Show HN: Side project passed $2.5k/mo revenue after 2 years (Phoenix and Vue)
Several years ago, I had a client whose salespeople were using Excel to generate sales proposals. This was inefficient and the resulting documents looked awful, so I developed a new process for them using a no-code platform. It featured a web form that was tied to a workflow engine, and a fancy PDF got emailed to the customer to sign.
When the client loved the solution, I knew I was on to something. However, the no-code platform wasn't very customizable, so I decided to rebuild the process as a SaaS product. The client's CTO wanted in and we became cofounders.
Today, we passed the $2,500/mo. threshold, and couldn't be more excited! (https://pricetable.io)
Things started slow. I wasn't a software developer by trade, so I was constantly "drinking from the fire hose." Also, my cofounder and I had disagreements regarding features, UX, sales strategy... you name it. We never fought, but initially there was a sense of disconnect.
Then one day, everything clicked. His company started to pilot our product, and after a few months became our first customer. Receiving feedback from real users was a breath of fresh air. It was also really eye-opening to see which assumptions we had made were slam dunks and which were hilariously wrong!
Things might have been easier had I picked a more mainstream stack like Rails/Django, but once I got up to speed with Elixir and Vue, development became a Zen-like experience. Both communities are very welcoming and immensely helpful. HN has also been an extraordinary source of inspiration; reading success stories always makes me launch my code editor! Similarly, hearing from companies that didn't make it helps us keep our expectations realistic.
Now we shift focus to finding new clients. We have a very solid success story and metrics to back it up. However, both my partner and I still have day jobs we need the income from, and the product requires a fairly high-touch sales approach. Any advice would be appreciated. :)
Published in 2021, this chronicle by @enraged_camel details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing. Key verified financial milestone: $2.5k/mo.
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
The project looks neat and definitely does way more than quite a few services in the same category.
Here's some feedback:
1) The video isn't visible on mobile (at least in Chrome). Also, add more screenshots/videos to get a better idea of what it looks like. Move Privacy and T&C sections from top menu to the footer.
2) Your website doesn't show what the software does apart from the video and some descriptions. A lot of companies do the mistake by listing all the features their product can do, instead of listing solutions your software is solving. Generating quotes and proposals is the ultimate PITA in every single company and experienced by every single sales rep, so they'll relate pretty well to things like ' can create initial quote 70% faster compared to other methods', etc.
3) If you struggle to come up with new ideas/evaluate existing features, look into CPQ software, some solutions have demo versions, so you could play around with it. No matter what kind of feature you'll come up with, there's a good chance some of them already implemented it.
4) If you don't know where to look/how to hire sales people, or which type is needed at this stage- get ready for a rough ride, it's a bit wild out there.
5) Start thinking of the ways your product can be integrated with CRM systems(e.g. Salesforce). There's even more money in there + lots of sales teams already use CRM systems one way or another, so some integrations would be easier to sell.
6) Your revenue is too low right now to be able to hire sales/marketing people without pouring in additional capital, so here's what you can do:
a) start selling it yourself. Even though for both of you it's part time gig on top of the main jobs, diving into the sales side will be fascinating and eye opening. It doesn't need to be very hard. You are selling to sales directors/heads of sales/etc. Go on LinkedIn, search for those kind of roles and start contacting ( even if it's 1-5/day). This way you'll get an idea of what's missing and how it works and what kind of people you need to hire.
b) do some content marketing. Case studies are amazing. Speak to your existing clients, ask if they'd like to help you out and write how your product is helping them.
c) If you want to hire sales reps without huge upfront costs, look into the sites, where you can get people working on commission only. I don't remember any off top of my head but google would probably give some suggestions.
For those who are less familiar with this software sector: there's tons of money in this. There are quite a few large market players going all in on this. There's lots of market consolidation happening too in recent years. Having said this, there's still a lot of space for smaller products, like this one, as there's tons of companies that don't require all the bells and whistles of enterprise level quoting tool.
feedback from a potential customer (we use pandadoc.com right now, previously proposify.biz):
the main unanswered question I have: "is this for me?". (My company is a marketing agency).
normally I'd expect to see examples of your other clients, testimonials from customers, or case studies.
I saw 0 of this (whether it doesn't exist or I missed it is a separate problem).
Even if your customers are not notable brands, just knowing that someone else uses this and it works for them gives me more confidence as a potential customer.
Note how Stripe for example uses customer logos and real customer examples throughout their sales page. https://stripe.com/
If you're concerned about this, just try asking your existing customers. It sounds like they're involved with sales, so they probably understand the value of a testimonial. You could start the conversation by asking "How do use quotes, reviews, or testimonials in your sales process?".
side note: I like the demo video on the home page. I'm on a laptop screen and wanted to view it full screen so i double clicked the video, but this did nothing.
2nd side note: if you establish yourself within one type of customer, word will spread more quickly about your product, assuming it's actually a better solution.
Based on the example video, it looks like your product is used by remodeling companies
What stands out to me:
- thought out support for mobile devices
- integration with online payments
No advice, but just from looking at your pricing options - do you actually get interested parties to click on the "get in touch" button for the Enterprise tier?
I wonder whether the difference in appearance to the other tiers provides an additional (albeit small) mental barrier. That, combined with the psychological incentive for clicking on the "Business" option (look, it's our most popular one! and it has a different background color!) might actually steer people away from ever exploring the "Enterprise" option.
Perhaps, though, you only intended it as a way to avoid having "Business" being the most expensive one? Kind of my "ugly shoe theory" (Why do shoe stores carry so many ugly shoes? So that the mediocre ones become more attractive.) I think people are more inclined to choose one of the "inner" options for a product they have not tried out before, because it seems like a saver choice.
Hi,
If you ever want to talk about how you build and deploy your app along with your tech stack in detail let me know. I've love to have you on the https://runninginproduction.com podcast.
There's 14 Phoenix episodes at https://runninginproduction.com/tags/phoenix but the more the merrier since every story is unique.
If you wanted to come on the show click the "become a guest" button on the top right to get the ball rolling.
Hey, I’m a senior consultant at a small consulting company (c17 people) and pretty interested in your product actually - it looks great.
My main feedback would be that it would be really useful if you could include a video demo on the main website. I clicked on it and will probably come back to sign up and see if it meets needs later, but if I could get a good feel for if it matches requirements quicker it might improve conversion.