DEV Community: peter! 🥷

How I made $140 - No Website, No Logo, all built in public (starting another challenge today..)

peter! 🥷 — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:22:45 +0000

Hey everyone!

I did a challenge to launch a startup (SaaS) in 7 days (it was successful).

It’s called SaaSDojo, a place to find your design inspiration (Sorta like a dribble but for SaaS!)..

Here are the raw numbers:

+$140 in sales (2% conversion rate)
+500 followers on Twitter
+100k+ total Twitter views

The More Notable Days:

Day 1: https://twitter.com/pwang_szn/status/1631312569154560000?s=20

Day 3: https://twitter.com/pwang_szn/status/1631610460738064386?s=20

Day 6: https://twitter.com/pwang_szn/status/1633156803516329985?s=20

Gumroad screenshot

Not bad, huh?
*
I did all of this **without creating a logo... and **without creating a aethstetic landing page.*

It was a pure focus on the product and marketing its benefits to the end user. I built the entire thing on my Twitter which built a lot of trust to the community.

Anyways, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. ☀️

My Mistakes in the Challenge

1) Lack of Proper Planning

One of the mistakes I made was not properly planning out the project in terms of its features. While I had an idea in mind, I should have planned out exactly which feature should and should not have been included in the MVP.

2) Lack of Proper Marketing

I relied solely on marketing SaaSDojo on my Twitter. For future projects, I need to have a comprehensive marketing plan.. that isn’t just shitposting on Twitter..

My Personal Learnings from The Challenge:

1) Accountability is Huge🧍

One of the biggest takeaways from The Challenge is that accountability is a huge motivator. There were days when I didn't feel like coding, but the pressure to post an update drove me to do it anyway.

On Day Four, for example, I went out to a club and returned home at 2:00 a.m., but I stayed up coding because I knew I had to post an update for that day. Without the challenge, I wouldn't have stayed up.

2) Community is valuable ⭐

Regarding community, I've learned that it is essential to foster relationships early on. As I run this project, I have a sizable following on Twitter (currently at 1,200), with a lot of recent growth from posting about the challenge. About 25% of my sales came from people I actively talk to on Twitter. Building a community and having people support you every day is priceless.

3) Momentum 🏃

Lastly, momentum is critical. Many developers and SaaS owners don't talk about it, but when you have momentum, you're unstoppable. You always want to keep going and not lose that momentum. Without it, it can be challenging to start.

In the end, was it worth it? A definite, YES!

Would I do it again… Yep, you guys will be seeing more of these challenges!

Whats Next For Me? 🔥

I’m planning to continue adding features to SaaSDojo. But on top of that, I started ANOTHER ship-in-public challenge TODAY where I launch an AI startup in 8 days (starting today until March 24), I'll be posting all the daily updates on my Twitter. But if you don't wanna keep up and just wanna read the learnings/mistakes, I'll be posting a detailed write-up on my personal newsletter

I'm Making Serious Progress.. (Day 2 & 3 Wrapped)

peter! 🥷 — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 18:38:14 +0000

Hey everyone!!

Peter here. Just doing a quick check in. I just [wrapped up day 3 of the SaaS to Launch in 7 day challenge]

(https://twitter.com/pwang_szn/status/1631610460738064386) and I thought I would update you guys on what I've been working on! Sippin on a ice matcha latte will writing this..

I’m on Day 4 of challenge (Build a SaaS in 7 day) and here’s a quick recap of what I did for day 2 and day 3 and what I’m planning to work on for the next few days! (It's getting spicy..)

Day 2

Progress Made

On day two of the SaaS to launch challenge, I set up my Local and production environments. I implemented Tailwind CSS for dashboard design.

I imported the Airtables API package for data retrieval.

After some initial challenges, I was able to successfully retrieve data from Airtable and display it on the dashboard. (LFG!!!)

Challenges Faced

One challenge I faced while setting up the personal access token for the Airtable API was an issue with permissions.

Despite having admin permissions, I was getting an error indicating that I didn't have the right permissions. I had to switch to a different Airtable package to resolve the issue. (I spent 30 minutes trying to fix this)

Additionally, I discovered that the Airtable API only allows 5 requests per second, which could potentially cause issues in the future. (Might consider implementing a cache for this if there is no other workaround)

Day 3

Progress Made

On day three, I was able to integrate the payment flow with the government and implement the code for verifying license keys.This was fairly simple in Gumroad and only took me 30 minutes to do (their API is amazing!)

I also added more sites to Airtable, including both the sign on and pricing pages for 20+ sites. I plan to add a lot more in the upcoming days..

Additionally, I redesigned the dashboard using Tailwind UI - its cleaner now.

I didn’t get too much time to code on Day 3 so I will be GRINDING it out on the weekend to push to the finish-line.

Plans for the upcoming days

Moving forward, I plan to focus on improving the UX flow by implementing a feature where the image can pop out when the user clicks on it. Hopefully user's will like this UX a lot more.

I also plan to add more sites to Airtable and begin planning a marketing strategy for the product.

As alwasy, I'm sharing everything I'm building/learning on my Twitter so you can follow along with me on there!

Peace

How I'm Building a SaaS to Launch in 7 days (in public)

peter! 🥷 — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 17:08:48 +0000

Hey everyone, Peter here!

I’m doing a fun, quick challenge to build a SaaS (coding the entire thing myself) in 7 days and documenting the entire journey.

I got a lot of support to do this so I'm finally doing it..

I have 10 years of experience coding (python, node, vue) and have done a lot of projects up my sleeve so this isn’t my first rodeo.

The Idea of the App

The idea for my SaaS product is to create a collection of well-designed SaaS pages AKA a swipe-file. Whenever I design pages for my SaaS products, I always go to Dribble or other websites with nice designs. It would be really useful to have all the designs I like in one spot, and that's what I want to create. Essentially, it will be a database of really well designed SaaS pages, user flows, emails, pretty much everything you need for a SaaS.

To develop my SaaS product, I won't be hiring any additional developers. I'll be spending 2-3 hours per day working on the project and making sure it's shippable in seven days.

Tools

For building the web app, I'm using SaaS Pegasus, Appliku, and Tailwind.

SaaS Pegasus is a code-based template that has many of the essential features already built in, such as sign-on, login, and payments.

Appliku is great for handling code deployments and domain management.

Tailwind makes it super easy to create well-designed sites.

The Tech Setup

I'm using Airtable as the backend storage for my SaaS product. I chose Airtable because it has an easy-to-use API and allows me to add and edit images easily without having to write any API code. For payments, I'm planning to use GumRoad. I read that GumRoad performs better than Stripe on Twitter, so I want to test it and see if it really does perform better.

What I’ve done so far

So far, I have set up the code base and solved some initial roadblocks. I've installed all the required packages and have all the code set up. The site is running on my local machine and in production. The next goal is to work on the dashboard and data import.

Roadblocks so Far

One of the roadblocks I faced was a random CSRF issue, which is a security issue for cross-site prevention. I spent around 30 minutes trying to fix it using ChatGPT, but the answer was actually on the first page of Stack Overflow. Thankfully, I managed to fix it after thirty-minutes.

I have a video here if you want to watch this instead.

Conclusion

(I have a more in-depth video here if you want to watch this instead.)

I’m planning on documenting the entire journey from beginning to end (all in public), you can follow my Twitter to end on my Twitter to follow along!