
Reaching $10k monthly revenue with WakaTime, my SaaS side project - welder
https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/wakatime
======
mivanchev
I must voice concerns regarding this product. Just took a look at the
Notepad++ plugin ([https://github.com/wakatime/notepadpp-
wakatime](https://github.com/wakatime/notepadpp-wakatime)), because this is
something I know a lot about. To begin with, it sends filenames to the mother
ship instead of just the programming language. I would consider filenames to
be sensitive information giving a very good idea of the project you are
working on...

Also problematic is the fact that plugin is doing almost nothing; instead it
downloads Python from the official place, downloads a whole Python project
(called CLI) and executes it. Also, there's an automatic update mechanism in
place which updates the CLI every now and then. It sounds as a recipe for a
disaster waiting to happen.

 _Edit_ :

I guess what I've said applies to every software with an auto-update function
and that's of course quite the norm today. As ztratar pointed out, the usage
of SSL provides a decent level of security. I still would wish for the user to
be notified in some fashion. Also, from what I understand, the WakaTime CLI
seems to have an option to hide filenames, it's just not changeable from the
Notepad++ plugin.

~~~
SteveNuts
What if you opened John_Doe_health_information.txt - would something like this
be a HIPPA violation?

~~~
conductr
With that filename in majority of cases you're violating HIPAA even within
your internal network. The thought processes usually goes, does every person
that potentially sees that file name require to know the patients first and
last name? Also, even those that do require it should only be accessing it on
an as-needed basis (eg. at the time of claim submission, etc) which means it
shouldn't be floating around on your filesystem.

------
Trufa
Congrats on this, loved the quote.

>> The best startup book is one you never open because you're too busy
marketing and building your product

~~~
khaledtaha
While that makes for a great anecdote, there are action-oriented people should
not be heeding that advice. An appropriate balance between rational ignorance
and analysis paralysis must be struck. Otherwise, it's left to others to deal
with your predisposition towards an extreme.

~~~
j45
It can also be taken as you will read what you need to when you need to be
solving it - instead of reading in advance.

~~~
Jtsummers
Lean learning. Just-in-time education.

~~~
slilo
Lazy learning. Information is getting as it needed

------
dang
A user emailed to tell us that the ownership of this project and this story of
its founding are disputed and there's a legal process going on. A quick check
shows a bit of supporting evidence for this, so I think it's best if we bury
this post for now. We have no way to tell who's right, and it doesn't seem
fair for HN to implicitly take a side by featuring one side of the story.

Incidentally, we invited this submission as a repost of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546345](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546345).
We do that when we run across a good submission that didn't get much attention
the first time around, and we think the community might find it interesting.
We wouldn't have done that if we'd known the story was disputed. The principle
remains the same, though, so if any of you know of a good submission that fell
through the cracks, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll consider
putting it in the queue.

~~~
welder
I've emailed about this, but can respond here too. I'm the sole-founder of
WakaTime and there is no ongoing legal dispute.

Priyanka Sharma and I worked on a massage on-demand startup which didn't take
off. We decided to see if investors would be interested in my WakaTime
project, and Priyanka asked to be listed on the WakaTime "About" page to build
her confidence when talking to potential investors. I also agreed to pitch
WakaTime on TechCrunch with her, although they listed her incorrectly as CEO!
She was CEO of the massage startup, Kneady, but never WakaTime!

It's unfortunate that Priyanka Sharma now uses the WakaTime TechCrunch article
to charge early-stage startups for advice through Heavybit. It's also
unfortunate if HN caves to her threats of ownership without asking for any
proof. If she was a founder of WakaTime, she should be able to produce a stock
purchase or other agreement, or even documentation about an "ongoing legal
dispute". I've already reached out to HN via email offering proof of
ownership, so hopefully HN unburies this post.

~~~
beaugunderson
This response is fishy as hell. I don't know what Priyanka's title was at
WakaTime but I viewed her as the public face of the company, as judged by the
dozens of emails I have from WakaTime that all came from her, her activity in
the Slack, her blog posts which were removed from the WakaTime blog, etc.

Here's one example of an email from Priyanka on behalf of WakaTime:

[https://i.imgur.com/PYHuc8s.png](https://i.imgur.com/PYHuc8s.png)

And the removal of her blog posts:

[https://github.com/wakatime/wakatime-
blog/commit/5d671e9aab6...](https://github.com/wakatime/wakatime-
blog/commit/5d671e9aab64e712fed73c3c1a994b555539d663)

Edit:

And an interesting Twitter thread:

[https://twitter.com/downey/status/861908826223759360](https://twitter.com/downey/status/861908826223759360)

This makes me want to stop paying for WakaTime.

~~~
welder
> Here's one example of an email from Priyanka on behalf of WakaTime

At the time I was happy when she said she would send the newsletter emails for
me, but now I see she just wanted people to think she was the public face for
WakaTime to further a tech founder persona. Yea I made a mistake letting her
send newsletters on behalf of WakaTime, but that doesn't mean she can claim to
have built WakaTime.

> This response is fishy as hell.

I didn't raise a fuss when I should have because I didn't want to cause her
trouble, but then she demanded a large sum of money from me in exchange for
giving me WakaTime... when she never owned WakaTime. That's what I consider
fishey.

~~~
beaugunderson
Are you saying she didn't write the content of the newsletters, or moderate
the Slack, or write those blog posts? I don't think anyone is contending that
she wrote the code but I know my own interest in WakaTime would have waned
without the community and the newsletters.

I am still unsatisfied with your version of events because it seems to
discount that Priyanka did any work at all.

~~~
doomjunky
Her first blog post was on: 2014-12-16

Her last blog post was on: 2015-03-31

This doesn't look like an sophisticated engagement.

~~~
beaugunderson
Here's a Google Trends chart for 'WakaTime':

[https://i.imgur.com/VHeJPYY.png](https://i.imgur.com/VHeJPYY.png)

That first spike is December 2014. Interesting timing!

The last Slack notification email I have from her is from 10/26/2015\. Why is
it so hard to believe that she did a year or so's worth of work for WakaTime?
Why are her contributions to be valued less because they aren't code?

------
kasbah
Is it me or is it nuts to be paying $1,600 a month on servers when you have
just over 1000 users? Seems like something that could be run on a $50-$100
VPS.

~~~
jonas21
That's the number of users who are paying. He mentions that he has over 100K
total users.

That raises an issue with this sort of model that I've never really
understood: if only ~1% of users are paying, it seems like very small changes
in conversion rate could make or break the business. Suppose the conversion
rate goes down by just 0.3%. That would be a 30% reduction in revenue while
you still have to run the infrastructure to support all the free users who
didn't convert. Would the business still be financially viable? What's the
best way to manage that risk?

~~~
AznHisoka
That's not a real risk. That's an outcome. A risk is something that LED to
that drop in conversion. It could be a competitor coming in with the same
feature set, or something else. But a drop in conversion is not a risk, it's
an outcome.

~~~
learc83
The risk part is the small margin that means you can't survive small bumps
that lead to a drop in conversion.

~~~
AznHisoka
as the person who responded above me noted, that's not a small margin at all.
That's a huge relative change.

~~~
learc83
I'm not talking about the previous posters 30% drop being a small margin. I'm
saying that 1% paying customers is a risk and it's likely to get lower than
that, the more exposure it gets.

~~~
AznHisoka
First, why is 1% paying customers a risk? That's actually a fairly
average/normal conversion rate for a freemium product. Trello, I wager gets
way less than that.

Second, why is it likely to get lower the more exposure it gets?

~~~
learc83
I'm not an expert. I've never ran a SaaS business with a freemium model (I
have ran SaaS businesses with other pricing models).

But, everything I've ever read on the subject indicates 1% is either bare
minimum or too low. [1,2]

>Second, why is it likely to get lower the more exposure it gets?

In my experience the more hype you get, the lower your conversion rate all
other things being equal (in my case conversion rate after free trial, vs
freemium) because people who had to search you out to find you are more likely
to convert than people who are just checking out the hottest new thing they
saw on HN.

That's obviously not always true, and it may not be true in their case, but if
I were the CEO, I'd be very focused on increasing my conversion rate.

1\. [https://hbr.org/2014/05/making-freemium-
work](https://hbr.org/2014/05/making-freemium-work) 2\.
[https://techcrunch.com/2012/11/04/should-your-startup-go-
fre...](https://techcrunch.com/2012/11/04/should-your-startup-go-freemium/)

------
myth_drannon
As a webdev, a significant portion of my time is spent in the browser's
devtools - debugging or styling components. That would be a great addition to
the product.

~~~
azemetre
There are extensions for chrome and I'm pretty sure you can whitelist sites,
is that sufficient enough?

------
TomVDB
Friendly suggestion: make the pricing easier to find.

Right now, the only link is in small print at the very bottom of the home
page.

~~~
gondo
that is on purpose. first to hook you up = to sell you the product by letting
it try it for free and to convince you that the product is worth to pay, then
later ask you for money. nothing wrong with this, but personally i like to
know the price upfront too. or at least a price range

------
krat0sprakhar
Wakatime's HN launch:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046227](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046227)

~~~
rabidonrails
I love how so many of the top comments are people telling him to make changes
and that this isn't what they want. 100k users later...

~~~
iopuy
Oh Ycombinator, such a bastion of encouragement you can be. Check out the top
comment dropbox received when it debut on Ycombinator.

    
    
            "...you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem."
    

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224)

~~~
oblio
It's nothing new, that's how we get cute quotes, such as:

* the one misattributed to Bill Gates, about 640k of RAM being enough for everyone

* the one by Thomas Watson about the worldwide computer market needing only 5 computers

* or more recently, the Commander Taco quote about the iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

Hindsight is funny :)

Edit: Oh, and I have to tell BrandonM, if he's still around: in no way is your
solution trivial for non-developers, even 10+ years after your comment :)

~~~
chriswarbo
> * the one by Thomas Watson about the worldwide computer market needing only
> 5 computers

The interesting thing is, the context of that quote is building-sized
computers being accessed by terminals over the phone network.

Fast forward to 2017 and we have terminals (smartphones) accessing building-
sized computers (datacentres) over the (wireless) phone network.

We can be more charitable by treating all of a company's datacentres as one
big, distributed computer. In which case, what's the world market? It's easy
to pick 5 that cover a big chunk of it; e.g. Facebook, Google, Apple,
Microsoft and Amazon :)

------
ballenf
Be careful what you measure, because you will get more of it. I don't think #
of seconds editing a file is a good proxy for measuring bug free and
understandable code. But if you want more # of seconds with files open and
being edit, this is your tool it seems.

Am I missing something about this product in that it measures anything related
to code quality?

If a company relies heavily this tool to measure its devs productivity, that
would be a red flag about what developer attributes the company rewards. I
guess it could be combined with other measures, but the leaderboard and
gamification will incentivize behavior not closely tied to getting things
done, in my opinion.

And, yes, the success is inspiring and despite my negativity I'd be curious to
hear how the tool has been used to improve a team's productivity. I spent some
time on the product's web page, but it doesn't really address how time spent
in a file relates to productivity.

~~~
rubidium
My read is that this isn't a productivity tool at all. It's a way to capture
who to bill for your work (Billable vs. overhead time).

"generate and send PDF invoices pre-filled with your coding activity." is in
the future roadmap. And the pain of keeping track of billable hours is what
drove him to write it to start with.

Keeping track by program used is a nice-to-have, because then someone on the
team could notice "hey we spend a lot more time with tool X then makes sense,
maybe there's a way to improve that?"

~~~
Domenic_S
> _" generate and send PDF invoices pre-filled with your coding activity." is
> in the future roadmap._

I love the guy's success but man do I hate this idea. I'm billing for more
than time in vim. If you're my client and I'm answering an email from you, I'm
billing you for that. If we're on the phone, the clock is running. If we're on
a Hangout, you're paying.

Could you imagine if your employer only paid you for time spent in an editor?

~~~
welder
This is solved with good UI, where you see the time you were coding as a
starting point then add any non coding time before sending the invoice.

------
whymsicalburito
This seems like it would really help solve my time tracking needs at work, but
having this sending that data to their servers makes it a non starter. Time
tracking is my #1 pain point at work right now and would signup today and pay
if an offline version was made available.

~~~
ejcx
That's what people have said about passwords with password managers, private
keys with keybase, their servers and legal documents with AWS and docusign,
their banking with online banking, etc etc. The list goes on and on.

This kind of thing doesn't stop people. I think it just means you end up with
fewer good products to use.

~~~
whymsicalburito
It literally just did stop me from using this product... Just because some
people choose to trust some companies with some of their data, doesn't mean
that it isn't a valid issue.

~~~
ejcx
> This kind of thing doesn't stop people. I think it just means you end up
> with fewer good products to use.

To be more clear. This won't stop the vast majority of people. They want to
use good products. If it's good, they will use it.

------
lynnetye
"Growing by word of mouth has worked great." <\-- That's the dream right
there.

------
mokkol
Installed the plugin after I saw the Indie Hacker interview. Really like the
product so far! It integrates very smoothly and I like the fact that you don't
have to login to use the product. Recommended!

------
throwaway2016a
Congratulations. I'm not sure if the actual author is on this thread or this
was posted by someone else but maybe someone can answer...

One problem I have bootstrapping my SaaS is that I have no money to market. I
can tweet and do direct marketing but that is slow and time consuming. Any
recommendations from the crew on HN with how I can market to a large audience
without needing a huge budget to spend on Adwords and things like that?

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Affiliate marketing might work, depending on your SaaS. e.g. this is what
drove convertkit to 600k MRR

> Once we hit about $20,000 MRR (through direct sales and word-of-mouth) we
> added an affiliate program. That worked exceptionally well because bloggers
> — our target market — are used to using affiliate programs to generate
> revenue. Also, if a small business owner loves your product they might tell
> 2-3 friends. But if a blogger loves your product, they'll tell 20,000
> readers! So we had a very natural distribution path built in.

> We decided to pay a 30% recurring commission each month, rather than a large
> upfront commission, mainly because we didn't have any cash and couldn't
> cashflow anything up front. That turned out to be a great decision since
> many bloggers want a predictable, recurring income source.

> Later on we started doing webinars with our affiliate partners as a way to
> help them drive more sales. This not only grew our email list significantly
> (up to 50,000 subscribers in a year), but also drove a ton of new revenue.
> Today we pay out just over 10% of our revenue each month to our affiliates."

~~~
throwaway2016a
Thank you for the suggestion.

> "Once we hit about $20,000 MRR"

Interesting. I wonder why the $20k MRR... I have $50 MRR (dollars... not
thousands). But I don't see anything about affiliate marketing that would
prohibit starting early.

~~~
jajern
This is going to be dependent on a few factors (market, product, etc.) but I'd
rather be an affiliate for a product with a proven track record of conversions
unless I really love a product and just want to promote it. If I know a
product already has a high conversion rate and $20k+ MRR then I feel better
about the prospects of sending 20k people there and getting a hefty percentage
than I would about a new product bringing in $50. Maybe my thinking is wrong
though.

------
_nothing
Huh. I remember a couple years ago I was at a hackathon when some guy just
came up to me and some friends, handed us stickers with this logo while
mumbling a few words, and walked away. I don't remember that person actually
pitching anything and I'm not sure if it was Alan or someone he hired to give
out stickers.

~~~
welder
That was me o_O

------
pedrodelfino
It is funny to see this post. I started to use this product three days ago. A
friend told me about it (word of mouth). It is great. I use RescueTime since
2013, but the WakaTime product has complementary features.

------
unixhero
What a great success story. All the best. Motivational for me personally as
well.

------
TAForObvReasons
> I don't use paid advertising, because past Facebook ads resulted in mostly
> fake signups that never installed a plugin.

Is this still generally true in 2017?

~~~
p0nce
Don't know for the market in general, but the efficiency of Facebook ads seems
to be slowing a lot for us.

------
bg451
I thought Wakatime was originally a 2 person startup?

------
SadWebDeveloper
Infrastructure cost is quite high, almost on the same level as Pied-Piper
wonder how much time before something better or even free appears.

Also if any dev is reading, a good addition will be able to run this on my own
premises, this is some information valuable for project leads but its hard to
justify monthly cost for something you usually take for granted.

~~~
welder
> its hard to justify monthly cost for something you usually take for granted

That's the hardest part about products for devs, we understand how things work
and therefore obviously we shouldn't pay for something we could build
ourselves.

------
itimetrack
I love wakatime...

I'm currently writing an integration (beta) that will take your wakatime
history (heartbeats), and convert it into billable hours (15 minute chunks)...
it is available for free at: [http://itimetrack.com](http://itimetrack.com)

Congrats to Alan!!!

------
partycoder
Problem with productivity is that at some moment it becomes a zero sum game.
e.g: let us say you code 18 hours a day. you are eating into your sleep, your
physical well being and eventually you will end up producing less... if not in
the short term, in the long term.

------
nathan_f77
One thing missing from the post was when the founder quit their job to work on
this full-time (or if they've even done that yet?) Also they didn't mention if
they were still a solo founder and developer.

~~~
welder
Sorry, forgot to mention that. Im the sole founder and I didn't quit my job
for it... So it's been a side project alongside my day job.

~~~
nathan_f77
Whoa, that's surprising! Could I ask, what is your day job at the moment?
There wasn't any current company listed in your LinkedIn profile.

Just asking because it must be an awesome place to work if you're still there!

~~~
welder
I built WakaTime when working as a dev at WhiteHat Security, and through the
years I've worked at Prezi, contracting independently.

------
otterpro
I've heard of Wakatime but never signed up for it until now, after reading the
post. Vim plugin installed, and trying things out, but so far it's great. I
really like the dashboard and the metrics.

------
tobltobs
Does anybody has any experience with the mentioned nephoscale.com?

~~~
welder
It's great if you want a lot of VMs or a lot of network io. It's basically a
cheaper ec2.

------
GiovanniFrigo
Been using your tool almost since day one. It's lightweight and simple enough
to provide me with exactly the metrics I need. Keep up the good job!

------
amelius
Does this tool upload my code to a server to analyze?

~~~
rch
No it doesn't, and the tool integrations are open source.

[https://github.com/wakatime](https://github.com/wakatime)

------
madarco
Why this needs a lot of plugins, while RescueTime do that with a single app?

------
calbear81
Congrats on the success Alan!

------
kirykl
What would be your conversion (for the 100k users) at $1 a month ?

~~~
welder
Probably the same conversation rate because I increased the price from $5 to
$9 and there was no change in conversion rate. So just less revenue.

------
gormo2
To waka or not to waka That is the question

