Lessons I learned after 3 failed microsaas attempts

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Last week I officially launched ngnr.club, my newest MicroSaaS project. I say newest because it’s not my first try. I spent the better part of 2020 and 2021 working on ideas for products I had on my mind. I was super excited, mostly because I was coming out of big burnout and I’d finally gotten the juices flowing again.

None of the 3 projects I got out the door succeeded for many reasons, which I am going to list below.

A SaaS isn’t just code

I was naively under the impression that launching a product was as easy as pushing to master and customers would magically appear. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. A product isn’t simply code. It’s design, marketing, social media, outreach and many other things … As an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to wear all those hats if you want to have a chance to succeed, and at the time I was only really excited by the engineering aspect of things.

Don’t try to be perfect

If you have an idea, test it out first with an MVP. You’re probably reading this and thinking to yourself “well duh ?!” But it’s a common trap us developers / engineers often fall into. Perfectionism has its place, sure, but definitely not in the initial phase. It’s better to launch unprepared and iterate over time than delay launch for reasons that won’t really matter to customers.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

This ties into the previous point in the sense that trying to write your own serializers, authentication mechanism, email system etc will only take more of your precious time, that you could really use more productively.

Stick to technologies you know

I’ve often made that mistake of thinking: “Oh great, this will be a great opportunity to learn X”. Don’t be like me. Unless you absolutely have to use that new technology to solve a particular business-critical problem, stick to what you already know. It’s fewer headaches, more productivity and a quicker launch.

I write this article as I reminder to myself first and foremost. I also hope to help you avoid making the same mistakes I did.

Stay coding,

Karim aka 0xfishr