Comment by commodorepet
3 days ago
How do you differentiate between persistence or stuborness. I have been developing a SaaS product since 2020 which currently is at 3K ARR with a very slow growth (20%). It's a B2B and are we are still missing a bunch of features to make us on par with competitors. We did survive a couple of competitors that came and go as we still have our day jobs and running it costs peanuts ($$$).
It often feels I should give up but having had customers who used us for years makes me think we have something that one day will make serious money.
Are your existing customers vocal about what they love or wish you'd add? Do you know how they found you and what made them choose you over competitors? Is there a niche/segment within your larger TAM with a specific pain point you're solving really well? And how big is that segment?
Either way, if your existing customers don't all come from paid channels, and they're loyal, and you've outlasted multiple competitors, that already sounds like a real achievement to me. My progress was slow for years before things started to really pick up, so don't discount signs of traction if there are some meaningful ones.
Very vocal, we do have a very solid TODO list for another 12 months. They are also quite loyal and number of them are with us for 3+ years and they use software daily (its just a very small customer list overall). I do wonder sometimes why they stay with us given other competitors are much better. We mostly grew through word of mouth and cold emails. I believe we are already solving a fairly niche use case (TAM is few thousand customers in USA) and my idea is to grow revenue enough to go after larger TAM (several milion).
Word-of-mouth growth sounds like a good sign. And depending on your goals, sometimes building a defensible niche business, maximizing ARPU, and minimizing churn can be better than chasing the mass market. Could something like a referral program potentially move the needle?