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3 Hard-Earned Lessons from Reaching 250 Paying Customers

Since our last milestone in March, when we hit 100 customers, we've crossed another significant threshold: 250 paying customers. While this might seem modest in the high-stakes world of Silicon Valley startups, I know just how much work it took to get here. Today, I want to share three invaluable lessons I’ve learned while bootstrapping a SaaS company—no sugar-coating, just real, unfiltered experience.

Lesson 1: Marketing is much harder than engineering

Coming from a tech background, I severely underestimated the challenges of marketing. I mistakenly believed that building a great product would naturally attract customers, just as Google grew organically in the '90s. I couldn’t have been more wrong. When I first launched Adzviser as an indie hacker, I quickly realized that virtually no one cared about what I had built. Discover why I decided to take on this journey as an indie hacker.

One marketing avenue that has proven somewhat effective for us is Reddit. I use this free tool to identify relevant subreddits. However, when I first began posting, I often found my posts banned or filtered out by bots or moderators. Why? Because most subreddits strictly prohibit self-promotion, and even when they don’t, people won’t care about your project unless it offers them value.

The key to overcoming this is subtlety and value-first content. Instead of blatantly promoting Adzviser, I focused on providing value to the readers. One successful post that attracted hundreds of new users didn’t even mention “Adzviser.” It simply offered a free feature that people wanted. Be smart with your Reddit strategy: offer value first, and only then gently introduce your product. \

Lesson 2: Build trust to improve conversion rates (CRO)

Trust is the cornerstone of any SaaS purchase decision. To build trust and improve Adzviser’s conversion rate, I focused on three key areas: comprehensive help docs, YouTube tutorial videos, and responsive customer support.

Extensive documentation and tutorial videos have been crucial in convincing users to sign up for trials, and our speedy customer support has been instrumental in retaining them. I believe the success of our content stems from its personal touch—every document and video was created by me, the founder, who deeply understands the business. There’s no substitute for this kind of authenticity. Use your own voice, invest in a quality microphone, and let your passion shine through. It’s worth it.

Another small but impactful change was moving our call-to-action (CTA) buttons “above the fold.” Previously, the “PAY” button in Adzviser was hidden on some devices or browsers unless the user zoomed in or out. After a friend pointed this out, I made the necessary changes, which significantly improved our conversion rate.

Lesson 3: Be frugal—always

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. I used to believe that high prices equated to high quality, but in the startup world, this mindset can be fatal. If I exhaust my savings, my startup dies—simple as that.

Early on, I hired expensive UI/UX designers for our landing page, even before launching our MVP. While they did a fantastic job, I quickly realized that as the software evolved, their designs became obsolete, and I had to discard them. I regret spending thousands on these designs instead of investing that money in marketing or even buying myself food.

In conclusion, bootstrapping a SaaS company is a challenging but rewarding journey. These lessons—marketing over engineering, iterative CRO improvements, and frugality—are the keys to our success so far. I hope they can guide you on your own startup journey.