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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: My SaaS only makes $550 a month and I think that’s amazing |
| 3 | +date: 2024-12-03 |
| 4 | +tags: ["indiehacker", "saas", "sideproject", "webdev", "marketing"] |
| 5 | +--- |
| 6 | +import Tweet from '../../../components/Tweet.astro'; |
| 7 | +import { Image } from 'astro:assets'; |
| 8 | +import coverlettergpt from '../../../assets/coverlettergpt/coverlettergpt.webp'; |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +Yesterday I posted a video on [Twitter](https://x.com/hot_town/status/1863553258586820976) and on [Reddit’s r/sideproject](https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/1h4t8vk/my_saas_only_makes_550_a_month_and_i_think_thats/) expressing my opinion that I think super simple SaaS apps that only make a small amount of side income should be your goal when starting out. |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +And the response was overwhelmingly positive. |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +<Tweet id="1863553258586820976" /> |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +Let me explain what I mean in more detail: |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +**I often think that developers trying their shot at building a side project take it too seriously**. Yep, you read that right. |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +They should think of their side project as an experiment, not a business. |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +Because in the early stages, that’s what it is. It’s just a test to see if people are willing to pay for a (software) product that you offer them. |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +So instead of following all the “rules” around building a profitable SaaS, you should be breaking some of them. |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +Here are some examples of what I mean: |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +- Forget a shiny landing page, just take your user straight to your product and let them try it out, if possible. |
| 29 | +- Keep your initial product as simple as possible. Make it easy for the user to comprehend and get started with. |
| 30 | +- Don’t spend more than a month building it. |
| 31 | +- It doesn’t matter if it’s ugly, you can improve it later. |
| 32 | +- Use the tools that help you build the fastest, not the ones that others tell you you should be using. |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | +<a href="https://coverlettergpt.xyz" target="_blank"> |
| 35 | +<Image src={coverlettergpt} alt="CoverLetterGPT" loading="lazy" width={700} height={700} style="padding: 1rem;" /> |
| 36 | +</a> |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +These tactics are exactly what I used to build and launch [CoverLetterGPT](https://coverlettergpt.xyz) and get it to ~$550 monthly recurring revenue (MRR) after a year. |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +It doesn’t have a landing page. |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +It’s not optimized for SEO. |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +I built it in about a week. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +The UI is… not the prettiest. |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +It’s a .xyz domain (not .com or .ai). |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +And I do little to no maintenance on the app, nor do I have to deal with customer service. |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +And I love it and will probably be keeping it that way. |
| 53 | + |
| 54 | +By the way, here’s my favorite tech stack that I used to build it, but you should use whatever helps you build & launch fast: |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +- Framework: [https://wasp-lang.dev](https://wasp-lang.dev/) |
| 57 | + - TIP! Use their [free, open-source SaaS template](https://opensaas.sh) to build even faster |
| 58 | +- UI Components: https://www.chakra-ui.com/ |
| 59 | +- Deployed to Railway: https://railway.app/ & Netlify: https://netlify.com/ |
| 60 | +- Costs ~$15/month to run including OpenAI API fees |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +In my opinion, it’s all about tradeoffs. |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +Personally, I’m lazy, so I want maximum reward for minimal effort. That means I don’t want to spend a lot of my free time maintaining apps I’ve already built (to be honest, I’m a lot like most developers and I like to try out and work on lots of new ideas, rather than focus a lot of energy on stale ones). |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +So, for me, $550 MRR is amazing! It’s enough side income for me because It’s an app that basically runs on auto-pilot next to my full-time job, that I don’t have to worry about. |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | +If you’ve been thinking about building a SaaS app for a while, but haven’t taken the plunge, remember this: it’s just an experiment. |
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