u/kkatdare

I'm a developer and a marketer; but I've avoided cold outreach throughout my career. My expertise is mostly on content, SEO, inbound side. Ever since starting my own SaaS, I'm tempted to give cold outreach a serious try. The problem - I do not have any clarity on how to go about it for our SaaS.

About my SaaS:

Our SaaS allows businesses to create white-label community that runs on their own domain, attracts users organically and retains them. We help our clients build the community from scratch in about 3-5 months; and that's the main reasons our early customers chose us over our competition.

The pricing starts at $299/mo.

Cold Outreach Problem:

Currently I'm facing the following problems:

1. I do not have razor sharp clarity on who our ICP is. Current set of customers came from inbound (our speciality) as well as some of my posts on Reddit. But they are very different customers than the ones we identified: Marketers and Head of Growth, Head of Community at B2B SaaS. The diverse se of customers makes it harder for us to really nail the ICP.

2. Because we do not know who really to target; we are unable to make any progress with prospecting, writing copy and sending emails.

3. Following the YC advice, I made a list of about 60 marketers in the B2B SaaS domain and sent personalized emails (all hand-typed!) - However, there's no response yet. I've done 2-3 follow ups. I understand it's too early to judge the success of this; but the amount of time I'm spending in this makes me think if it's really worth following this approach.

As I write this: I believe my real problem is finding the ICP; not the 'cold email'. I'd however like to hear from fellow founders and SaaS operators.

What suggestions do you have for us?

I'm a developer and a marketer; but I've avoided cold outreach throughout my career. My expertise is mostly on content, SEO, inbound side. Ever since starting my own SaaS, I'm tempted to give cold outreach a serious try. The problem - I do not have any clarity on how to go about it for our SaaS.

About my SaaS:

Our SaaS allows businesses to create white-label community that runs on their own domain, attracts users organically and retains them. We help our clients build the community from scratch in about 3-5 months; and that's the main reasons our early customers chose us over our competition.

The pricing starts at $299/mo.

Cold Outreach Problem:

Currently I'm facing the following problems:

1. I do not have razor sharp clarity on who our ICP is. Current set of customers came from inbound (our speciality) as well as some of my posts on Reddit. But they are very different customers than the ones we identified: Marketers and Head of Growth, Head of Community at B2B SaaS. The diverse se of customers makes it harder for us to really nail the ICP.

2. Because we do not know who really to target; we are unable to make any progress with prospecting, writing copy and sending emails.

3. Following the YC advice, I made a list of about 60 marketers in the B2B SaaS domain and sent personalized emails (all hand-typed!) - However, there's no response yet. I've done 2-3 follow ups. I understand it's too early to judge the success of this; but the amount of time I'm spending in this makes me think if it's really worth following this approach.

As I write this: I believe my real problem is finding the ICP; not the 'cold email'. I'd however like to hear from fellow founders and SaaS operators.

What suggestions do you have for us?

I'm a developer and a marketer; but I've avoided cold outreach throughout my career. My expertise is mostly on content, SEO, inbound side. Ever since starting my own SaaS, I'm tempted to give cold outreach a serious try. The problem - I do not have any clarity on how to go about it for our SaaS.

About my SaaS:

Our SaaS allows businesses to create white-label community that runs on their own domain, attracts users organically and retains them. We help our clients build the community from scratch in about 3-5 months; and that's the main reasons our early customers chose us over our competition.

The pricing starts at $299/mo.

Cold Outreach Problem:

Currently I'm facing the following problems:

1. I do not have razor sharp clarity on who our ICP is. Current set of customers came from inbound (our speciality) as well as some of my posts on Reddit. But they are very different customers than the ones we identified: Marketers and Head of Growth, Head of Community at B2B SaaS. The diverse se of customers makes it harder for us to really nail the ICP.

2. Because we do not know who really to target; we are unable to make any progress with prospecting, writing copy and sending emails.

3. Following the YC advice, I made a list of about 60 marketers in the B2B SaaS domain and sent personalized emails (all hand-typed!) - However, there's no response yet. I've done 2-3 follow ups. I understand it's too early to judge the success of this; but the amount of time I'm spending in this makes me think if it's really worth following this approach.

As I write this: I believe my real problem is finding the ICP; not the 'cold email'. I'd however like to hear from fellow founders and SaaS operators.

What suggestions do you have for us?

Lately, I've spoken to at least 3 community managers who are running their communities on Slack; and are struggling to revive their communities. They have tried the usual tricks to get members talking; but no results.

Do you have a dead / inactive Slack problem?

Just want to know what my marathi bros think about Indian Judicial System in general.

Curious to learn from fellow SaaS founders. Does ranking for commercial keywords in Google (or even ChatGPT) gives you qualified leads? I'm specifically talking about pages like:
- Alternative to X
- Base [X] for [Y]

...and so on?

Thank you for your time in advance.

I live in India and building a B2B SaaS that is chasing $10K MRR. With 90% profit margins; I can live a comfortable / luxurious life. I'm looking to hear from fellow solopreneurs who've built > $10K MRR businesses.

- How did your life change?
- How hard was it to reach $10K MRR?
- How did you approach marketing? What worked and what didn't?
- Any tips / advice for your fellow B2B SaaS founder?

Thank you in advance and I look forward to hearing from you.

Do you think content (blog posts, community) can be the only marketing strategy for a solopreneur SaaS?

Cold mailing - IMHO - is not for me. I've never done it and I don't know if people really start conversations based on your cold pitch. Of course, it works for others; but I'm wondering if I'll eventually have to do it.

About my business: A SaaS in the community building space. We are premium priced ($299/mo) and target businesses that have 20+ employees and strong revenue or funding.

Has anyone here built a business purely through content?

After watching funded startup founders struggle with revenue and growth expectations for a few years, I decided to go solo and bootstrapped for my venture. It's been two years into the grind - and I've enjoyed every bit.

I've spent nearly 20 years into community building. Recently had a chance to work with a high-growth SaaS startup as the head of growth; and I built a community for them. I had made up my mind that my own venture will be about building a community platform that solved the problems I faced - almost on daily basis while building a community.

But building a community platform as a solo founder is difficult.

My initial plan was to build a small tool and then try to sell it online. But I kept coming back to building the software that I personally wanted. I built a feedback management tool and a waitlist tool. Although people loved them both - no one paid for the tool.

If you are a solopreneur - build the tool that solves the problem you've faced.

Building a community platform is not easy - and I had to break every promise I had made to myself:

1. MVP in < 3 weeks
2. First sale should happen within 30 days of public launch
3. Marketing and sales should feel easy
4. $99/mo at least.

When I started - it took me about 2 months to get to MVP stage. I launched with no marketing site - just the software.

The first sale took about 4 months. Yeah, 4 fcuking months! My first customer came from Reddit. I helped someone solve a community problem - and they dm'd me. AFter solving their problem - they asked me for a demo of our product; and swiped within 5 minutes after the demo.

The problem - I charged only $29/mo. It felt surreal. Someone paying for a software you built, understands the problem and wants to invest in community.

The second sale came in after about 45 days.

Yeah; I didn't do active marketing. Just helping people on Reddit solve problems.

Then - 3 months of complete silence.

To make the things worse - the first customer churned. Saying they didn't have the time and resources to build the community.

I sat for hours looking at the screen. The beautiful product I had made.

I kept building and telling people about it through DMs - only when someone asked for it.

Then someone signed up at $99/mo. The product had grown; and had a lot of useful features.

Another 2 months of silence.

The second customer churned.

Nothing made sense. No one complained about the software. IT's awesome - they said. But they were not willing to pay.

Maybe this software is not meant for small business owners. I should target larger customers.

-- I kept building, without any marketing whatsoever.

Yeah, I'm an idiot. But I made a promise to myself - I'm going to sell the software to rich people; who can afford the software and have the resources to build the community.

Updated the pricing: $299/mo

6 months had passed without the business making any money. Ready to give up.

New customer - $299 swiped. WTF!

They found us through an old post of mine - where I had talked about the problems they related with.

That's my journey. People are finding us and I'm now actively working on marketing.

Building has become easlier with Codex and Claude. But distribution still sucks.

I feel moments of sadness. I watch episodes of Starter Story. It's full of people who launched their product - hit $20K MRR in 6 months.

...and I wonder - what did I do wrong? Maybe my marketing sucks.

Solopreneur have a hard life. But that's the path we chose! Keep grinding!

After watching funded startup founders struggle with revenue and growth expectations for a few years, I decided to go solo and bootstrapped for my venture. It's been two years into the grind - and I've enjoyed every bit.

I've spent nearly 20 years into community building. Recently had a chance to work with a high-growth SaaS startup as the head of growth; and I built a community for them. I had made up my mind that my own venture will be about building a community platform that solved the problems I faced - almost on daily basis while building a community.

But building a community platform as a solo founder is difficult.

My initial plan was to build a small tool and then try to sell it online. But I kept coming back to building the software that I personally wanted. I built a feedback management tool and a waitlist tool. Although people loved them both - no one paid for the tool.

If you are a solopreneur - build the tool that solves the problem you've faced.

Building a community platform is not easy - and I had to break every promise I had made to myself:

1. MVP in < 3 weeks

2. First sale should happen within 30 days of public launch

3. Marketing and sales should feel easy

4. $99/mo at least.

When I started - it took me about 2 months to get to MVP stage. I launched with no marketing site - just the software.

The first sale took about 4 months. Yeah, 4 fcuking months! My first customer came from Reddit. I helped someone solve a community problem - and they dm'd me. AFter solving their problem - they asked me for a demo of our product; and swiped within 5 minutes after the demo.

The problem - I charged only $29/mo. It felt surreal. Someone paying for a software you built, understands the problem and wants to invest in community.

The second sale came in after about 45 days.

Yeah; I didn't do active marketing. Just helping people on Reddit solve problems.

Then - 3 months of complete silence.

To make the things worse - the first customer churned. Saying they didn't have the time and resources to build the community.

I sat for hours looking at the screen. The beautiful product I had made.

I kept building and telling people about it through DMs - only when someone asked for it.

Then someone signed up at $99/mo. The product had grown; and had a lot of useful features.

Another 2 months of silence.

The second customer churned.

Nothing made sense. No one complained about the software. IT's awesome - they said. But they were not willing to pay.

Maybe this software is not meant for small business owners. I should target larger customers.

-- I kept building, without any marketing whatsoever.

Yeah, I'm an idiot. But I made a promise to myself - I'm going to sell the software to rich people; who can afford the software and have the resources to build the community.

Updated the pricing: $299/mo

6 months had passed without the business making any money. Ready to give up.

New customer - $299 swiped. WTF!

They found us through an old post of mine - where I had talked about the problems they related with.

That's my journey. People are finding us and I'm now actively working on marketing.

Building has become easlier with Codex and Claude. But distribution still sucks.

I feel moments of sadness. I watch episodes of Starter Story. It's full of people who launched their product - hit $20K MRR in 6 months.

...and I wonder - what did I do wrong? Maybe my marketing sucks.

Solopreneur have a hard life. But that's the path we chose! Keep grinding!