🗞 What's New: Deciding which feature to build next

When deciding what to build next, try prioritizing MRR:

• Which feature could you implement to increase MRR? Don't be afraid to add new products and markets, and change or remove unhelpful features.
• Looking to build a SaaS that sells? Copy something that works, but make it better somehow. Build something you'd want to acquire.
• From $0 to $20K MRR in 6 months with no marketing. Dustin Stout used no-code tools to build an AI content creation suite in public.

Want to grow your business? Try running a promo in the Indie Hackers newsletter to get in front of nearly 70,000 founders. Use code NEW500 for $500 off an intro section ad.

by Alex Ghiculescu

I've been building Tanda, a payroll SaaS, for 10 years. I recently posted about how Tanda went from an idea to an established SaaS with several employees. Here's a tl;dr version!

Phase zero: Validate

Write what your product does in a two sentence summary.

Interviewing 100 potential buyers right off the bat sounds good in theory, but typically doesn't work smoothly in practice. Summarizing your product is a much more accessible (and helpful) step to begin with.

Then, start talking to customers or prospects.

Phase one: Discovering what to build next

This is where many founders start to struggle, especially if you have enterprise customers, and they're asking you to build something only they will use.

Try this: Prioritize by MRR. Instead of leading with specific features, use MRR as a primary criteria. What features could you implement to increase MRR? You can find this answer by considering the most-requested features, the features that your competitors have implemented, or the features that will make your product do what it does better.

Phase two: Getting aligned

Tenda uses OKRs across the entire company, and reviews and updates them every three months.

The top pieces of advice for this stage are to:

1. Be less afraid of adding new products and markets.

2. Change or remove features if they aren’t working.

3. The best product strategy is to build what your customers are asking for, and what they will buy.

Discuss this story.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

🤖 OpenAI now allows ChatGPT to have full internet access.

🏎 Here's what fast-moving companies do differently.

💲 Get $100 off an In the News section ad with code MINUS100.

📧 Sales email templates with 60%+ open rates.

💪 Building a powerful SaaS go to market strategy.

👾 Discord is growing its developer monetization efforts.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

by Ch Daniel

My brother and I sold Simple.ink, a Notion website builder, for six figures. Here's what we learned about selling a SaaS.

Copy something that works

We weren’t the first Notion website builder, but I still tried to be innovative. However, my advice is to just copy something that already exists and works, then add your take on it.

Don’t "copy" as in steal. Copy and add the things you think you can do better.

Or, stay in the lab

Maybe you want to keep inventing stuff. My first success was from that, then my next 3-5 attempts were failures because I thought I had to invent new software products.

My first success was pure luck, and I tried replicating that luck...and burned about $100K. When we started building something that was already validated, we were able to sell the company (this one).

Build something you’d want to acquire

Put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s acquiring. They have money, and they want to make their money make more money. That's it.

We optimized for profit: Not for us, but for our acquirer. I didn’t raise VC money. I sold something that was very profitable and operating in a lean manner. Acquirers like this.

Necessity

You can only sell when you don’t necessarily have to sell.

That’s leverage. That protects you from making stupid decisions, accepting lowball offers, and thinking short-term.

Farmer, not hunter

You want to be a farmer. Farming keeps on reaping benefits. Your acquirer will want to to reap the benefits of your farming. They can't do that with hunting, since hunting is one-off.

Invest in growth methods that don't require any one individual to succeed. Ultimately, SEO was the way in which we became farmers.

List everywhere

We sold the company through Acquire.com, but we listed everywhere. Remember, it may take time. Don't expect a great offer overnight.

Final advice

Innovation is for geniuses and losers. The problem is, you only find out if you’re a genius or a loser months (or even years) down the line.

Provide a lot of value to people and, in a fair way, charge for that.

We’re offering a couple of productized services for SaaS with our new venture, SaaSPad.co. Check it out!

Discuss this story.

🛠 Building a second SaaS after my first one failed. Posted by Niko.

🎉 Give us something to cheer you on for! Posted by T. Smith.

🎨 How to make a logo when you suck at design. Posted by Marc Lou.

🤔 Easiest way to collect attachments on a landing page? Posted by Nick.

📹 Becoming a successful content creator. Posted by Thomas Griffin.

📱 How I run social media for a startup. Posted by Karol Horosin.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

by James Fleischmann

Non-technical solo founder, Dustin Stout, built an all-in-one AI content creation suite, Magai, in two months using no-code tools. Then, he grew it from $0 to $20K MRR in six months without marketing.

Building hope in a season of darkness

Since 2019, I've been in what feels like a season of darkness. My first SaaS disintegrated, two more products failed, my wife was dealing with some massive (nearly life-threatening) health issues, I had a friend commit suicide, and our personal finances were drying up. All the while, I was trying to keep it together, and be a good dad and husband.

Some days, I found myself waking up wishing I hadn't. I couldn't take it anymore. If it weren't for my faith in God and my wife's constant support, I probably wouldn't have made it through.

Then, I built Magai. When I launched it for public signup, a light of hope broke through the darkness. My wife's health issues had mostly dissipated, we were entering back into a somewhat normal life, and people were actually paying for and praising my product.

Just hitting $1K MRR felt as if a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders!

Back to the beginning

I started a Wordpress plugin company in 2014 with two friends. We had a moderate rise to success, but ultimately, my partners and I grew apart. We had several offers for acquisition, which they blocked, despite my many attempts to reason with them.

The disagreements and toxicity got out of control. So, I left. I sold my 33%, and was paid out in 18 monthly installments. I used the money mostly to just survive; it wasn't much.

I took up consulting again, but found it hard to go back to client work after running a digital product for a few years. I had two ideas: A longform content repurposing app, and an app that produced social media graphics by just typing in your text.

I'm not a developer, so I hired a development company to spec out the MVPs and see what it would cost. My initial plans would have required six figures, so I had to go through the painful process of paring down the MVPs to be even leaner than before. When I finally got it within a fair range that I felt like I could raise money for, I started sharing the mockups and ideas in some trusted private groups to get feedback. That's where I found my investors.

They told me that it wasn't the products they were buying into, but me. They trusted me because they saw my vision, determination, and integrity.

I got $30K to build both MVPs simultaneously. But they never really had enough of a value proposition to drive adoption. Despite exhausting every angle I could, these products failed to recoup even half of the initial investments.

Magai

I built Magai by myself in eight weeks, no investment. My investors became silent partners.

Here's what helped me grow Magai:

• I've built an audience around my personal brand for the last 10 years.

• I created an affiliate program out of the gate.

• Building in public: Anytime I have a new feature I'm working on, I share a screenshot and talk about the why or how behind it. I've also been trying to share at least one revenue update per month. And, anytime I come up with a fun or interesting use for the product, I try to share that as well.

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Alex Ghiculescu, Darko, Ch Daniel, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing