The Micro SaaS Handbook 📖
Hey everyone,
Last year, I published a free eBook, the "Micro SaaS Handbook", for software developers who want to start building their own profitable SaaS apps. The book gives a high level overview of the end to end process of starting a Micro SaaS, all the way through to exit.
It's based on my own experience, where I quit my (well paid but crappy) 9-5 job a few years back after building and scaling a few bootstrapped Micro SaaS apps. I was able to resign with confidence knowing I had built a good runway and had a growing, recurring subscription income each month 📈
Eventually, I went on to make over $500,000 from my Micro SaaS apps through the subscription income and cash lump sum I received when I sold and exited.
Now, I'm passionate about helping other software developers get started building their own profitable Micro SaaS apps 🚀
I've received great feedback from aspiring Micro SaaS founders who have read the book and taken action. So, I figured it's worth sharing on here in case it helps you out.
There are over 100 pages of actionable content, including:
- An introduction to Micro SaaS and the benefits and drawbacks of this business model
- Strategies for finding a great niche and generating solid ideas for your Micro SaaS
- Techniques for validating your ideas and preparing for launch
- Best practices for scaling and growing your business
- Tips for selling or exiting your Micro SaaS when the time is right
If you're interested in starting your own bootstrapped Micro SaaS, download the Micro SaaS Handbook at https://rickblyth.com/micro-saas
I'd love to hear from anyone who read the book - please share your insights and experiences in the comments 🙏
Thanks @rickblyth. As someone just starting to get into the whole indie-hacking business, this post was really timely for me!
You're welcome @neil_rawro 🙏
Coool :) Thanks for sharing!
You're welcome ... I actually released it almost a year ago and it's been read by over 2,000 founders, but only just got round to sharing it on here 🙂
I just decided a few days ago that I was going to start focusing 100% on SaaS. This came to me at the right moment and I'm sure I will be able to learn a lot from it.
Will start reading right now! Thank you so much!
You're very welcome ... hopefully you'll find it's a pragmatic, step by step guide to the end to end Micro SaaS process.
Hey Rick, great share. I'm reading your chapter about Chrome Extensions, since I am considering creating some. I was also an Amazon seller, so your creations were interesting to me. I never considered the relative competition between the Chrome Store and the Apple Store, since I had no data on either.
Hey @Jon12345, I want to hear your chrome extension ideas and build them with you. I stumbled upon the same from youtube videos.
Commercial secret.
Thanks Jon, Amazon is a good space to be to create chrome extensions 👍
Even now? When I started as an FBA seller many years ago, new extensions came out, like JungleScout. But isn't there a ton of them out there now?
Agreed, there are a tonne of tools but there are also many platforms within the Amazon ecosystem where there may still be gaps that a Micro SaaS could fill.
Even within Merch By Amazon (the domain I had success in), there were extensions that were dedicated to different areas of a seller's life:
There was plenty of room for us all to co-exist and improve different aspects of the Merch creators life. It's worth keeping an eye on Amazon's emerging platforms as they announce them and roll them out to get that first mover advantage.
That said, it is competitve so if you can find another e-commerce space that has successful sellers that may be less crowded, it might be a better bet.
You make some good points there. And I suppose also, you can compete on just part of a products functionality, charge less and thus compete. i.e. a more granular eco system of products, where you can pick and mix.
Since I've been an amazon seller for years, it helps understand some of their needs.
If only I had Chrome extension development skills when JungleScout came out!
I know, JungleScout is like an IndieHackers wildest dreams coming true! Travelling around the world whilst your app explodes in popularity 🙌
Yeah. Timing makes a big difference. They filled a vacuum.
Thanks @rickblyth - that's really helpful.
No worries, hope you enjoy it 🙂
Thanks for sharing @rickblyth! I'm currently working on a few micro startup ideas so this sounds like it could help me out! I'll give it a read and let you know what I think.
Great! Good luck with your startup ideas and I'd love to hear your feedback 🙏
@rickblyth
This sentence repeats twice on your site -> https://rickblyth.com/micro-saas 🙂
"Team size - Micro SaaS apps are usually created by a single founder or run by a small micro team whereas large SaaS apps require multiple teams working across the business."
Huh, neat book and very interesting that you had luck with a browser extension. I made ExtensionPay to use in my own extensions so it would be low-risk to try out extension ideas without spending a lot of time on monetizing.
Do you have any advice for extension developers specifically? I'd love to be able to offer encouragement to my community.
Hey @Glench, thanks for the kind words on the book 🙏
Yeah, I have tonnes of advice and tips for extension developers. I've written up quite a few already on my website/blog and I'm also in the process of making YouTube videos around them.
I have been asked by several people to create a video course on building profitable Chrome Extensions so I'm in the process of fleshing out a beta version which I hope to get out at some point in the next few months.
Nice work on ExtensionPay, looks like it fills a gap between extension and Stripe's tricky API. Curious though .... what put you off hooking up to something like Gumroad in the first instance?
Why not use Gumroad? Basically because the UX is a terrible experience — the extension developers I talked to said they get support requests all the time about copying and pasting the license code. I thought users should just be able to sign up and pay like any other app.
And it’s not that Stripe’s API is tricky per se, it’s that it takes weeks of tedious work to integrate in your extension and costs you backend costs. With extensionpay you lower the risk to creating extensions so you can try monetizing with no costs. It really lowers the barrier for something that may not make any money.
Yes, agreed Gumroad's UX is somewhat clunky.
However, I guess that's a tip for extension developers from my experience. If you are using Gumroad then do what I did (and I haven't seen anyone else suggest this) but actually have your extension run on Gumroad's sales page and inject a button to activate the extension by parsing the licence key for the user and activating it directly.
Once I'd implemented the above method of activation the support tickets around licence keys reduced massively 🙌
Oh that's a nice idea! How do you deal with users wanting to use the extension on multiple devices? And do you have a way of dealing with folks wanting bulk licenses?
But also, Gumroad's flat percentage is now 10% which is pretty ridiculous.
I used to let them use it on multiple devices and say that it correlates to your Google sign in (which it actually didn't but they weren't to know).
Other issues with Gumroad as a back end where potential licence key sharing, painful tier upgrades (at least a few years back) and wow ... didn't realise the percentage was so high now!
I'll hit you up on Twitter as I'd like to find out more about ExtensionPay and your plans for it.
I am just getting into the Micro SaaS scene. I am a software developer by day and by night working on my side hustles. I have couple apps in app store but I was never strategic about it. I am really enjoying this book. Thank you
Glad you're enjoying it 🙂
Cool 😎 digimodels.us
Rick Blyth, please stop using such words in your sales pitch. This is what every fake guru is saying now which makes it harder to differentiate between the fake and real and I took it as a rule of thumb: If someone mentions "9-5" it means fake guru directly.
You have already a big following on facebook and in linkedin, pay someone to write this for you, write something more original and not gurish, it will help you convert more.
This is the paragraph I am talking about : "It's based on my own experience, where I quit my (well paid but crappy) 9-5 job a few years back after building and scaling a few bootstrapped Micro SaaS apps. I was able to resign with confidence knowing I had built a good runway and had a growing, recurring subscription income each month"
Hey man, sorry you feel that way. Totally understand there's a tonne of fake gurus around, that's why I go out of my way to stay in my lane and give as much free value as I can.
All those words were written by my own fair hands (the book, the post, this reply whilst I'm on my laptop at my son's swimming gala 🙂 ). I certainly don't have a big following, nor do I have a team ... it's just me.
I'm not sure how it can be perceived as sensational. I literally worked super hard to escape a crappy corporate job, built up my Micro SaaS apps and exited, now sharing information such as my book (which I released almost a year ago but only got round to sharing on here today 🙂)
I wish you all the best in your Micro SaaS journey and if my (free) ebook helps you, that'd make me happy.
Peace out.