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💡From Idea to Exit: Building and Selling an AI-powered SaaS in 5 Months 🤖💰

Matija Sosic on August 30, 2023

Since the release of ChatGPT, we’ve been flooded with all possible versions of apps that use it in one way or another. Building on top of trendy te...
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Filip Sodić

if Max built the product in a week, others could do it too. It started becoming clear that the value of the business would soon start moving from the technical solution to sales, support, and customer experience.

This part is the biggest insight for me I think. Great article, Matija!

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Matija Sosic

I agree, that's something that is not obvious until you get there. Glad you found it interesting!

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raddevus

Interesting story, but nothing about :
How Max set up the payment system.
Which payment system he used so his customers were able to pay him.
How much it cost him to per customer (customer acquisition costs).
Are people willing just to put their credit card number into some unknown site (his original unbranded site)? If so --- wow, no wonder fraud is so rampant.
I've built my own SaaS and it is possible that building the SaaS is far easier than setting up all the payment system stuff, which seems to be why none of these "get paid for your saas" articles ever mention how you really get paid.

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Max

Hey @raddevus, the trick is straightforward: I've been building in public :)

My SaaS had my face attached to it since I've built it for a relatively small (several thousand users) local Etsy community in Ukraine, where I've been hanging out for some time before the launch.

Stripe is not working in my country for now, so I've used the well-known local bank integration that required no credit card details (you scan a QR code provided by my SaaS with your mobile phone, the bank app opens up, and you approve the transaction).

If I decide to go international -- I'd integrate with lemonsqueezy.com/

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raddevus

Very interesting thanks for explaining how you got it all working 👍

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Matija Sosic

Max also might pop in the comments and provide more context, but I think one of the big factors was that he was already present in the community (Etsy slack) when he introduced the product. So people knew him from before when buying the product, and they knew they could always reach him for support.

Re implementation: check out Wasp's SaaS starter which already comes with preconfigured Stripe: github.com/wasp-lang/SaaS-Template...

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vincanger

He used stripe it seems. And yes, people are willing to put their credit card into any random site — they do for mine haha :)

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Max Sveshnikov

For me setting up a Stripe integration took just 1-2 days, so this is really simplest part of story 😎

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Mihovil Ilakovac

Uuuh the decision to sell is what really interests me. It's always hard to know when you have something valuable enough... I'll keep it in mind for my next side-project 🙃

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vincanger

I think sometimes the ability to keep hacking on something, learn from it, and use it as a form of self-promotion might sometimes be a better move

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Max

@vincanger depends on the niche. Entire industries of small indie projects will be wiped out once the big corporations undergo all the bureaucracy and regression testing to embed AI into their products.

It's a race against time for many small projects, and I'm not in the market to accommodate all the challenges since Etsy is outside of my interests (for now)

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Matija Sosic

True! I think coverlettergpt.xyz/ is a great example of that.

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Max

Here's a brilliant guide on how to sell your project and how to figure out if it has any value:

opryshok.com/my-experience-selling...

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Matija Sosic

Can't wait for it! Make sure to share :)

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Nevo David

Great story.
I have also tried to sell my startup at acquire.com,
In the end ,sold it through other channels.

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Matija Sosic

Thanks so much for sharing! May I ask what was the best channel for finding a customer for you?

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Nevo David

I used a b2b whatsapp group

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Alex

Really cool! I love the idea of "rapid prototyping" a startup.

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Max

Thanks! :)

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Matija Sosic

Thanks Alex! Glad you like it and appreciate the comment :)

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Hassan Khajeh-Hosseini

This was super interesting! Thanks for sharing

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Matija Sosic

Glad you liked it and thanks so much for letting me know!

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zvone187

Wow, it's always motivating to hear about real life success stories like this.

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Matija Sosic

Thanks a lot Zvone!

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Navin Singh Rangar

So inspiring

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Max Sveshnikov

Really great article, like written exactly for me 😂 By coincidence I'm also Max, and I have exactly the same startup/project/questions. Main question now - to sell or not to sell