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Thank HN: My SaaS paid my rent this month
Running a profitable SAAS has been my dream from the moment I wrote my first line of code.
Here on HN and IndieHackers I've always looked up to the people who pay their bills with recurring revenue from their tools.
I've tried, many times, to do the same, without much success. A couple of rather successful HN pitches, but none of my projects ever even paid me a beer (let alone my rent).
Until this month! Last year I built myself and my girlfriend a tool. Even though I did build it for other people to use it, I had never thought someone actually would. Long story short, half a year later I provide my service to more than 5000 (fully organic) users.
This month is the first month in which revenue is high enough to pay my rent with it. Disclaimer: I share my rent with my girlfriend, but it does sound cool to say.
Looking back at the proces, it does match with a lot of other success stories I read over the years in the HN community. The main lesson which I can now confirm: build something that scratches your own itch.
So... Thanks you guys, for keeping me motivated and inspired.
- tckb 7y agocongrats! mind sharing your story?
- frits1993 7y agoSure. Last year June, I built a small online tool for me and my girlfriend to manage our IPTV playlist. I bought a domain name and put it online because our IPTV player needed to access it through a URL. A couple of months later, and 7 users found the tool and were actually using it (keep in mind that that's pretty impressive for a tool as not-user-focused as it was back then). So I then decided to spend more time refining it. Building more features, introducing paid plans, and making sure everything worked as user-friendly as possible. It basically all started growing organically from there. This month so far I have a Stripe balance of €620 (roughly 687USD) after fees, which is my 5th full month of running with pricing plans. As you can imagine, I'm super excited to see if it can keep growing like this!
- tckb 7y agocool. it gives me a lot of confidence to hear these stories :-) Where did you initially "advertised" (I don't mean paid) ?
- frits1993 7y agoThat's the cool thing, it got its first users without any promotion what so ever. I had used it myself for a couple of months, and only after 2 months I logged into the database and saw these 7 users who simply found it (maybe by URL). They not only registered but were actually using it in the same was as I did. After that, did post it on some forums, and on the IPTV subreddit, which did give it a boost. But I have not been posting it anywhere for the last few months now, it seems that the steady flow of new users just keeps pretty constant no and the most active users are the ones who just find it through Google.
- tckb 7y agomay be this is something you can find out and try to put in some more time there. This will improve your userbase. also +1 for organic growth
- Gys 7y agoWhat tech do you use? Really like your website btw, friendly, clean and clear
- whalesalad 7y agoSo it’s software people pay for to make managing their pirated tv content easier to browse?
- michaelmior 7y agoIPTV is not necessarily pirated content. Many countries have commercial offerings although I don't know of any company doing so in North America.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- codesternews 7y agoHow you got your customers?
- arcadeparade 7y agomind sharing your website?
- mathdev 7y agoCongrats, these micro (or nano ;) business success stories are the most inspiring.
- FunnyLookinHat 7y agoExciting! Reading these shares are encouraging. :). And yes, share the story (or at least the product!)
- chipz 7y agoWow! I like this kind positive post! If you have the story behind your product and how you build it, we'll definitely wanna read it!
- luxuryballs 7y agoSo... what’s the tool??
- frits1993 7y agoIt's an IPTV playlist management tool: m3u-editor.com Posted it on HN a while back as well, but interestingly it is one of my least successful HN posts.
- jodrellblank 7y ago“Are you an IPTV enthusiast, or simply a user which is not fully happy with the playlist given to you..” Nitpick: A user who is not happy; users are people, not things.
- ISO-morphism 7y agoTo the author - congratulations on the success so far! Additional nits from a native US English speaker, hope they're helpful: * "$5.00 / Per Month" - the "/" is read as "per," so it reads as "five dollars per per month." Should drop either the slash or the "per." * "...Billed annually. Or..." - these are dependent clauses, should be "...Billed annually, or..."
- ohadron 7y agoI guess this is the tool, from OPs submission history: https://m3u-editor.com/ https://m3u-editor.com/
- tchock23 7y agoI like the ‘screenshots’ section prominently featured on the homepage. With the trend toward illustrations and mocked up interfaces it seems like many SaaS companies leave out actual screenshots these days. To me that’s an important gauge for whether I’m going to have a decent user experience if I sign up (even if it’s just flat screenshots with no explanations)...
- monkeydust 7y agoWould be nice if you had a primer to IPTV for novices like me where I have the feature on my TV but have not explored.
- beznet 7y agoI might be living under a rock, but what is IPTV? Even a Google search on it makes me scratch my head. I use Netflix, Hulu, etc but those have always been referred to as 'Streaming Services' , are those somehow categorized in the IPTV umbrella?
- frits1993 7y agoIPTV subscriptions are an alternative to regular cable tv subscriptions. It's linear tv streamed over the internet instead of it being delivered to you by your cable provider. It's used for many reasons, but I personally got a subscription at an IPTV provider to be able to offer my French girlfriend to keep watching her French TV channels while living in the Netherlands. That said, my service does not offer IPTV, simply an editor to users who already have their own IPTV subscription.
- jsight 7y agoThe ones called IPTV are the ones with really questionable sources, in my experience. I'm not sure how the term IPTV became synonymous with that.
- tmartty 7y agoNice! Congrats! Pricing is pretty cheap imo, why don't you try doubling prices? You might double income just like that..
- frits1993 7y agoCheap indeed it is, but I guess that matches the target audience. IPTV is relatively cheap, and the service my tool offers is really a bonus and not a must. More importantly, I don't think I would pay more than I am currently charging my users, so I think it's just fair. Also, I prefer a whole lot of small payments than a couple of big ones, and for now that seems to be going in the right direction.
- lerchmo 7y agoI would consider not trusting your intuition when it comes to pricing.
- natch 7y agoI think this is good advice, but then I also think the current pricing is fair for what it does. If it did a lot more, then it could be priced higher. I mean compare to say Spotify. Up to six people in a household can listen in their cars and any phone and any computer to any music pretty much, in fantastic quality with lots of features, for what $15 a month. Now that is worth $15 a month, as it's delivering actual content. That is a lot more value than an (admittedly compelling) editor that I just use to edit some preferences essentially.
- WA 7y agoI have an app that also went for $1 for a bit. People who are willing to pay $1 also pay $2. If this was my app, I'd simplify the pricing a lot. Get rid of the free tier. People who aren't willing to pay for your service should go somewhere else. Instead, give people a free trial for 30 days or whatever. I'd make it so: $2 = mixture of your current Amateur + Pro, maybe call it "Basic" $5 = "Pro" with all features Simple is good. You don't need 4 tiers if your target audience is kinda price sensitive. 2 is enough.
- seanwilson 7y agoHave you thought about increasing your prices by a lot? I'm not the target market but $1 per month for the cheapest plan and $5 per month for the most expensive one sounds insanely cheap to me.
- skrebbel 7y agoSeconded. Just make sure you increase them for new customers but not existing ones. You can even try A/B testing price levels and the likes!
- tgtweak 7y agoPrice elasticity experiments are the lowest hanging fruits for optimizing revenue! We found doing it per country had a huge impact on rest-of-world LTVs.
- vytautask 7y agoPlease bear in mind that there is a regulation in EU that prices of the same product should not differ based on the country you are coming from (source: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treatment/unfair-pricing/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat..., "Price discrimination is not allowed" section).
- OJFord 7y agoWhich presumably affects and references only EU country pricing, so you need one 'EU price', which can be different from non-EU countries? I also wonder what the implementation has been (but not for much longer) without a single currency. I wasn't aware of this rule, and as a consumer have certainly seen variation in EUR/GBP rates (across different things that have the same EUR price say but not GBP). Must be challenging for big product sellers as opposed to service providers too, Amazon (shop) for example.
- yorwba 7y ago
- thelookingglass 7y agoWay to go, hopefully you'll see continued success!
- hopia 7y agoCongratulations!
- bflesch 7y agoCongrats for getting from zero to one! It seems like you have some product market fit, that's really great. As others have pointed out, I'd recommend: - please rename "amateur" to something more positive. no customer wants to be called an amateur - Increase prices for the pro tier - Improve your "pricing plan" page, take a look at other (more successful) SaaS products and change button labels accordingly. Just take the best things from their landing pages! - create a proper comparison matrix / table for all the plans - visually de-emphasize the free tier, and focus on the 3 paid plans in your comparison table. people will always buy the middle option, so you can increase the price of the "best" option by a lot in order to anchor your value - add features which are available only in "pro" and "pro plus", e.g. support, direct email to developer, etc! - maybe build a mobile app for this? it seems like something that could be nicely integrated into a mobile-first experience. you could make it exclusive for pro users
- frits1993 7y agoAwesome, great pointers. Thanks for that!
- disiplus 7y agoim not sure the "amateur" needs changing, it could be used to point more users to middle tier, we have something like that, where we call our first tier something that like that, and the second "smart" and people take the second one. also there is a decoy effect. we push our middle tier like that without "fake" most popular tier badge. we don't have a free tier.
- jjjensen90 7y agoAmateur, at least in common American English, is virtually never used in a positive or neutral sense. It should definitely be changed in anything marketing-related.
- SECProto 7y ago> Amateur, at least in common American English, is virtually never used in a positive or neutral sense. "Amateur astronomy"[1] doesn't have negative connotations. And I don't think this is an exception that proves the rule - as a native speaker of North American English, amateur can have negative connotations, but that isn't the default. That said, in this particular case, something like "hobbyist" might fit better. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_astronomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_astronomy
- jwr 7y agoFellow solo SaaS founder here. Congratulations! This is a fantastic milestone to reach, and not an easy one, in spite what many people think. I am doubly impressed, because your product is B2C. I honestly don't know how to make money on B2C, it always turns out to be a money-losing proposition unless you have a huge market. I hope you will be able to make it work!
- DiviDragon 7y agoThanks for sharing. I love these stories. Very inspirational. And your public webpage looks very clean and professional.
- sinni800 7y agoFirst thing I thought when reading "M3U Editor" was music playlists for local music... Man, definitions sure changed. I don't personally like conflating terms very much, but that happens a lot nowadays. The following isn't feedback, just personal rambling: Also I can't feel but somehow I would be unable to make a software that has that kind of "playlist protection" as a feature that needs a higher tier of monthly payment. I seem to come from times where things like this sure warranted a one time payment but not an ongoing one. Though it might be that I have my head stuck up my, well, you know and I need to get with the times of SAAS
- tracker1 7y agoIt's the same list format from back in the WinAmp days afaik, but the reference points are video streams instead of audio.
- rotterdamdev 7y agoSame here, having grown up in a time when I could purchase software and own it, SaaS feels bad and I avoid using it wherever I can. That said, I DO like making money on the side, and I understand why people prefer many smaller purchases to one big one.
- DonnyV 7y agoYou just sent me down a rabbit hole of what is IPTV....LOL! Thanks
- mduerksen 7y agoPardon my complete speculation, but I bet your success factor is "I built ... my girlfriend a tool." My only successful product to this date is an app I built because my wife asked me to. It is in an non-technical domain which I knew nothing about. I thought it was rather non-promising, but, since it was a pet-peeve of hers, I gave it a try. It was an awesome (and very bonding) experience - she explained me the problem(s), and I tried to simplify and structure it (didn't think gardening could be so complicated). Both of us were in their respective element, and from back and forth an app was forged. To this day I only half-jokingly call her my product manager. The app has brought in 5 digits last year and is rising. Last week, she briefly mentioned another problem, in another hobby domain of hers...
- yroc92 7y agoAny chance we could check it out?
- adamwi 7y agohttps://m3u-editor.com/ https://m3u-editor.com/
- codetrotter 7y agoThis does not seem to be it. GP was talking about something to do with gardening. Edit: I see, you linked without reading what we were talking about, so you linked to the thing OP made, not the thing GP made.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoOr they accidentally clicked the wrong level and linked there, since it was a little bit irritating that the OP did not provide a link - I mean I was about to ask for one.
- adamwi 7y agoSry for the confusion my bad, too late to edit unfortunately. As pointed out this is the link to the OP post that was missing initially as well.
- nestorherre 7y agoGrats, sure this will motivate more than one on their path. Keep it up!
- shaktalles 7y agoThank you for the post!!! It made me feel like pursuing again a personal project left aside for over an year now.
- stef25 7y agoCongratulations! Two small comments - Adjust your pricing. The difference between 1, 2.5 and 5$ is almost nothing. I'd suggest free - 5 - 20, or something along those lines. - The buttons in the screenshot below: the ones on the second row should have some spacing above them. It's a typical responsive layout thing. https://m3u-editor.com/img-new/playlists.jpg https://m3u-editor.com/img-new/playlists.jpg
- DBYCZ 7y ago"build something that scratches your own itch." Awesome advice.
- amelius 7y agoI'm not sure this is solid advice. As a programmer it would mean I'd have to build my own compiler and editor, but the low-hanging fruit has already been taken in this area, so perhaps it's better to scratch someone else's itch in some niche area that nobody has explored yet.
- shanecleveland 7y agoThe implication here is that the best way to know that someone else has an itch to scratch is to have that same itch yourself. And "itch" is to "problem" as "scratch" is to "solve." The fact that you know or use something doesn't make it a problem to solve. But if you think you can do it better or different, then maybe someone else agrees.
- ClikeX 7y agoIf you only do programming, sure. But there's probably more in your life than that. It could just be any household task. In this case, OP's iptv playlists.
- esch89 7y agoThat's so exciting and encouraging! Congratulations :) Looking forward to your future update that says, "My SaaS paid for my yacht."
- dgellow 7y agoI hope he would do something more interesting than spending his money on a yacht.
- abraae 7y agoThere are yachts and then there are yachts. I assume you're negative towards yachts like Larry Ellison's - giant fuel chugging beasts that the owner flies in to port to go on once or twice a year and that requires a crew the size of a small company to operate. Then there are small craft with a sail that are completely environmentally guiltless to operate, and that can introduce kids to the joy of sailing and to the wonders of the ocean. The second kind are awesome.
- esch89 7y agoThe second one sounds amazing!
- esch89 7y agoThe yacht is just a sidenote to his other, more incredible expenditures. :D
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- armstrong 7y agoCan I show off a bit about my project too? We make a huge database of user manuals you can check it here https://manualsbrain.com/en/ https://manualsbrain.com/en/
- akudha 7y agoWow, how long did this take? very impressive. No issues with copyright and such?
- armstrong 7y agoMore than 2 years and we still scrap new sites for manuals Sometimes small companies complain but we delete its files
- dordoka 7y agoHonest suggestion: you should submit your own Show HN post for that. I reckon you are being downvoted for "hijacking" another post, not based on the merits of your project.
- rutthenut 7y agoShould be down-voted doubly then - for hijacking another post and also for promoting copyright abuse...
- ta999999171 7y agolol...SciHub gets frontage routinely. You're barking up the wrong tree, there, pal.
- dordoka 7y agoI never said that had to be downvoted or upvoted. I was just advising him/her to create his own Show HN post to follow this site's rules first, and to maybe get real feedback about the site. Regarding "copyright abuse", it depends on multiple factors IMHO, but that was not the point of my comment at all.
- davidw 7y ago> 5000 (fully organic) users. It'd be more newsworthy if they were like half organic, half machine. Cyborgs are an up and coming niche market! Kidding aside, congratulations, that's impressive!
- gldev3 7y agoI love reading these stories, it kinda boosts my productivity. Glad life is going great for you OP.
- manicksurya 7y agoI have always been planning to do something like this. Can you share your timeline ( from inception to prod).
- chiscript 7y agoWhich project is this so that the rest of us can check it out and get inspired properly?
- darekkay 7y agoHere it is: https://m3u-editor.com/ https://m3u-editor.com/
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- abinaya_b 7y agoThank you for this thread. Fellow indie hacker here, I'm proud to join the celebration that my product Remote Leaf just acquired 20 paying customers and it's started paying my coffee for a month :)
- vsolanki20 7y agoCongratulations on your milestone! If you don't mind then can you please share your tech stack? Thanks
- starpilot 7y ago"Build something you would use" is going to be replaced by "build something a non-technical person has requested." The latter has a higher likelihood of not already existing and a proven appeal outside of the tech monoculture.
- inson 7y agoGreat post! How many projects have you done before actually getting paid for your SAAS?
- mambojumbo 7y agoVery nice! I think i will write a free open source alternative to this.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't be a jerk on HN. We're trying to be kind to each other here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mambojumbo 7y agoIs there something wrong with open source? I think it would be pretty cool to take this idea and turn it into a foss tool.
- dang 7y agoI've banned this account for trolling. If I got that wrong, please take it up with us at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll fix it. Otherwise please stop creating accounts to break HN's guidelines with.
- lebaux 7y ago> The main lesson which I can now confirm: build something that scratches your own itch. Honestly, can we agree it is 50/50? The "Mom test" is a good way to make sure you are not wasting your time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hla1jzhan78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hla1jzhan78 (3:16)
- war1025 7y agoBased on your landing page, you default to yearly subscriptions. Does that mean you would need to get an equivalent number of new users to pay your rent next month? Or is your monthly recurring revenue now high enough to cover your rent? Either way, an exciting day for you I'm sure. Good luck going forward!
- niemyjski 7y agoCongrats! I wish we could do the same but with full time employee(s) being covered. But I'm terrible at marketing and just want to build the oss products. We have over 1k stars in multiple projects for .NET but the developer market is hard to get paying customers (we all want everything for free ;-)). It also doesn't help we have massively funded companies competing against us...
- ashilfarahmand 7y agoGreat job! Your splash page looks pro.
- zupa-hu 7y agoCongrats! Nice website! Wondering - are people actually using the chat to get in touch?
- codesternews 7y agoHow you got your customers? channels?