A breakdown of the best free resources I've found for developers bootstrapping their own indie SaaS businesses in 2020. š„
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Intro
Iām a software engineerĀ through and through.
Iām also trying to do the wholeĀ indie entrepreneur thing.
And recently I've started to really appreciateĀ just how important marketing isĀ to building a real business.
After spending a lot of time leveling up on the marketing & strategy side of things, I wanted to share some of the best resources I've found for developers like myself who are also learning to bootstrap, market, and sell their own indie SaaS products.
Resources
Epic Guide to Bootstrapping SaaS Startups
Simply put this is theĀ best overall resource I have foundĀ so far. It's down to earth, practical, the author doesn't take shit too seriously, and most importantly it's filled with very actionable strategy and tactics for SaaS founders.
Marketing is anything that gets people to know that you exist and that gets them excited about what you have to offer. -Ā Clifford Oravec
Broken into five parts:
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Justin Jackson š„
Justin's writing and insights are extremely actionable. I'd also recommend checking out his additional content atĀ Marketing for DevelopersĀ and how blog posts onĀ how to build something people want.
A developer who knows how to code and market a product is basically unstoppable. I want to help my developer friends to be unstoppable: to build, market, and sell their own software. -Ā Justin Jackson
So so soooooo sooooooooo much š„in here ā Justin Jackson's content is way better than mine. Seriously. Please stop reading this and check out hisĀ stuff.
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Encharge Marketing
These guys know the shit out of marketing. Like for reals.
Some of the best and most well organized content out there. I also ended up having a free consultation call with one of their founders to discuss marketing for my use case without it being sales call-y. Awesome sauce.
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Micro SaaS E-Book
"All the stuff I did wrong building a six figure Micro-SaaS business and how to do it better yourself. Anecdotes, pseudo-philosophy and self-deprecation." - Tyler Tringas
This freeĀ e-bookĀ is all about bootstrapping a profitable SaaS business. I really enjoyed the authors writing and found his concept of Micro-Saas businesses very analogous to what we're building atĀ Saasify.
It's also worth checking out the author's relatively new seed fund,Ā Earnest Capital.
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19 SaaS Marketing Strategies
There are lots of great posts from successful SaaS founders onĀ SaaS Hacker, but thisĀ extremely focused summaryĀ of howĀ AhrefsĀ bootstrapped itself to $40m ARR is definitely worth your time.
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Marketing Examples
Awesome. Focused. Free.
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Growth Design
Great set of case studies from larger companies around growth & UX. Their comic book format was really approachable, but maybe that's just cause I'm anĀ anime / manga fan... š
Conclusion
It's really amazing to me the quality & quantity of free resources out there these days to help SaaS bootstrappers like myself level up our game.
Whether it's general product strategy, marketing strategy, specific tactics, examples to learn from, or just other like-minded founders venting about their experiences, 2020 is a really great time to be bootstrapping your own indie SaaS business.
If you're as interested in this stuff as I am, give a quick look-see atĀ Saasify.Ā We make it simple for developers to earn passive income from SaaS APIs.
And lastly, what other resources have you found the most useful for leveling up your SaaS game?? Hit me up & lemme know.
Cheers! š