Thirty days ago I had:
No landing page
No logo
No users
No idea if anyone cared
Today I have:
312 signups
41 paying users
$1,287 MRR
A...
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
honestly the 'almost quit three times' part is what stands out. I've been doing the weekend builder thing and that dip hits hard around week 2-3 when novelty fades and it's just work. the 2am log scrolling problem is so real - I've been in that exact spot squinting at a terminal thinking "why did I not build something for this months ago." $1287 MRR at day 30 is legitimate signal. congrats on shipping through the dips.
This is so inspiring! Building and launching a SaaS in only 30 days is a massive goal. I really appreciate how honest you were about the challenges, not just the wins. It shows that consistency is just as important as the code itself.
Solid execution — the 'boring tech stack' approach is honestly the biggest unlock for solo SaaS builders. No Kubernetes, no microservices, just ship. That resonates hard.
One thing I've noticed building in this space: discovery is the real bottleneck once you have a working product. You can have the best dev tool in the world but if nobody finds it, those 312 signups never happen. The marketing breakdown (Reddit, HN, X) is valuable because most devs underestimate how much hustle goes into distribution.
Curious what your retention looks like after the first month — that's usually where the real story starts for SaaS. The 41 paying users out of 312 signups is a solid ~13% conversion which is well above average.
Also worth checking out directories like saasrow.com for getting your tool listed — curated SaaS and AI tool directories can drive surprisingly consistent organic traffic once you're past the initial launch wave.
This was insanely refreshing to read, and just love how you focused on solving one painful, very real problem instead of chasing a revolutionary idea.
The honesty around churn, pricing confusion, and almost quitting makes this way more valuable than typical SaaS success posts.
Posts like this genuinely push people to ship instead of overthinking 🙌
and I genuinely hope you smash that $5K MRR milestone soon !!
"Premature complexity is ego disguised as architecture" — this line needs to be on a poster in every startup office.
I'm in a similar boat right now. Solo building two SaaS products (a waitlist platform and a community chat widget), and the hardest discipline isn't writing code — it's resisting the urge to over-engineer everything.
Your pricing experiment is super valuable data. I went through the same mental gymnastics and landed on a similar freemium model. The insight about charging early is spot on — I delayed monetization on my first product and it just delayed real feedback.
The 13% signup-to-paid conversion is honestly impressive for a dev tool. Most I've seen hover around 3-5%. Whatever you're doing in that onboarding flow, keep doing it.
Curious — how much of your traffic came from this Dev.to post vs Reddit/HN? I've found Dev.to to be surprisingly effective for developer-focused products.
"People want boring tools", I love this because it's 100% true. Sometimes you just have to get work done and a simple tool is the best. I started building qwikchek.com for the same reason, I was tired of spending WAY too much on vulnerability scanning and code testing tools, just wanted a simple fast tool to check for vulns on apps before production.
Love the article!
The simplicity of the product actually feels like its strength. Clear problem, clear outcome.
This kind of honest documentation is what makes tech communities strong. People learn from real journeys.
So many nuggets of wisdom in this post. I appreciate the honesty and clarity with which you share your journey.
Product validation through looping in users as early as possible is definitely key.
Congrats on the milestones so far! And good luck with the next ones!
I am looking forward to seeing how this grows. Whether it hits 3k MRR or not, the lessons shared here already make it worth it.
Real Inspiration, Man~
Love the transparency here! Running an AI agent 24/7 to build micro-tools taught me the same lesson: distribution > creation. What was your best marketing channel?