Destination unknown.

A validation journey.

Last week, I said that this week I would be talking about scaling your SaaS through word of mouth and referrals. However, I'm going to push that off to next week.

Instead, I’ll show the validation process I recently went through for a product of mine.

I will briefly summarize what we did, what the results were, and what we decided to do from there.

The product was SaaS Pulse, a daily Stripe email digest of your SaaS analytics. I originally built it for myself and my Aware co-founder because while these metrics are available on other platforms, they are not easily seen in the format I wanted to see them. Additionally, I liked having the analytics I wanted to see all in one place without the distraction of all kinds of other irrelevant metrics.

Here’s what a sample SaaS Pulse digest looks like:

Preparing the product for initial outreach

As mentioned, this was a byproduct of something I had already built for myself. So when I decided to release it into the world, it was a fairly complete MVP - at least in how I envisioned it.

Since I also have Aware, my newsletter, and other projects in the works too, I decided to find a partner to take over the tech and package it up so I could focus on the outreach side.

The outreach

I reached out to 40 to 50 friends and acquaintances. The target audience was early-stage SaaS founders who had some customers coming in each week, but not hundreds.

The reason for this is that when you're big enough and growing fast enough, tools like ChartMogul make much more sense. SaaS Pulse caters to a different audience.

The feedback/result

Some of the people I reached out to were not the right target. Of the rest, only 8 to 10 people signed up. The response wasn’t great.

People didn't see its value over the other SaaS analytics apps out there. So even in this relatively small sample size, it felt like an uphill battle to push the product even remotely as I had envisioned it.

Where to go from here

I don’t see any of this as a wasted effort. The time I spent gauging interest from my contacts opened up a lot of other potential directions that could be worth pursuing, such as analytics reports for e-commerce and analytics platforms for other payment processors besides Stripe if we decide to.

This shows that even if you aren’t certain about your vision, just start and see where it leads.

While we haven't given up on SaaS Pulse - I have a few more avenues to pursue with it - this is generally sufficient feedback for me to accept that I’m encountering more friction getting people to see the value here than I need to give it too much more in its current incarnation.

Next week, we’ll talk about the validation process and results so far from another idea related to referral marketing.

A couple of newsletters I’ve been enjoying for a while now, worth checking out:

• Superframeworks - My friend Ayush shares marketing, growth, and product strategies for solopreneurs.

• No-Code Exits - Katt interviews makers about how they've started and grown profitable or acquired projects made with No-Code.

When you’re ready:

Note: The 1:1 coaching via chat is currently closed to new signups.

There was a bigger demand for this than expected, and the time commitment has been more than I expected.

Additionally, I’ve been getting amazing feedback from my coaching calls, so next week I’ll be announcing new coaching plans, with a new format. Stay tuned, or reply to request the info early.

1:1 clarity call: Wherever you are on your bootstrapping journey, chances are I've been there. I know the struggles and challenges and am here to help through a 1:1 clarity call.

Tools and resources: A complete list of the tools and resources I use to run my business, and some books that have helped me along the way.

Talk soon,

Mac