Ask HN: SaaS Founders, What 3 advice would you give your younger selves?
To those currently operating or have built successful SaaS - what 3 lessons from experience have you learnt that you would tell your younger selves?
60 comments
Not a SaaS business, but an entrepreneur nonetheless. One thing I learned early is that having a co-founder with a serious b2b sales background, especially in a mid-tier company (big enough to bag F500 clients, small enough to work with small businesses) is a superpower.
My co founder was able to close deals I wouldn’t even know how to approach.
Don’t discount sales and marketing. Unless your tech is really revolutionary (chatGPT tier) or leagues ahead of the competitors (Figma), your biggest problem will be distribution and discovery, not tech.
My co founder was able to close deals I wouldn’t even know how to approach.
Don’t discount sales and marketing. Unless your tech is really revolutionary (chatGPT tier) or leagues ahead of the competitors (Figma), your biggest problem will be distribution and discovery, not tech.
How do you find these cofounders? I've thought about reaching out to semi-famous names in my side hustle's industry and seeing who is at least receptive to seeing what I've got, my vision, maybe partnering in exchange for a bit piece of equity. But at the end of the day cold outreach like that - especially the "hey look at my product please help me sell it" - seems even worse/harder than just doing the sales on my own from the get-go.
As always, the best way is to already know them or have a shared connection with them - have a wide network.
Do you have frequent social interactions with other professionals? Off the top of my head (and from personal experience) some ways to meet people:
- Network within your company, particularly with people in other disciplines
- Alumni events for your college
- Send your kids to private school and make friends with parents (or have gone to private school yourself)
- Play sports that professionals play like golf, tennis, pickleball?
- Attend networking events (though I haven't really tried doing this since covid)
- Get an (in-person) MBA
- Marry/date someone with a wide network
Do you have frequent social interactions with other professionals? Off the top of my head (and from personal experience) some ways to meet people:
- Network within your company, particularly with people in other disciplines
- Alumni events for your college
- Send your kids to private school and make friends with parents (or have gone to private school yourself)
- Play sports that professionals play like golf, tennis, pickleball?
- Attend networking events (though I haven't really tried doing this since covid)
- Get an (in-person) MBA
- Marry/date someone with a wide network
Haven’t yet found one myself, but from the information I’ve gathered I see that you can:
1. Go to events where you can meet such people
2. Sign up for different clubs (marketing, tech, etc.) and build strong relationships there though projects.
3. Working at your dayjob, if you see something outstanding you see yourself working with in the future, go the extra mile to show them they mean something to you.
Generally I think it’s all about the buildup after a certain amount of time of working in your industry. And not only 9-5 working but just doing interesting projects and attracting such likeminded people.
Generally I think it’s all about the buildup after a certain amount of time of working in your industry. And not only 9-5 working but just doing interesting projects and attracting such likeminded people.
Unless you’ve already got a big reputation - work or live with them. Cofounders I know all either were roommates or coworkers at some point.
Co-founder matching is a thing too (ex: https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching), but unsure how far it works.
Famously, the GitHub co-founders and the Instagram co-founders met at co-working spaces / hacker meetups. Tom Preston-Werner gave an interesting talk on how to build successful co-founding teams and products: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTpU5XUAA8
Famously, the GitHub co-founders and the Instagram co-founders met at co-working spaces / hacker meetups. Tom Preston-Werner gave an interesting talk on how to build successful co-founding teams and products: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTpU5XUAA8
My co-founder has been a close friend since high school, so yeah. That probably seems like the best option since there is already built-in trust.
That's a really cool note. I am currently non-technical and working to find a B2b Sales job selling to mid-market and enterprise organizations so it's good to know that having these skills would be a superpower for a startup.
I know I want to be a founder one day and since I'm 27 years old I've thought that instead I can learn sales skills until I figure out the startup idea worth pursuing.
I know I want to be a founder one day and since I'm 27 years old I've thought that instead I can learn sales skills until I figure out the startup idea worth pursuing.
I don't know where you are on the "non-technical" scale, or the kind of ideas you want to implement, but with all these new AI-powered tools, you can create a surprisingly competent prototype with very little coding skills - at least I did.
I'd say that with 6 months of dedicated effort and $20/month of Cursor.so prompts, you can create most basic product ideas you can imagine.
I'd say that with 6 months of dedicated effort and $20/month of Cursor.so prompts, you can create most basic product ideas you can imagine.
Curious to hear about what you built?
very interesting thanks for sharing, can you share what you were able to build ?
Sorry, can’t do that without doxxing myself, but its a platform where advertisers and influencers in a very narrow niche can connect with each other. Used NextJS, NodeJS, Express and Mongodb
Depends on the stage:
Seed stage. Focus on engineering and talking to customers. Ignore everything else. Do the sales and marketing work yourself till $1M in ARR at least. Many startups fail since they try to hire for these essential roles and its rare for non-founders to take it from 0 to 1.
A/B round stage. Build an in-house recruiting team early. I scaled to 150 people too fast over at Stream, next time i'd take more time with hiring. I'd also recommend doing final interviews with everyone yourself, don't let the company hire people without you interviewing them. Be on top of MQL definitions when you scale marketing, otherwise things will go wrong. Sales enablement is essential when you get beyond 3 AEs. Read Saastr :)
Seed stage. Focus on engineering and talking to customers. Ignore everything else. Do the sales and marketing work yourself till $1M in ARR at least. Many startups fail since they try to hire for these essential roles and its rare for non-founders to take it from 0 to 1.
A/B round stage. Build an in-house recruiting team early. I scaled to 150 people too fast over at Stream, next time i'd take more time with hiring. I'd also recommend doing final interviews with everyone yourself, don't let the company hire people without you interviewing them. Be on top of MQL definitions when you scale marketing, otherwise things will go wrong. Sales enablement is essential when you get beyond 3 AEs. Read Saastr :)
Can you expand on MQL definitions and what can go wrong?
A couple years ago, I wrote 5 things I had learned [0] going from side project to a full-time business. Might be worth a read?
[0]: https://keygen.sh/blog/5-things-ive-learned-in-5-years/
[0]: https://keygen.sh/blog/5-things-ive-learned-in-5-years/
Thanks ezekg! Your article brought up some great points - can relate to what you specifically mentioned under "Don't waste your time" and not allowing anyone to overpay you (which can be a trap for new founders). You seem like a genuinely great person to have a long chat with on your experiences. I hope you have a great day!
What changed since the blog post? Employees? Cofounder?
Nothing has changed! Just 2 more years of experience. I still agree with all of it.
1. Set an aggressive (but achievable) revenue goal for your first year. If you're having trouble figuring out what that might be, I suggest 500k ARR, because that will put you on a path to raising a series A. You should be able to hit this goal with fewer than 5 people in your first year. You should take a very hard look at your business and what's going wrong if you don't hit that goal.
2. Don't raise too much money for your seed. Plain and simple, you just do not need much money to build and validate your business plan. Whatever your number is, consider whether you'd really be much worse off if you raised half as much.
3. Start by providing professional services before you have a product. This will help you generate some early revenue, it will validate that someone is willing to pay for your services, it'll help you understand the requirements for your product before it's built, and most importantly, it'll help you build early relationships with crucial clients. Streamline these professional services by automating them with your early product. Over time, replace the professional services entirely with your product.
2. Don't raise too much money for your seed. Plain and simple, you just do not need much money to build and validate your business plan. Whatever your number is, consider whether you'd really be much worse off if you raised half as much.
3. Start by providing professional services before you have a product. This will help you generate some early revenue, it will validate that someone is willing to pay for your services, it'll help you understand the requirements for your product before it's built, and most importantly, it'll help you build early relationships with crucial clients. Streamline these professional services by automating them with your early product. Over time, replace the professional services entirely with your product.
Not sure if I count but I could definitely uniquely live off my SaaS profits.
The tips I would give to myself:
1. Don't ever stop trying: sure, getting a job instead will give you a few hundreds k per year - but it won't help you getting any closer to your freedom dream. No more worthless standups or stupid retros.
2. Don't kill your social network: I know the temptation to get rid of social media is strong, but you need to cultivate your network and turn it into an audience of potential customers
3. Keep writing: building a trace of reliable writing and showing skills is an invaluable marketing tool
My view may be biased by having invested most of my life in up-skilling my skills (just because I enjoy it) and I find myself technically super strong but lacking in marketing.
The tips I would give to the general population are:
1. Be balanced in how much time you spend learning tech / doing marketing / managing staff
2. Do what's best for the product and for getting to the customer. CREATE VALUE FOR SOCIETY
3. Keep growing your network
The tips I would give to myself:
1. Don't ever stop trying: sure, getting a job instead will give you a few hundreds k per year - but it won't help you getting any closer to your freedom dream. No more worthless standups or stupid retros.
2. Don't kill your social network: I know the temptation to get rid of social media is strong, but you need to cultivate your network and turn it into an audience of potential customers
3. Keep writing: building a trace of reliable writing and showing skills is an invaluable marketing tool
My view may be biased by having invested most of my life in up-skilling my skills (just because I enjoy it) and I find myself technically super strong but lacking in marketing.
The tips I would give to the general population are:
1. Be balanced in how much time you spend learning tech / doing marketing / managing staff
2. Do what's best for the product and for getting to the customer. CREATE VALUE FOR SOCIETY
3. Keep growing your network
> 2. Don't kill your social network
Where do you think that is these days?
Politics aside, X/Twitter just isn’t what it was. Less people, less quality, and I’m reticent to trust a platform that changes on a whim. Which is a tragic shame because Twitter was it.
Mastodon’s … fine. Nowhere near the reach and never will be.
LinkedIn’s … ugh. I mean c’mon.
Where do you think that is these days?
Politics aside, X/Twitter just isn’t what it was. Less people, less quality, and I’m reticent to trust a platform that changes on a whim. Which is a tragic shame because Twitter was it.
Mastodon’s … fine. Nowhere near the reach and never will be.
LinkedIn’s … ugh. I mean c’mon.
X is nearly identical now to what it was before, except more people complaining that it's different. If the landscape of your social network there has changed, seriously question what type of community you're building / a part of, because it doesn't reflect reality (most don't).
But, my community is almost entirely general business, SaaS, and developers - I've noticed no discernible drop in quality or quantity. If you follow a lot of journalists, politicians, etc. yeah your experience is going to be a lot worse.
But, my community is almost entirely general business, SaaS, and developers - I've noticed no discernible drop in quality or quantity. If you follow a lot of journalists, politicians, etc. yeah your experience is going to be a lot worse.
LinkedIn.
It’s not social as in “cool” and “trendy” social. For professional networking, it really is the best general networking tool.
If you have more focused communities for your areas of interest or expertise, those may be even better.
Love it or hate it, LinkedIn gets the job done.
It’s not social as in “cool” and “trendy” social. For professional networking, it really is the best general networking tool.
If you have more focused communities for your areas of interest or expertise, those may be even better.
Love it or hate it, LinkedIn gets the job done.
My concern with LinkedIn is my day job. My company is pretty active there. I have a side project SaaS that might do well with some LinkedIn marketing, but how is my boss (or more worryingly, my boss's boss's boss's boss) going to feel seeing posts from me about some side hustle? Even if the publish time is in the evenings or weekends. The alternative is the company profile route, which is fine, but basically negates my existing platform there (such as it is).
It might be beneficial for you to officially disclose your side hustle to your employer. This way you can draw the line where your intellectual property and time separate from the company’s property and time.
Consider this. You don’t post on LI. Your side hustle ends up being a success. You leave your company. There is a non-zero chance that your company will notice then, and possibly have suspicions about whose time you used to develop this successful venture.
It’s one of those situations where it is a bit uncomfortable to disclose now, but could avert a much more uncomfortable situation in the future.
Once it is disclosed, post freely.
Consider this. You don’t post on LI. Your side hustle ends up being a success. You leave your company. There is a non-zero chance that your company will notice then, and possibly have suspicions about whose time you used to develop this successful venture.
It’s one of those situations where it is a bit uncomfortable to disclose now, but could avert a much more uncomfortable situation in the future.
Once it is disclosed, post freely.
My boss knows about it, we've talked about it and I've shown him interesting technical things here or there. Like I said my concern isn't so much him but higher up.
You're right that it might be a good idea to get some sort of paper trail in place. I'm already very good about what machine I do work on, what time commits happen in git (always outside of business hours, no giant commits at 5:01 PM, etc.), that sort of thing.
You're right that it might be a good idea to get some sort of paper trail in place. I'm already very good about what machine I do work on, what time commits happen in git (always outside of business hours, no giant commits at 5:01 PM, etc.), that sort of thing.
> Don't kill your social network
Sucks, but you're probably right. And this is one of the biggest barriers to me working for myself - I have no network. Haven't had any social media in almost a decade, except linkedin which I avoid as much as humanly possible. Oh well.
Sucks, but you're probably right. And this is one of the biggest barriers to me working for myself - I have no network. Haven't had any social media in almost a decade, except linkedin which I avoid as much as humanly possible. Oh well.
People advertising their crap is one of the reasons I got rid of it in the first place, along with rampant celebration of total degeneracy, and it generally being a pointless timesink of short-term entertainment.
Founder here
1) I thought I could hire "head of sales" that would run the /department/ not need extensive hand holding, and worse, I did it more than once - went through several vp of sales. Of course they interview well, they are sales people. There has to be "verify" and really understand what is going on
2) The skills to get a product off the ground are very different than scaling a business; people have written about the "3 ceo's" but I think there is a similarity with technical founders; I had multiple co-founders but few stuck it out until the end, in retrospect they were needed at a given phase, not the whole time
3) know if you are trying be rich or king ( https://www.highalphainno.com/articles/rich-vs-king-the-corp... )
1) I thought I could hire "head of sales" that would run the /department/ not need extensive hand holding, and worse, I did it more than once - went through several vp of sales. Of course they interview well, they are sales people. There has to be "verify" and really understand what is going on
2) The skills to get a product off the ground are very different than scaling a business; people have written about the "3 ceo's" but I think there is a similarity with technical founders; I had multiple co-founders but few stuck it out until the end, in retrospect they were needed at a given phase, not the whole time
3) know if you are trying be rich or king ( https://www.highalphainno.com/articles/rich-vs-king-the-corp... )
Your point (1) applies more broadly, I think. As you grow any company, you are at some point going to have to bring people in with more expertise in an area than you have. You need a strategy for this and to develop effective ways to evaluate performance outside of what you know closely. BS detector calibration can get you part way, but it takes more than that to efficiently differentiate "really good" and "really busy". Of course over time this tends to become clear, but you don't have that time.
true, but I'll just say I had trouble with this from sales and marketing in a way that didn't manifest in say legal or HR or vendor management
One thing about legal and financial is that there is more accreditation and industry guardrails around them - HR too to a lessor degree. I think this makes it easier to get to "this person can definitely do the work" than some other functions.
Don't listen to advice on the internet and think about the situation you're in, it's always individual. Advice from the internet will always paint in big strokes.
But also regarding code: If you think you will need it later, you probably won't. Build simple and don't overengineer. Chance is, you do it even though you think you don't. If it overgeneralizes something because you think it might be a requirement in two weeks, do it when the need arises, not now.
But also regarding code: If you think you will need it later, you probably won't. Build simple and don't overengineer. Chance is, you do it even though you think you don't. If it overgeneralizes something because you think it might be a requirement in two weeks, do it when the need arises, not now.
Selling is harder than building. At least for a builder. Go out and sell, even before you build.
+1. No matter what your product is. Founder should be able to sell.
No one will sell your product better than you.
No one will sell your product better than you.
Honest question: is there a situation in which you can identify a deficiency in your selling ability (as a founder) that subsequently makes sense to delegate to someone else?
Obviously, if your product doesn't sell, then your story isn't working. But what stories are out there where the founder didn't do the best job selling and someone came and crushed it as a chief member of the exec or early sales effort?
Forget big famous companies - what about the folks here?
Obviously, if your product doesn't sell, then your story isn't working. But what stories are out there where the founder didn't do the best job selling and someone came and crushed it as a chief member of the exec or early sales effort?
Forget big famous companies - what about the folks here?
Oh my GOD, could not be further from the truth.
Jobs + Wozniak. Neither of then would be successful on their own no matter how big geniuses they were.
Jobs + Wozniak. Neither of then would be successful on their own no matter how big geniuses they were.
You're not saying anything that disproves the GP.
Both Jobs and Woz were founders and understood some level of technical detail of everything, at least in the early stages. GP is talking about the equivalent of Woz building all the engineering from 0 by himself, then going out and finding Jobs and saying "hey sell this for me please, thanks" which isn't what happened by any stretch.
Both Jobs and Woz were founders and understood some level of technical detail of everything, at least in the early stages. GP is talking about the equivalent of Woz building all the engineering from 0 by himself, then going out and finding Jobs and saying "hey sell this for me please, thanks" which isn't what happened by any stretch.
i'm definitely a builder/creative type but have found that selling is kind of enjoyable. as long as you approach it as, i'm going to talk to these people so i can hear about their problems. i enjoy hearing about peoples' problems and thinking about how i can help.
Don't hire a single non founder before PMF. Don't build anything without real commitments from customers. Focus on distribution, go to market and product in this order.
Marketing is more important than product.
MVP doesn't need to be perfect, but the core product should work.
Get it in users hands ASAP, get feedback ASAP, or see no traction and move on, ASAP
MVP doesn't need to be perfect, but the core product should work.
Get it in users hands ASAP, get feedback ASAP, or see no traction and move on, ASAP
Hire CFO once making significant money ($1M/yr or so).
Start hiring PMs as soon as you see that you can have two product teams working together in parallel.
Start hiring PMs as soon as you see that you can have two product teams working together in parallel.
At $1M ARR, I think a CFO is overkill (and hideously expensive). In my experience:
- $0 - $1M-ish, hire a part-time bookkeeper
- $1M - $5M-ish, get a director of finance / controller, who can manage AR/AP, audit, ASC 606, basic financial modeling, and your key rev benchmarks.
- $5M+ is when I'd consider hiring a CFO, but it really depends on your growth rate. You can probably get to $10M+ with a good dir of finance if you get them to hire a good FP&A person.
- $0 - $1M-ish, hire a part-time bookkeeper
- $1M - $5M-ish, get a director of finance / controller, who can manage AR/AP, audit, ASC 606, basic financial modeling, and your key rev benchmarks.
- $5M+ is when I'd consider hiring a CFO, but it really depends on your growth rate. You can probably get to $10M+ with a good dir of finance if you get them to hire a good FP&A person.
Finding a business / product that actually is working is unique. When you find it, stick with it. Nothing is perfect, and shit is going to be hard, it’s just the next level of the company. Be optimistic — look for what’s working and do more of what’s working. Don’t let pessimism get routed in the way you think. All of that, and fight the urge to build first — sell first.
Do not take VC money.
I am a developer with 24 years of experience. Looking to partner with a startup to build a saas product. Let me know if anyone is interested. [email protected]
INVEST IN TIME TRAVEL. TIME TRAVEL IS POSSIBLE. YES THIS REALLY ME.
- It takes 7 months to recruit someone. 1 for the interview, 3 waiting at the old job, 3 months of ramp-up.
- Hire. Business will grow.
- You need to love your employees like a father does. That means, they’re gonna be shitty, they’re gonna be losers, they’ll waste your money, and some will be exceptionally good. But you need to love them all equally.
- You’re not gay. Girls just don’t like shy men under 25. Keep chasing girls, success will come.
- Hire. Business will grow.
- You need to love your employees like a father does. That means, they’re gonna be shitty, they’re gonna be losers, they’ll waste your money, and some will be exceptionally good. But you need to love them all equally.
- You’re not gay. Girls just don’t like shy men under 25. Keep chasing girls, success will come.
You don’t have to go nuclear big to be successful. Decide your own goals, don’t let someone decide it for you.
Yep - this was hard for me to learn
1. Learn how to sell. At all costs, learn how to sell.
2. Determine a pricing structure then raise your prices.
3. Resist hiring anything but engineers for as long as possible.
Good luck.
Good luck.
Maybe not only SaaS specific. But Naval is GOLD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-TZqOsVCNM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-TZqOsVCNM
It took me 5 months to build my first SaaS from scratch, which is way too much. For example, I could use this time to focus on marketing.
During my development process, I realized that 80% of the features I implemented were also present in other SaaS products. This is why I created Nextless.js, a SaaS Boilerplate that includes all the necessary features for launching a successful SaaS.
During my development process, I realized that 80% of the features I implemented were also present in other SaaS products. This is why I created Nextless.js, a SaaS Boilerplate that includes all the necessary features for launching a successful SaaS.
1. Call local customers
2. Listen to teammates
3. Learn how to enjoy the unfun work
Start earlier/younger. (I'm 33, just started building my own)
Read and apply “The Mom Test” or you aren’t doing it right.
Sell before build