How I launched my first SaaS and how it failed miserably

About two years ago, I had this “million dollar” idea of a SaaS. I’ve built it, launched it and failed miserably. Here is what happened.

The idea

The idea was simple. A wedding RSVP platform that allows users to create a landing page for their wedding then either send a URL to your guests or print a QR code for them. Later they could open the landing page, provide an answer and see details about the big day.

The results in a nutshell

After the launch, I’ve spend a few hundred dollars to drive users on the site using paid ads and out of around 5000 page views I got around 50 signups but non would even complete the wedding details. I had 0 user retention and no one was opening my emails. After a few months of sailing, I’ve decided to shut the project down.

The issues

I had made several mistakes right from the beginning and the list probably would go on but these are the main ones I’ve learnt the most of:

I didn’t validate

Well, I thought I did but I had to learnt that I was just fooling myself. When I first thought about the idea, I quickly googled around to see wether there is any competition and I’ve found that there are other sites but it seemed that non of them is active or actively maintained. This for me showed that the idea is validated (because others also built it) and has huge potentials (because of the lack of competition).

The problem with this is that most of us are not that extraordinary (and even if we would be, probably we lack the necessary resources) to come up with an idea no one thought about yet and is “the next big thing”. In most cases, lack of competition means that the idea is either bad, or it’s very hard to find PMF. Definitely not a starter project for a new founder.

Don’t get me wrong, validation is never 100% so sometimes you may as well just build an MVP and launch it if it is possible in a very short time, but here comes my second mistake that…

I’ve spent way too much time on it

I knew that I should not over engineer it, still I ended up investing more than a year, hundreds of hours and a considerable amount of money in it.

Not only because I’ve over engineered it, but also made the mistake of implementing everything myself. Signup, password recovery, email verification, invoicing and the list goes on.. There are countless tools out there for MVP builders that you should make good use of.

Not choosing the right audience

Many people say that selling in B2C is like playing on hard mode. While B2B has its own problems, it’s definitely true that as long as your SaaS saves $100 worth of billable hours per month to a client, they will probably not try to argue about your price being $40 instead of $30 but on the other hand a B2C customer will happily leave a review of your app stating that it’s only worth $0,99 not $1,99 that you are asking for.

But choosing B2C was not even the biggest mistake. If B2C is the hard mode, targeting clients in a very narrow (few months) period of their life (~1 year before their wedding) is like playing on hard mode with your eyes covered and hands tied to the chair. For this to work, you would have to be lucky enough that among all the content out there, the potential customers will see yours in that specific timeframe and they like what you are offering.

Of course if it is your life goal, you can always attend in person conferences or showcasing events but for me that would take away from the opportunities offered by launching a SaaS.

Solely relaying on paid ads

While paid ads are a good resource, they can be very expensive and while you are still trying to find your PMF, they may not be the best option. Building your online presence will definitely take you further and increases the possibility to receive feedback faster.