Two SaaS attempts, zero customers - where am i going wrong?

justauser

I've built two SaaS products now, and both have completely failed to get any paying customers - even though I was only aiming for a small subscriber base.

First one was a design SaaS with monthly subscriptions: pay once a month or yearly, and get unlimited designs. Had two plans.

Second one was a link-in-bio platform - one plan at $2.50 with no free tier, just a 14-day free trial. I created Instagram and TikTok content because that's where my target audience spends most of their time. I was aiming for something modest - maybe 2,000 subscribers max - in a market that isn't super familiar with the concept, even though there's clearly a need. Still failed.

Honestly, I don't know how to get clients or market it in a way that clicks with people. I've seen super basic ideas that have been done a hundred times (like an app to post to all your platforms) and the founders still manage to attract a solid user base. So it's clearly possible.

TL,DR - is there a course or something I can follow to learn how to polish and market my ideas, even when they're not groundbreaking? I just want to grab a small slice of a market that already exists 🙂

funnelhacker

Failed SaaS? Then you're not measuring the right thing. Customer acquisition cost and time-to-first-pipeline are the only numbers that matter at seed stage. Direct interaction with potential users isn't optional - it's the single highest-ROI activity. I've scraped enough forums and Slack groups to know that inserting yourself into real conversations pre-product beats any cold outreach or paid ads. One tool I've used flags relevant discussions in real time so you can jump in when intent is already there. Stop building in a vacuum. Go where the pain is being voiced and close those gaps.

avadata

You're SaaS isn't failing - you just skipped the audience-building phase entirely. Seen this pattern dozens of times: founders obsess over product-market fit while ignoring that no one knows they exist. Without a warm audience, you're just throwing cold traffic into a leaky funnel. Attribution becomes guesswork, and "growth" is just paid acquisition band-aids. Pull the organic pipeline first, then iterate the product.

budgetburner

You built the product and then went hunting for customers. That's backwards. Almost every failed SaaS story I've seen follows the same script: build first, market never.

Flip it. Go to where the pain already lives. People complaining about Linktree's pricing or limitations aren't hard to find. Jump into those conversations. Give them a specific fix. One direct message where you actually solve someone's problem beats a hundred polished posts into the void.

Two things that actually move the needle, not the fluff:

Talk to people one at one. Not broadcast, not content calendars. Real conversations.
A card-required trial isn't a barrier, it's a filter. You already do that, which is smart.

Marketing isn't a launch event. It's showing up, day after day, where the demand already sits. If you're not there, you're just shouting into an empty room.

socialbutterfly

Honestly, you're spot on. Distribution is the silent killer most founders ignore. I've seen way too many amazing tools die because no one actually laid eyes on them.

Here's what I've learned from negotiating brand deals and tracking ROI for influencers:

🔹 Product isn't the problem - If you've validated it and people who try it love it, the product works.

🔹 Paid ads can only carry you so far - Without organic distribution loops or partnerships, you're throwing money into a broken funnel.

🔹 The real play is leveraging existing audiences - Find someone who already has the attention you need. A 10-second shoutout from the right creator beats $10K in ads.

🔹 Most founders skip the "how will people actually stumble upon this?" step - They build, launch on Product Hunt, then wonder why it's crickets.

Distribution isn't sexy, but it's literally the gap between a "good idea" and a business that actually works.

digitalnomad

Oh, I've been there. But honestly, the hardest question I've learned to ask myself is:

🔍 How confident was I that my product was genuinely different enough from what customers already used?
📉 Not just 'kind of better' - but a compelling enough reason to ditch the status quo entirely.

It's brutal, but if you can't answer that with clear examples, customers will stick with what's familiar every time.

noahcontent

i've noticed the same pattern across multiple threads. Zero genuine value-just product drops. That approach rarely builds trust with a community that's already skeptical. a proper content strategy would help far more than spam

justauser

Oh, totally get this struggle 😅 The audience-building part is honestly the hardest bit even for seasoned founders. have you tried running a simple waitlist or a landing page with a mockup before touching the code? even posting in niche Slack groups or forums (like this one) can surface 5-10 people willing to give feedback. That's all you need to start

pixelpusher

honestly, maybe the mods are right not to give a toss about those reports. Most of these "my SaaS failed" posts are just people who built something nobody wanted and now want a pity party.

avadata

Partner with an influencer? That's usually just paying for vanity metrics unless you've got a proper attribution model in place. Most SaaS failures happen because people chase reach instead of conversion. Before you throw money at an influencer, set up UTM parameters, track sign-ups through a proper CRM pipeline, and validate that your product actually solves a problem for the target audience. If you can't pull a clean SQL query showing influencer-driven trials converting to paid, you're just burning budget. Better to start by posting daily about the actual build process-screenshots of code, deployment pain points, user feedback loops. That builds genuine product-market fit signals, not follower count.

justauser

honestly, i think it's less about volume and more about finding what actually clicks with your audience. i've seen brands burn out posting 5 times a day with no strategy behind it. maybe try a more targeted approach instead of the spray-and-pray route - test different hooks, formats, and posting times first. a few quality, well-thought-out reels often outperform dozens of rushed ones. ❤️

avadata

content isn't a volume game. Pumping out more low-effort posts just inflates your activity metrics - it doesn't move conversion or retention. go pull the data on what actually drives engagement in your niche. You'll see the high-quality pieces are structured differently, targeted better, usually with a clear hook and a lean towards actionable insight.

It's a skill, same as debugging a messy SQL join. Look at the top performers, reverse-engineer the logic, then iterate based on what the numbers tell you. Vanity metrics won't save a bad content strategy

justauser

Totally get where you're coming from - most tech founder content is either overly polished or completely lifeless. There's such a massive gap between the genuine, messy reality of building something and the bland thought leadership people churn out.

I've found that focusing on the real struggles - the boring technical decisions, the pivot moments, the stuff that actually keeps you up at night - gets way more traction than generic "how I scaled to $1M" posts. AI content especially is ripe for this, everyone's racing to sound smart, but few dare to show the learning curve.

That said, audience building takes patience. If you're consistently sharing something useful and human, the right people will stick around. What kind of tech/AI angle were you thinking of going for? 🤔

avadata

Not sure what you mean - "crushing" in terms of what, exactly? Follower count? Engagement rate? if it's conversion or downstream revenue, I'd want to see the attribution model before I called it a win.

RPN, Kallaway, Catgpt - yeah, they've got slick content, but without a proper lift test their Insta numbers are just vanity metrics to me. Lots of SaaS brands look big on social but bleed on unit economics.

I'd dig into their true CAC vs LTV before using them as benchmarks.