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My SaaS is failing, and I'm not sure what to do
I feel uncomfortable sharing this, because it feels like failure, but here goes:
I haven't gotten a new paying user in forever with Blog Recorder. MRR has been on the decline for a while.
And it's been like this for months. Nothing I tried has worked.
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Outside of one active user, most people aren't really using it.
Is this one active user a fluke, or should I try to find similar people to sell it to? I don't know.
Is the price just too high? No idea.
If I am being real with myself, I could be doing more marketing or outreach.
But since nothing I have tried has worked, it is really demotivating to do those things.
I haven't gotten a new paying user in forever with Blog Recorder. MRR has been on the decline for a while.
And it's been like this for months. Nothing I tried has worked.
image.png
1.7 MB
Outside of one active user, most people aren't really using it.
Is this one active user a fluke, or should I try to find similar people to sell it to? I don't know.
Is the price just too high? No idea.
If I am being real with myself, I could be doing more marketing or outreach.
But since nothing I have tried has worked, it is really demotivating to do those things.
Is it time to give up on the project? I don't know.
It's still profitable and I'm still proud of what I built. My first SaaS actually having paying customers is awesome.
Yes, there are flaws. The onboarding flow really sucks, for example.
But my problem is not the onboarding. It's getting people to actually create an account first.
And I'm not sure what to do.
Does my marketing site just suck? I spent so much effort reworking it, but it didn't do anything for me.
Last month, 3/384 people signed up. 0 paid.
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One experiment I did is making OG Image Maker. It's currently the biggest source of traffic for Blog Recorder's website:
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People that want to use AI for blogs seem to just go straight for the "create blog posts on auto pilot" type apps. Should I pivot to that?
Maybe I overestimated how many people would be interested in AI-assisted writing vs AI-first writing.
I'm not sure what I'm trying to get out of writing this.
Of course I'd love some advice. But first I just want to share that it's not just "up and to the right" MRR charts.
Whatever I try, I'm just spinning my wheels without results. Something needs to change, or I need help.
Anyway if you have any tips or know someone who could help me figure this out, I'm all ears.
If you prefer to reply on X, I posted it there as well: https://x.com/EddyVinckk/status/1991244013337296906
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Before you pivot randomly, start talking to the users you have. Find out why they paid you (for the one person who is paying you), find out why they haven't paid yet (everyone else), any pain points they have, etc then update your marketing and onboarding accordingly.
Good advice, thanks Ben!
Second this. Additionally, you might be solving a “not-painful-enough” problem. Try to twist it in a way that makes it more painful. Not sure what that would be, but the more painful, the better.
But first talk to users! You got quite a lot of traffic! Figure out what they like and don’t and why they keep using it
I second what Ben said since that's always good advice.
Also, as a messaging strategist & content writer who writes a LOT of SEO articles, typically in a journalistic and highly researched style, I'd be VERY curious to see what your marketing and messaging has looked like so far. I'd assume most people would wonder what's the difference between AI-assisted and AI-first writing, especially if they're either (1) not as familiar with AI and (2) not writers themselves.