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How I went from zero to SaaS in 2 months
On the 8th October 2019 at 12:57pm I created my first Bubble account.
On the 7th December 2019 at 9:52pm I launched my first Bubble SaaS (software-as-a-service) product.
I’d gone from someone who had never built a software product, to launching my own SaaS in just under 2 months.
Crazy huh?
Yes it’s crazy. But I’m not the only one to have done it.
This might sound strange but 2 months is actually a realistic length of time to aim for.
I’ve seen it done by several people, including David Bressler whose 2 week SaaS build is now worth over $1 million, and Louis Pereira whose weekend build AudioPen has been featured in every big tech publication around.
Any longer and you’re probably building too much or overthinking.
What I built
My first SaaS was a tool for collecting video testimonials from customers, called Vidpops.
I got the idea after meeting a woman from a charity which sends carers on short holidays as a way to relieve some of the stress of their caring role.
She said she had loads of wonderful testimonials but they were all just text. She wondered how she could encourage the carers, most of whom were not good with technology, to record a video testimonial.
The process of them recording a video and then sending a large file to her was too complicated.
My idea was a dashboard where she could send a link by SMS or email to the carers, who could then click the link from their phone or computer and instantly be asked to record a video straight into the browser.
The video would be uploaded directly to the dashboard.
Overall, the SaaS consisted of:
- An ugly landing page
- Onboarding flow where the company or charity could add a custom logo, SMS and email wording, question for their clients, and thank you message
- Subscription billing via Stripe
- SMS and emails to clients with custom links for collecting testimonials
- Unique generic sharing URL to collect more testimonials
- Testimonial record and upload page with in-browser video recording
- Upload to a connected Amazon S3 bucket to avoid Bubble’s data storage charges for the videos
- Dashboard to manage testimonials
- Settings page to update org details and manage subscription
The best part? It actually worked. Smoothly. It looked bad but it was super easy to use.
Read til the end to find out what happened next.
So how did I go from nothing to building all this in 2 months?
5 tips for learning no-code fast
Today most of my income is from teaching people Bubble, so I see all kinds of approaches to learning.
The majority give up within a couple of months.
But a minority thrive. They pick it up fast. They enjoy the process. And they build apps.
I’ve observed some key factors that this latter group possesses:
- They usually have a project they’re desperate to build - Rather than learning for the sake of learning, they have a very specific app they’re intent on building. This narrows down the scope of what they need to learn. It gives them focus. And it gives them motivation.
Pro tip: Find a project you or someone you care about needs. Decide on an extremely limited scope with a single core feature. Set yourself a goal to build it, and a deadline. Then see #3 below.
- They understand their learner personality type - Everybody learns differently. Some people are visual learners, others prefer written instructions. Some prefer following a structured course, others would rather dive in to building and learn as they go (this is me). The best learners understand their preferred method and stick to it.
Pro tip: Think back to all the learning experiences throughout your life. Which did you enjoy the most? Why?
- They have accountability - I’d promised a first version of Vidpops to the charity director who gave me the idea. This gave me no choice but to struggle through the harder parts and get it done. I’ve observed others doing the same: building a waitlist, taking pre-sales, or just promising it to somebody they don’t want to let down.
Pro tip: Tell the people you’re building this for that you’re going to do it. Set a deadline and promise regular updates. If possible, build a waitlist and/or ask someone to pre-pay to access it.
- A growth mindset - It’s a cliché but there is truth in all the mindset content. It affects how quickly you give up when things get difficult (which they always do, even for experienced developers). Having a growth mindset, where you are confident in your ability to learn new things no matter how hard they are, is pretty crucial when you’re building software.
Pro tip: Read The Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck or watch some of her talks about it. Get used to asking questions and learning from others. Set low expectations for yourself, be humble. Remember the famous quote by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman “If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.”
- They enjoy it - If you get a happy buzz from creating a small feature, a nice button, a beautiful landing page, or solving a complex bug, then you have a huge advantage. Okay, sometimes there are features or bugs which I really don’t feel like tackling. But on the whole, I really love the process. I will happily sit and build apps every evening instead of watching Netflix series. Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t mind.
Pro tip: Try to enjoy the process of problem-solving. Rather than get frustrated, get curious. Yes, you will waste hours, sometimes days on tiny bugs which are usually your fault. This is normal. But the feeling of achievement when you make something that works should outweigh any frustration.
Conversely, the group that gives up their learning journey lacks some or all of the above things.
The great news is if you follow the pro tips above, all of those factors are achievable with a little bit of effort.
Final tip - know where to find help
One of the reasons I would choose Bubble over any other no-code platform is because of the huge quantity of community-sourced knowledge.
This means you can google almost any question about Bubble and there will be someone else who’s asked the same question and lots of people who’ve answered.
There are Youtube tutorials, courses, bootcamps, coaches, mentors.
There are also hundreds of Bubble devs on Twitter, Facebook groups who will usually help you out if you send a polite DM or post in a group.
This makes a huge difference when you’re struggling to figure something out.
But… what happened to Vidpops?
Ahem… glad you asked…
I finished the product. It worked. I informed the charity director and she was really grateful. I told her she’d need to subscribe with a credit card but I gave her a 99% discount.
That was a mistake.
If they’d been paying £50 a month for it they would have had incentive to use it, or at least decide it wasn’t worth the money and stop. Either way I would have learned.
Instead they paid a tiny amount each month and didn’t seem to use it at all.
I followed up a few times and she said they hadn’t got round to it, or they had tried a few but none of their clients wanted to leave a video testimonial.
I also asked a few friends if they would use it: a personal trainer, a wedding photographer, and a friend who has a mail order coffee pod business.
All of them thought it was a cool idea. I wrongly took this to mean my idea was validated.
I offered them the same 99% discount.
Only the personal trainer tried it out. He got a couple of good-but-not-great testimonials from his clients. Seemed relatively happy with them but I never saw him share them on his socials.
And sure enough, he stopped using it.
Eventually, after failing to get any of my beta users to properly use it, I gave up and shut the project down.
“The world isn’t ready for video testimonials” I told myself. “It’s too big an ask”.
A year later a solo founder called Damon Chen launched a very similar video testimonial tool. I watched with admiration as he grew it extremely quickly from 0 to $20k monthly recurring revenue in under a year!
He’s since extended it to include all types of testimonials and last I heard is making a killing from it.
So what are the takeaways from this story?
- It’s possible to learn Bubble and build your first SaaS in a couple of months.
- Just because you build something doesn’t mean people will use it.
- Just because people, especially friends, say your app is a good idea, doesn’t mean they’ll use it.
- Charge early users if you want real feedback, both good and bad. Otherwise you just get indifference.
- Just because nobody uses your app, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, it might just mean you’re not marketing/selling it well.
In summary: figure out how you’ll do marketing before you choose your idea, charge early users, actually do marketing.
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