How I Stay Motivated Working on My Solo SaaS (When It Feels Like Nobody Cares)

[Sayyidalijufri]

I’ve been grinding on my solo project—a little app to help remote workers find coworking spots nearby—for months, and some days it feels like I’m yelling into the void. Nobody’s signing up, and I’m burned out. But I’ve figured out a few tricks to keep going:

Set Tiny Wins: I break it into micro-goals, like “fix that bug today” or “post on X once.” Hitting those feels good, even if the big picture’s slow.

Talk to People: I hop on X, ask random remote workers what they’d want in an app like mine. Even if they don’t sign up, the feedback keeps me pumped.

Track Progress, Not Just Users: I log every little improvement—code commits, design tweaks, whatever. Seeing a list of wins reminds me I’m moving forward, even if signups are slow.

Take Breaks: When I’m stuck, I step away—go for a walk, play a game. Coming back fresh helps me see the project differently. It’s not glamorous, but it’s keeping me in the game. Last week, I got one signup after months, and it felt huge.

How do you stay motivated on your solo projects? Any tips to share?

[basisword]

Depending on how long you’ve been working on it and how hard you’ve marketed it, it’s important not to miss a signal that you should move on. While we all have problems with motivation from time to time, some things aren’t worth motivating yourself for and it’s important to recognise that. This might not apply if it’s just a hobby project - but a hobby project should probably be fun. If it’s a serious attempt at a business rethink your marketing strategy. Nothing will motivate you more than signups and revenue.

[mertleee]

As a past founder this is immensely important. Think very carefully about he financial impacts of "taking the idea to term" and more importantly if you're happy with your current life. In many cases if you're asking yourself questions like this you likely don't have traction to make this a real thing and should maybe consider moving on.

[muzani]

Demotivation is a feature, not a bug. For some things you do need discipline, but bear in mind it's a safety switch to keep humans from wasting their time.

Personally I've always done it for the fans. The people who take the time to fill out the surveys with lots of thanks or write articles about how much they loved my app. Or the people who drive to the next city to transfer money (because we didn't support card payments then) and then tell us to keep the change.

It's more than just "signups and revenues", it's more about not letting people down.

[Sayyidalijufri]

Yes

because of that I also ship my startup asap because if we spent much time on something and we not get any benefit we will burn out

[theoryofx]

You've got to work on something where there's an immediate distribution channel and customers. Don't work on anything so speculative as this, where you're just hoping there will be someone who wants it.

You have to know how you're going to sell it before you build it. There are only a handful of things that work, which other people are using and you can copy.

[StickyRibbs]

All my solo projects suffered from all the things you mentioned. Once I found a cofounder for my current project, these problems went away because

1. There’s social altruism activated because you two are constantly doing things not just for yourself, but for the other person. 2. View point diversity. You get way more feedback with another talking head at the same table, helps unblock you more than you think. And this can ignite new insight and therefore new notification energy!

Is there a way to hack this as a solo founder? I think so!

I had a former co founder who I would always bounce ideas off of and even tho he wasn’t directly working on my projects, he would check in with me and kind of act like a rubber duck I could talk to. This could be your friends, partner, or strangers!

Also, time is your best friend, for good or for worse. I think back on projects I started and quit after a year, I would like to think those projects would be successful if I just put more time into it.

[gadders]

Forget AI Girlfriends - let's launch AI Co-Founders.

The only problem is I'm a solo developer so need to bootstrap my own AI co-founder first.

[danjl]

While a co-founder can help, it can also ruin everything. As you say, there are other relationships and ways of interacting that can easily fill the same role, ie. advisors, board members, customers, etc. Statistically, I think that co-founder infighting is one of the largest reasons why many startups fail. It's also a fantastic way to ruin friendships.

[jmathai]

Having just one other person in the trenches is so helpful. I hadn't thought about the social altruism angle but I think there's a lot of truth to it.

I also agree about time. I think new products follow a model similar to compounding interest. It's very small at the start - sometimes negligible but over time things add up.

Lastly, I think we get desensitized to success. Getting the first user, the first ten, etc. These are not small milestones. They're meaningful.

Lastly lastly, if it's something you want to make money from then focus primarily on user acquisition and secondly on product. Commonly difficult for builders to do but not doing so cements delayed failure.

[cjs_ac]

I used to be a schoolteacher; I left teaching and became a software engineer a few years ago. For the past two years, I've been building a solo Saas product, that solves a problem I spotted when I was teaching. I hope to launch later this year.

To answer OP's question, about a year ago, I told my parents what I was building. My mum is a teacher, so she's my first test user. Every time I talk to them, they ask how things are going, so I need to keep working on it so I've got something to tell them.

To join in on everyone else's roasting OP's business idea: OP, what are you offering your users that they can't get from typing 'coworking space' or 'cafe' into their search engine of choice? It's not enough to make something useful, it also has to be something that your customers don't already have.

[HenryBemis]

I had the exact same thought.. "doesn't Google maps already solve this problem all over the planet?" About a decade before I remember using Google's 'hub'(I don't remember what it was called) in a couple of EU capitals. Free, super fast internet, clean spaces, free desks, whiteboards all around. You had to pay if you wanted a 'room with a door' and a projector, but apart from that if you didn't mean the eavesdroppers it was perfectly fine (and relatively quiet).

[avastmick]

I’m in a similar space. Solo working on an Edtech solution. Man it can be hard. @cjs_ac, I’d be keen to chat, if you’d have time.

[robot]

I don't see this to be a problem worth solving.

Some problems are problems but for a startup to succeed it needs to be a very important problem.

Having a unique insight is also not enough. It needs to be a highly leverageable insight or advantage. One that you can use in this startup; as you grow your leverage it will help you get users and revenue.

Neither seem true here. When that happens, the journey is a grind, you try to push hard but people don't seem interested.

how do I get motivated? well I have to believe there is a 'leverageable' insight or angle that will grow when I make progress ;) belief that it's a big problem people care about and that I am growing unfair advantage over time solving it.

[mertleee]

I think it's important to highlight that this kind of advice isn't negative and it's well meaning. As engineers it can be easy to form a distortion field about what we're working on and the perception of those who might actually want (or not want) to actually buy it.

Being honest with yourself is the best way to be kind to yourself. Moving on is not giving up.

[avemuri]

Some thoughts (I used to run a chain of 20+ coworking spaces)

* Remote individual workers are the least attractive customer for the typical coworking space (that isn't a cafe). Small and unpredictable revenue, plus higher support per head, since the account is only one head.

* Remote workers also aren't a great fit for you. Very few like to hop around. Their reasons are typically avoiding loneliness, finding a reliable place to focus etc. And so would only use your platform until they find a space they like.

* SMBs are the sweet spot. Coworking is cheaper AND less overhead for them. In many countries they don't get access to grade A space even if they're willing to pay. For the coworking space, it's only slightly more work than a solo account and significantly more recurring and reliable revenue. You may be better off targeting small teams.

* One particular pain point is expiring inventory - remote workers actually fit this well since they're willing to go for a floating desk. Most spaces would be willing to offer discounts on this. Kind of like last minute flight or hotel deals.

* Another related product is meeting and conference room bookings. Also expires and has a market in WFH teams.

* The last two also have a better business model fit since they are intermittent and people may be more inclined to shop around, allowing you to take a cut of every transaction. For any kind of recurring contract, you're probably limited to taking a one time lead gen or brokerage fee since you have no grounds to maintain a relationship with the customer after the initial match.

[pickle-wizard]

This is a really good response. Your last two points are both features I could use.

[chrisweekly]

Respectfully, I don't see a viable business here. As a remote worker, I can hardly imagine "signing up" for an app to find coworking space. Your efforts would be better spent on something more compelling. PMF (Product:Market Fit) is hard enough when there's actually a decent addressable market.

[sky2224]

> Respectfully, I don't see a viable business here.

Isn't all of WeWork this business? Granted, I know they've had their share of problems with profitability and bankruptcy, however, I think that stems from issues other than the business not necessarily being viable.

[akomtu]

I'm afraid, those remote workers you're trying to help prefer working solo, for the same reason you're working solo. Perhaps, try to change your idea: make it an airbnb-style office rental app, where tech workers rent a home office to other tech workers.

[carlbren]

The way I think is the most crucial thing in my case. I tend to focus more on the positive (I trained myself) and being healthy (food, sport, sleep, walks...). With good energy it's way easier.

From what you wrote, I'm not sure, but it seems that the "talking to people" and the "problem definition" steps could be improved to better identify the SPECIFIC problem you are solving, the causes behind the problem, the users motivation to solve it... By asking questions like: Is it a problem people are trying to solve? How many? At which frequency?

Because solving an important and specific problem will make it easier to target potential users and for them to be naturally interested.

Wish you the best!

[anshumankmr]

I have a couple of SaaS ideas, one I have worked on but I don't feel its gonna earn that much money. Still doing it for fun, plan to launch it soon here.

My motivation is purely on how it makes me feel, I feel like an engineer solving problems while at work I am just working on Jira tickets that I don't feel personally impact me or anyone except a corporate bottomline.

[ph4evers]

Is this a side project or your main endeavor?

It will take time to get traction. I have a bigger picture in mind and shipping small updates and features constantly helps a lot. I’m building a tool for myself and I use it on a daily basis and keep improving it with the things I like, that keeps me motivated.

[herbst]

Having built many things I agree with most of the comments here. Step back and built something else.

I have had MVPs turn into something years later when I didn't expect it anymore, some projects, the majority to be fair, never made it tho.

[brokegrammer]

I've been think that maybe it's not a good thing to be motivated because it's possible that you're working on the wrong project.

I've been building a time tracking app for freelancers myself, and after getting some test users, I realized that people don't really want it because of various reasons.

I've been trying to continue getting more users because it's possible that I'm barking up the wrong tree, but it's also possible that my app sucks, and that I need to work on something else.

Some food for thought...

[mattyreed1]

What are the reasons people don’t want it?

Are you not able to simply address those shortcomings?

I’m going thru something similar (eerily similar actually) but for my B2C product, most people that hear about it quickly understand that it’s a “good idea” and want to try it and tell other people about it. Our problem is, and always has been, dev velocity. It simply takes too long to implement what we know people want and our runway gets shorter and shorter.

[bob1029]

> How do you stay motivated on your solo projects?

By having many of them going on at once. Diversify the portfolio.

If I only have exactly one project to work on and it starts to go poorly, my mood suffers severely.

If I have several projects to work on and one goes poorly, I can toggle to a different one and not worry about it. Inevitably, I'll swap back to what I was working on after a period of time. This also keeps me out of other subpar areas, like mindless doomscrolling or gaming for hours on end.

[danjl]

That's an excellent list of positive strokes. I wanted to punch up your bullet on talking to people. Face to face is always better. It pulls me out of the void. Rather than chatting on text-based social media, set up video chats. Going to small conferences in your market is a great way to get a boost of energy. If you're good at it, you can even get a few customers. Seeing the emotions on the face of the person I'm talking to really helps boost my energy.

[fs_software]

There is something unique about working on a solo project that you usually don't find in traditional software organizations: you can work on something lower priority just because you feel like it.

The sweet spot is when those tasks are complex and it really takes some motivation to get started/keep going.

I'd recommend fostering your curiosity as a mechanism for building momentum and getting stuff done, even if it's not a top priority task.

[pacifika]

What’s the app? Might not sign up but am interested in creations

[Sayyidalijufri]

waitfast.netlify.app

[naveed125]

These are some good tips. One thing I would add is to build habits, once you have a routine of working on the solo project it makes it easier to keep going on not quit.

[DazWilkin]

This really resonates with me.

Your insight is helpful almost as much as knowing that other people like me are out there too.

I think (!?) I've finally let go of a project that I've been working on for a couple of years.

A key tenet of the project (which I frequently forgot) was that it was a way for me to learn|refine technical skills and to keep me entertained|occupied.

The project certainly achieved those objectives for me and I'm a better person for doing it.

Good luck to you and I hope you continue to succeed!

[rixed]

1. Write realistic weekly plans and stick to them. There is satisfaction in being able to reach a goal every week, even if you have to compromise on the quality sometime. It also helps not feeling lost if the project takes a long time.

2. Have frequent debriefs with friends and, if none is available, an IA (which will be less afraid to offend you actually).

3. A lot of sport