> From a skills perspective, I think doing a SaaS as a solo founder is only practical if you have extremely broad skillsets
I think this is what's changed from a few years ago. Expectations of usability, design, support, number of platforms, etc. have all gone up even from casual users.
37signals, probably the most-celebrated bootstrapper shop, grew up in the 90s. Imagine getting started today. You need a responsive, high-design website. You need to navigate an incredibly complex web of user acquisition channels spanning web search, paid and earned social, community, etc. You need some kind of mobile support (even if just an optimized website), real-time synchronization features, etc. It just doesn't end.
I'm not sure it's possible at all to build something yourself these days. You pretty much have to have a team, and pay them in stock/revenue share, or cash upfront, to get a real revenue-producing company going.
I think the one-man software shop is really on the decline.
I'm not sure. It's pretty easy to build a Wordpress site, use various plugins, and outsource stuff you can't or don't want to do to upwork. Expectations are higher but buildout is much easier IMO.
I think for a SaaS, the most important aspect of validating demand is if anyone is willing to pay for your product. I didn't use Mashape (I tried, but they kept churning their product which turned me off), but that might be a good way to validate.
I ended up giving the service away for free, but officially stated that the $10/mo tier was free during beta, and if you wanted more to subscribe at $50/mo. I got enough actual revenue out of that to justify continuing.
I think this is what's changed from a few years ago. Expectations of usability, design, support, number of platforms, etc. have all gone up even from casual users.
37signals, probably the most-celebrated bootstrapper shop, grew up in the 90s. Imagine getting started today. You need a responsive, high-design website. You need to navigate an incredibly complex web of user acquisition channels spanning web search, paid and earned social, community, etc. You need some kind of mobile support (even if just an optimized website), real-time synchronization features, etc. It just doesn't end.
I'm not sure it's possible at all to build something yourself these days. You pretty much have to have a team, and pay them in stock/revenue share, or cash upfront, to get a real revenue-producing company going.
I think the one-man software shop is really on the decline.