Value SaaS Basecamp Guide

There's nothing but value in this eBook. Started reading it 2 days back. Taking my time - don't want to miss on anything! If you're launching a SaaS in India, @prasanna_says is the man to talk to. Period.

It contains lessons you need to know as a first-time​ founder. I started my startup journey a few years ago. I wish I had read something like this back then. I would have avoided a lot of mistakes. I learned most of these lessons the hard way. I recommend every first-time founder to read this guide and even further explore these concepts deeply. It will save your time, money, efforts, and help you achieve profitability faster. I could relate to some of the lessons in the book. 1. Pick Global I learned this lesson when I started writing content for clients from the US, Israel & Russia. I was surprised to find that articles that contained 600-1200 words targetting towards the global audience had a good conversion ratio. Later, I worked as a consultant for an ad-tech firm. I found out that the ads CPM(Cost Per 1000 impression) for people outside India especially the US, EU markets($5-$15+) were drastically higher when compared to the audience from India(0.10 - $3). The reason being people from the US, EU markets are much likely to buy things after seeing an ad when compared to the Indian audience. The point is it's easy to sell to the global market when compared to the Indian market. 2. Early Adopter As a first time founder, I thought I should go directly to the mass audience. I couldn't be more wrong. This happens because most of us see the surface view without digging deeper. We see that most big companies target a big audience and we try to be like them. However, if you trace them back to their beginning, you find that they all started with a small segment initially. Facebook initially was a social network only for students from Harvard University. Amazon started as an online book store. I would also recommend you to read the "Building a Monopoly" section from Peter Theil's book "Zero to One". When I targetted the mass audience, there was no pull from the customer's side. They didn't care about my product much. However, this was the total opposite when I focused on early adopters. My friend and I built a landing page for a product and targetted a specific audience. We felt the pull from their side; they were constantly pushing us to get the product out faster. You would be surprised to know the number of early startups that die without having a single customer. It's very common. 3. Customer Persona Customer Persona helps you mainly with two things. Finding out specific problems a customer's face. Secondly, it helps you communicate how the product will benefit them. Having a great product isn't enough; you also need to learn to effectively communicate why your product is better than your competitors. 4. Content Marketing I have done it, and I find it the most organic and efficient way of reaching customers. Most people shut down when you try to sell something them. Instead of bragging about your product, educate people about technology and then introduce your product. This will bring down their defences and they will be willing to listen. I would also recommend the book "Breakthrough Advertising" by Eugene M. Schwartz and "Unleashing the Idea Virus" by Seth Godin 5. Content Distribution Crafting great content isn't enough; distributing them through proper channels is crucial to gain visibility. The problem is that nowadays people are bombarded with content. If you want to cut through the clutter you need a distribution strategy. I have benefitted from targeting content to niche communities in Reddit, LinkedIn, Hackernews, etc. If you are an early founder, I highly recommend you to read this book and put the time-tested principles into practice.