19 is 2.5 times less than $49, regardless of the billing cycle length. The $49/year client has more dedication and trust. The $19/month is testing the waters and constantly asking themselves if what they're paying is valuable. The $49/year client has already in for the long term. They don't need to be convinced.
9. Don't share too much
I overshare. As it happens. I still do. Even though I am here to tell you not to.
If you like sharing, at least wait a bit until the "thing" is resolved, not as it's happening.
It's too big of a burden to share something as it's happening, because you have to deal with the response of others to it, while you (the person dealing with it) haven't yet overcome it emotionally.
——
That's all!
