Whenever I see people online making money from their products it's always a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's incredibly motivating to see what others have achieved, and on the other, I never believe that I'll be able to build something like that.
Does that sound relatable?
If so, you're in the right place. I want to make my content for those of us out there that have never believed that they could do it, and then prove them wrong. This is the journey of me building a SaaS product.
Taking the first step
I believe the first part of the journey is the hardest, it's easy to want to start but actually doing it is a lot more difficult. I've made quite a few changes over the last few years, I've cut back on drinking (I still enjoy a few beers), I go to the gym more, I'm training for my first marathon, and I've quit smoking, all things that are pushing me in a much better direction for my health and mind. And that's where it starts, all in the mind. You don't start by seeing a tweet one day and instantly go to your computer and smash out 500 lines of code in a day, you have to want it, you have to be in the right mindset.
Anyway, so that's what I've been doing, and finally I think it's time to really put my new found mental attitude to the test and build something worthwhile, that's where my SaaS comes in. I'll be honest, a lot of the motivation for building a SaaS comes from the desire to want to be free from the 9-5 and eventually be my own boss. The best way that I believe to do this is to own assets, so I'm using the skills and knowledge I've gained over the last 8 years as a software developer to build something that will help myself and others.
The Idea
I don't plan on building the next Facebook or AI super app for my first product, I just want to build something that works. So I started my idea process off by thinking about what doesn't work in my life, or what can be improved. If you can find problems to solve in your own life, then there's bound to be other people that need a solution to the same problem. I also came up with some ideas using ChatGPT and now I have a backlog of ideas ready to go once this first product is built. I'm not going to say exactly what it is yet as I want to at least get the landing page built first, but I believe it's going to be good (I'll use it even if no one else does!)
Next steps
Now that I have an idea, I started to write down the requirements into a Trello board. This has given me a good basis for what I want as the MVP, along with a few features that I can do for version 1.1 and 1.2. the hardest part about that is to know how small to make the app before releasing to the public, but seeing as I don't expect many people to even use this, I'm going to start it as small as possible to get something out there. As I mentioned in the beginning, once you get started the momentum kicks in.
The next step in terms of tasks is to build a landing page, something where users can sign up to a waiting list and I can validate if the product is going to work or not. This might seem redundant as I don't expect many people to sign up, but as I keep saying, it's about momentum and just getting something out there. I'll use the same process for as many products as possible until it does work, whilst making that process better every single time.
If you'd like to join me on my journey, I'll be posting on my blog calcodes.dev, along with my X (formerly Twitter) profile @calwoolgar.
You're a legend for reading all of this!
Take care, Cal