Ask HN: If you had 7k to spend on a SaaS launch, what would you do?
We're a small, bootstrapped company whose SaaS product has been in public beta since 2016. We're finally about to launch commercially and have been advised to spend real money to try to capitalize on the launch. We've set aside 7k.
I've contacted a few boutique PR firms in my area (Sweden) and my distinct impression is that they don't get what we're trying to do and lack the connections necessary for us to get placement where it matters. (Our product is "Excel for apps," a web service enabling anyone with spreadsheet skills to create line-of-business web apps.)
If you were in our position, how would you spend the money? Would you hire a PR firm or would you try to do the work yourself and spend the money on advertising? Or do something else entirely?
10 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 32.4 ms ] threadYou're probably better investing that money in advertising. Or flying out and meeting new clients. It really depends on the industry and how 'niche' your product is, and how you can connect with your customers.
Conferences can sometimes be interesting as well, if they allow you to connect with people in your industry.
If you're manpower limited, you could double down on marketing channels that are already effective for you, or spend the time and money testing channels.
Check out the book 'Traction' by Gabriel Weinberg (of DuckDuckGo).
As I mention elsewhere in the thread, we have been advised to not let the "newsworthiness" of our launch go to waste, meaning that we should take the opportunity to get some press. It probably isn't worth 7k, though. E-mailing a select few publications ourselves and spending the money on advertising on blogs of interest to our demographic is probably a much better use of the money.
But, what if it doesn't succeed? What then?
Better approach is "how can we reach potential customers repeatedly". Because that way if first launch doesn't work as well as expected, you have second launch, and third launch, and fourth launch.
(Mostly learned from https://stackingthebricks.com, though I don't see direct article about this at first glance.)
After that, advertising is one way to go if you have a clear = small market that you want to attack first (unclear from your comment, you say "anyone with spreadsheet skills")
Finally, you could invest in blog posts/tutorials to showcase how your SaaS can solve problems in different domains. I find this very useful because if you try to write a 3 steps tutorial and you find out it's 10 pages long, then you may be encouraged to simplify your product from a "new user experience" point of view.
(We spent years doing contract work in the health care industry, creating drug dosage calculators and the like using our own app builder, so there are definitely other verticals as well.)
There’s something wrong with your messaging.