I build a Saas code over 2 years and no one wants it
Hey everyone.
I built this project over the last 2 and a half years ago:
It is an ed-tech SaaS platform aimed to make participation in large lectures easier and more enjoyable.
After a good period of development, my cofounders and I went to market with cold emails. We had a couple users but really struggled to get people to try or use the product. Plus we are still in college and juggling the startup with school was difficult. We have ultimately given up, assuming we did not find product market fit/did not solve the problem correctly.
We have an awesome code base with tons of features and I'd hate to see it go to waste. I have been thinking about open sourcing the entire project, but I feel that I should still consider what would be the best way to go about that.
If you'd like to explore a demo of the app, here is a demo account:
Best Answer
How do you fail with a product that is literally one of the few useful tools during these times?
Seems like you were under the belief that "if you build it, they will come"... the same place where most developers get stuck.
Building the product is just the tip of the iceberg. Now stop saying you failed and start sending an email to every single high school teacher in the US.
Other points
Well, we emailed a lot of people already and we haven't gotten any success. People sometimes are offended that we are trying to market our product during the COVID emergency. & trust me, we have tried a lot of different approaches to our communication within emails, but I learned sales in ed-tech is awful. I suppose I could try the enterprise route but not sure where to start with that.
But you are right, we are totally developers before we are marketers. lmao
A product must gain access to a market and then bought by a customer who is comparison shopping in a safe place. The market validate the quality and safety of the product.
What are the steps to turn an idea into an innovation? there are at least the following steps. The idea must be turned into a product, and the product must enter the market. In the market, the target audience will examine the artifact - if they buy, then the product becomes a merchandise.
A first time entrepreneur always under estimate the difficulties. Each voyage is a ship with 2000 holes - each hole is only visible when the boat is in water.
Jack the entrepreneur is a creation of TeenSharks Startup School
A business plan has two parts, the aspiration and the traction. A business plan is about two parts: how the business runs, and how to start that business.
How to turn an interest into a money maker. How to attract people, how to stimulate people to pay, how to make profit, how to make relations, how to keep relations.
How much do I have to give my audience so they can pay me something in return? What do they value? what problem do they search for answers on your own? I want to solve that problem.
When you finally connect what you love to do to what a lot of people love to buy. When you can focus all you want and still have unlimited work and fun.
A general or CEO or founder who is tolerant and generous. Someone who recognizes own mistakes. Someone with big heart for hiring people better than him.
Brand means name recognition. A lot of people knows what your company does and what you stand for. Brand is result of long campaign of consistent value provision and media cultivation. Brand helps a company reduce marketing cost.
Whether there are buyer willing to pay or not. For that to happen you must provide extreme value. The entire startup process would be based on guess before the validation. Validation happens in a market, not on the street.
Value is what you give customers beyond the price you charge. Value is effective solution to a problem. The price your customer pays reflects whether the problem is big for them and whether your solution is uniquely effective. Value stems from quality and detailed work.
Marketing means bring your product to the market and bring your message to your customer. Marketing is not salesmanship. Marketing is to penetrate the world of commerce through many barriers and existing networks.
Minimally viable business, or MVC, minimally viable company. A company that scrapes by, full of guess and hope and no traction and sales. When you give your customers things for free they all take it. But they never pay and you can never rent a table at the market.
Minimal viable product. A full artifact of a real product. Something that works ALL THE TIME. You can demonstrate the real effect on real people - not to sell hope. The MVP may not have certain non-essential bells and whistles, but it needs to have appeal value.
A business lives at the mercy of its customers. You provide your customers 10 dollars worth of value and they pay you 1 dollar, not knowing that your company only costs 99 cents to provide the item. The value is not the item - the value is what is attached to the item.
Company culture is based on a company making money. Once your workers are paid, they need to have a mission and aspiration so they are not bored everyday and make trouble in the work place.
When you find a full universe within a grain of sand, a life time of work to do by focusing on one thing. There is enough people behind you to support your living and cause.
People's reaction when they know you have done something they could never do And they know this is not accident because you have done it a number of times.
A company valuation is cash investment divided by the percentage. As long as your story is good, the valuation will keep coming, and the investors will keeping falling into the line.
Investors are either behind family fortune (never work with them) or for rich clients as investment vehicle. Both need returns 2-3 times better than stock market darlings.
Having found what people want, not just what people may need. Your offering and their acceptance is sure, no longer a guess. You can provide it for profit, and you can indeed making living on it. Traction is sometimes called validation. You are no longer a theater. You have touched nature, and found cash vein.
