It all started with a simple, common question for many developers: "How can I start making money with my coding skills?" After some research, I dove into the world of digital products and set myself a challenge: to create and launch a premium website template from scratch.
This is the story of "SaaSify," my journey from a simple idea to a complete, sellable product on Gumroad.
Chapter 1: The Idea and Design
I knew I couldn't build a generic "business" template. The market is too saturated. I needed a niche. I settled on SaaS & Tech Startups. They need modern, clean, and conversion-focused landing pages, and they appreciate good design.
My design process started with research on sites like Lapa Ninja and Awwwards. I noticed a few key trends:
Dark Mode is King: It communicates a premium, tech-focused aesthetic.
Gradients are Key: They add a splash of personality and draw attention to important elements.
Space is Luxury: A clean, uncluttered layout feels professional.
I decided on a dark blue background to evoke trust and stability, and a purple-to-blue gradient for accents. The psychology is simple: blue builds trust, while purple suggests quality and creativity—a perfect combination for a modern tech product.
Chapter 2: The Tech & Smart Solutions
My goal was to use clean, simple code without heavy frameworks. The stack is just HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript. But I focused on using modern techniques to make the template powerful and easy for others to use.
- The Power of CSS Variables (:root) This was a game-changer. Instead of hard-coding colors everywhere, I defined a color palette at the top of my style.css file.
CSS
:root {
--bg-dark: #111827;
--bg-card: #1F2937;
--gradient-start: #8B5CF6;
--gradient-end: #3B82F6;
/* ... and so on */
}
This means anyone who buys the template can change the entire theme by editing just these few lines. This is a huge selling point.
- Premium UX with JavaScript Libraries To make the template feel alive, I integrated a few lightweight libraries:
AOS (Animate On Scroll): Adding data-aos="fade-up" to an element was all it took to create elegant on-scroll animations.
SwiperJS: Instead of a boring stacked list on mobile, I implemented a touch-friendly, swipeable slider for the testimonials. This feels so much more native to mobile devices.
- Bulletproof JavaScript (The Hard Lesson) When I created the login/signup pages, the mobile menu suddenly stopped working on them. The F12 console gave me the clue: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set properties of null.
The problem? My script.js was trying to find the "Scroll to Top" button (which only exists on the long index.html page) and crashed when it couldn't find it.
The solution was defensive programming. I wrapped each piece of functionality in a check to make sure the element exists on the page before trying to manipulate it.
JavaScript
const scrollTopBtn = document.getElementById("scrollTopBtn");
// ONLY run this code if the button actually exists!
if (scrollTopBtn) {
// ... all the scroll-to-top logic ...
}
This made the script robust and able to run on any page without errors.
Chapter 3: The Bumps in the Road
It wasn't all smooth sailing. I hit a few frustrating roadblocks that were great learning experiences.
The Reddit Bot: My first attempt to share my project on Reddit was instantly removed by an automated bot. I learned that you can't just show up and self-promote; you need to be an active community member first.
The Gumroad "Invalid Bank Code": When setting up payouts, Gumroad kept rejecting my bank code. I eventually figured out it was asking for my bank's international SWIFT code, not my local branch code. A crucial lesson for any non-US creator.
The CSS Bugs: I spent a while debugging why my mobile menu was appearing on the desktop view and why my logo link was turning blue. Both were simple CSS specificity and default style issues that taught me to be more thorough.
Conclusion & Launch
This journey was about more than just building a template. It was a complete product development cycle, from an idea to design, coding, debugging, documentation, and finally, marketing.
The final result is "SaaSify," a product I'm genuinely proud of. If you're curious to see how it all came together, you can check out the final product at the links below.
🚀 Live Demo: https://saasify-template-byemirhan.netlify.app/ 🛒 Get it on Gumroad: https://gurbuzemirhan6.gumroad.com/l/yadbhj
Thanks for reading! I'm happy to answer any questions in the comments.
Top comments (1)
It's been a truly amazing journey! I really like the approach of using pure HTML, CSS, and JS. It proves that simplicity can shine even in SaaS design.