Ask HN: Grow a profit-generating SaaS or work on a promising new one?

[avinoth]

I'm in a bit of conundrum and any help or guidance is highly appreciated!

I've built a SaaS app (rosterbird) that has grown organically to $1600/MRR without any marketing from my side. This was over a period of over 3(!) years and has been a sideproject all that time.

This obviously exhibits (very early) signs of a Product Market Fit and the gut feel is telling me to focus on the business which seems to have found a footing on its own. But, the few times I’ve tried to focus on it in the past, I’ve been turned off by my own inability to understand the product exactly and the target audience I should focus on, and learn what exactly the next step I should take with it.

So, everytime I’d think of and plan multiple possible things (marketing, sales, pivoting, positioning, etc) and ultimately end up in a deadlock and will abandon the pursuit altogether. During one such abandonment I started building a new SaaS product (keenly.so).

I built a small MVP of keenly and showed it to people who I thought would benefit from this and the feedback was very positive with some willing to pay for it after it's released.

Now, I'm confused as to which one I should proceed with.

On one hand, I have a product which is growing but it's in a niche market and I fear I don't quite understand how exactly I should take the next step or who/how to even market it. On the other hand, the new product is in an established (a bit crowded) market but something I understand well. And also, I believe I have a reliable marketing plan for it as well (ofcourse, no guarantee it'll work, but there's a plan atleast).

I've went full-time on this, so it is imperative for me to choose a right path and proceed, therefore here I am.

Once again, any help or guidance highly appreciated! I'm happy to answer any questions that would help.

Thanks in advance!

[leros]

Is it possible you're making the common error of wanting to build something new?

It's pretty awesome that you've got something making $1600/mo without any proper marketing. It seems insane to me to abandon that effort for something else. Not to mention, if your next project takes off, you'll probably find yourself in the same situation again.

I would double down on this one. You'll likely have a lot of learning to do, but it's gonna be a good education and possibly very profitable.

[avinoth]

I did fell into that pitfall when I built keenly. Just wanted to build something new.

But then, only when I received good feedback I thought to proceed with it.

I won't deny, the new thing is definitely appealing because it's new. But you make a good point about finding myself in the same place again.

I've had some good options presented here and I'm leaning towards focusing on rosterbird and try to get a growth engine going and then, maybe, once it's sustainable, I can try new things if I still wanted to.

[tucaz]

I would have phrased it differently but would have said the same thing.

No other words are necessary.

[quickthrower2]

Stick! Don’t twist! Don’t fold!

Depends why you are doing this. If it is for the money stick to the first project that is making money. It has a much higher chance of succeeding.

[edmundsauto]

You might try to grow it. Affiliate models can be sketchy, but that doesn't mean the model is broken. I'd be willing to put some advertising dollars into trying to grow signups if you're interested - as a programmer/marketer, I'd like to try and grow a business w/ PMF.

The advantage of affiliate marketing is a 3rd party takes the financial risk that it doesn't increase sales. The downside is you don't own your acquisition funnel. If both parties are aligned, it can work out.

[jxaphx]

As someone in a similar boat, my advice would be to start working on just driving attention/traffic to each one and see what the market tells you. It doesn't matter than your more recent idea is not as far along, there are lot of opportunities for lead generation outside of actually using the product (scorecards, waiting lists, etc...)

It doesn't matter how great either idea is if you can't get people to look at it. Focus there.

[psikomanjak]

Have you thought about selling the 1600MRR one?

If you would be interested you can email me on my mail in bio and we can discuss.

[avinoth]

I've thought about it in the past, but the risk/reward ratio is better if I just run it myself.

Also, the whole selling process was a huge turnoff for me as the offers were at most 3x arr and lots of tirekickers when I posted on acquire.

[reducesuffering]

> I've went full-time on this, so it is imperative for me to choose a right path and proceed

Sounds like you should focus on growing rosterbird's MRR to a sustainable income for you, and then you can decide whether you want to keep working on it or attempt something new like keenly.so

[v1l]

Who is your current customer base? Why don't you go after more of them?