Eight Things You Must

Know When Starting

Your First SaaS
by Rob Walling
 Introduction

This guide isn’t going to cover specific tech stacks or definite growth hacks.

Instead, I want to talk about the fundamentals that every startup founder
should know when starting their first SaaS.

In my 20 years of starting, growing, and acquiring literally dozens of websites

and so ware companies, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve also learned what
works and what doesn’t from thousands of founders during this time.

If you’re working on your first SaaS or about to start, this guide is for you.

I wish I’d heard this advice when I first started out.

Table of Contents

Study a little, ship a lot

Take the stairs

Find a mentor, maybe two

Hope for luck, but don’t count on it

Join a community (or build one)

Join a mastermind

Lean towards B2B

Watch these 10 talks

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 #1 Study a little, ship a lot
When you start your journey, your skills are probably going to be narrow and specific
to your previous work.

You’ll likely have little experience when it comes to building products.

For example, if you’re a developer, you might know how to write code to build a user
interface, but how do you make sure it’s intuitive for people to use? Also, do you
know how to write compelling copy, position a product, create successful marketing
integrations, do sales calls, and hire an email support rep?

Obviously, you can’t learn everything all at once. Instead, start by studying a little.
Read books on startups, listen to podcasts, watch startup talks on YouTube like our
MicroConf talks. However, don’t spend all your time in the study phase.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed and stall. Hearing 20 stories about how people validate
a product is not helpful.

Instead, move quickly into shipping. Try to validate your own product ideas. Write
code and put it out there. Create more opportunities for yourself by building in
public and sharing what you are learning. Once you start shipping and shipping a lot,
you’ll realize the skills you need and can start adding new tools to your tool belt, one
at a time.

It took me four to five months to get good at Facebook ads. It took me several
months to learn SEO back in the day. It took me about three years to build enough of
a tool belt that I could consistently and repeatedly grow so ware products through
di erent channels.

In order to build out your tool belt, give yourself time. Study a little, ship a lot and
then be patient and trust the process.

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#2 Take the stairs
For my first SaaS, I didn't build an email service provider and compete with
MailChimp, AWeber and Infusionso .

Instead, I built small revenue generating so ware products while slowly building my
tool belt.

In my post The Stairstep Method to Bootstrapping, I talk about the importance of

starting small.

The Stairstep Approach ties right in with that concept of building the tool belt.

With stair stepping, you pick a small product, whether it’s a one-time sale product or
a small SaaS utility. It generates a little bit of money each month and allows you to
learn and to build that tool belt out in a situation where the stakes aren't so high.
You get small wins along the way and you start creating your own luck. I encourage
you to read my full article on this approach.

As a bonus: If you have a spouse or signi cant other who relies on you, by
starting small you can build the con dence in them that you're capable of
replacing your full-time income with a business you build.

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#3 Find a mentor, maybe two
I use the word “mentor” here unconventionally because you may never directly
connect with those you consider your mentors.

Perhaps they are creating content that resonates with your goals or they’ve built
products that you admire. Here are a few questions to consider when choosing your
mentors:

Have they done what I want to do before? Then did they do it again? There are
people who have had one-time successes, and it could have been luck. It’s hard to
tell until someone has repeated their successes.

Does that person have a reasonable personal life? Do they treat people well?
Do they have a happy family? If someone has a wrecked personal life, then they
may have had to do some things you are unwilling to do to get successful.

Do you want to be like them, and are you willing to do what they had to do to be
successful?

Who you choose as a mentor is a deeply personal choice. Everyone has their own
preferences and values. Choose based on the kind of person that resonates the most
with you and has built the kinds of things that you want to build.

#4 Hope for luck, but don’t count on it

If you put in the hard work and you develop the skills over time, you get lucky.

As I’ve built my business, I’ve had some incredibly lucky moments. For example, an
influencer with 500k followers who shared my app which led to a cascade of good
fortune, including an article, a partnership deal, and more.

It all felt like dumb luck.

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But it wasn’t.

It was a result of all those years I spent putting in time building my tool belt and
skills. Those flash points of lucky moments would have never happened had I not
put the work in.

There’s an old quote I love that speaks directly to this:

I'm a great believer in luck, and I nd the harder I work the more
I have of it.
— Thomas Je erson

#5 Join a community (or build one)

A big mistake I made when starting out was that I thought I could do everything on
my own.

You want to surround yourself with people who can give you feedback and show you
the ropes of the industry. There are a few really great online communities that you
can join or you can join an in-person community.

Explore your options and find what works best for you but most importantly know
that you shouldn’t go at this alone.

Here’s a list of just a few of the great communities you can join today, depending on
your particular interest:

MicroConf Connect (microconf.com/connect)

Indie Hackers (indiehackers.com)

Dynamite Circle (tropicalmba.com)

Rhodium (rhodiumweekend.com)

E-commerce Fuel (ecommercefuel.com)

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#6 Join a mastermind
A mastermind group lets you have direct 1:1 conversations with folks that are either
in your same shoes or are a little further on the path.

I recommend joining or forming a mastermind group of about 2-4 people who meet
via Zoom or Skype once or twice a month to keep each other accountable and give
each other advice.

You can find people to connect with for your mastermind group within online
communities at conferences like MicroConf or in-person events/meetups. We also
provide a mastermind matchmaking service to help you connect.

If you can’t find an existing mastermind group to join, we’ve also written a
comprehensive guide on forming your own mastermind group.

#7 Lean towards B2B

B2C companies are like candy. They sound so appealing and fun.

They’re also typically the first thing we all come up with because it’s what we’re
exposed to on a daily basis.

However, consumers tend to be very price-sensitive and have a much higher churn.
You’ll also need to have a lot of people coming through the door -- a huge sales
funnel and it’s really hard to build a reliable and repeatable sales process.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t build a B2C business. However, I think you’ll likely have
a much higher chance of succeeding by focusing on B2B from the beginning.

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#8 Watch these 10 talks
Remember the first tip? Study a little, ship a lot?

My last tip is to spend a little bit of time (even less time if you watch at 2x using a
browser extension) learning from the best of the best from our MicroConf talks.

I hand-picked these talks out of the 190 talks on our new YouTube channel and I’m
really proud of the playlist and the content in it. I think it represents some of the best
talks out there on building ambitious SaaS products in a balanced and sane way.

[Watch] Building Your First SaaS: The Ultimate Crash Course

8 T H I N G S Y O U M U S T K N O W W H E N S TA R T I N G Y O U R F I R S T S A A S
 Wrapping up

I hope you found a lot of value in these eight things you

must know when starting your first SaaS.

I tried to make this guide pretty digestible and actionable.

It’s based on my own learnings from my career, as well as
founder conversations and years of advising.

I’d love to hear what you learned from this guide and how
you are implementing these tips. Now, start building!