

Ask HN: How did you get your first 20 SAAS customers? - AtTheLast

I created a niche SAAS product, but I'm not sure how to go about getting people to use it. Maybe it's to niche of a product and not a good idea. Or maybe I need to change my sales strategy.
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gcmartinelli
I believe it depends on who your target audience is, but basically you are
facing a marketing obstacle. You need to spread the message about your
product. That may be done via webmarketing/social media (Show HN?) or IRL in
conferences, for example or the old door-to-door sales.

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troels
Briefly looked at your site. First thought:

    
    
        Couponify helps merchants build coupon sites that are SEO friendly
    

I get the first part, but "that are SEO friendly" sounds a bit odd. I would
take that for granted - it's a bit like if you were advertising a car - with
wheels.

Is this really A) a top priority for your audience and B) a unique offering of
your product, compared to alternatives?

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true_religion
His target market is people who don't design or code their own sites, but are
just looking to check off features (e.g. Need CMS, Must be SEO Friendly, Need
e-shopping cart solution, etc.)

Secondly, unlike a car without wheels, its very easy to get a site which isn't
particularly SEO friendly.

What does that even mean?

Is it clean human readable URLS? Amazon doesn't have that but its SEO
friendly.

Does it refer to on page optimizations and inner link building? Maybe, but you
can have a shopping cart/coupon site without the greedy linking structure that
Google currently loves.

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codegeek
Why don;t you do a "Show HN" post and see if you get anyone from here ? You
never know. The first 20 could come from HN.

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AtTheLast
A show HN a good idea. Even if we don't get any signups, the Hacker News
community is really good about giving feedback.

The service we built (couponify.com) is mainly targeted toward merchant
affiliates. So not exactly the Hacker News crowd. Nevertheless, I'll give this
a shot. Thanks for the advice!

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1123581321
I suggest asking for feedback at sitepoint, Warriorforums and other affiliate
hangouts. You'll get some attention.

I also suggest experimenting with PPC advertising.

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AtTheLast
We have PPC setup, but good call on hitting all the affiliate forums.

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tbrooks
Is it working?

PPC seems like an expensive way to predictably acquire customers.

