Forem: Kennedy Rose

Quick & Free Method for Making Logos (2022)

Kennedy Rose — Wed, 11 May 2022 13:38:00 +0000

I've created a number of startup brands over the years, and they all need branding. Logo creation isn't hard if you're not picky and don't mind a tiny bit of effort.

These tips are mostly just for early stage startups, bootstrapped founders, and anyone who can't afford a designer. If your business is already making enough money to afford a designer, do it. Good design is definitely something to focus on once you've already achieved product-market fit.

But for the rest of us who are just getting our brand off the ground and aren't designers, read on...

Tools

Figma

Figma is an amazing alternative to Adobe XD or Sketch. It's easy to use and completely free.

I usually build my logos in Figma, and export them out as SVG when I use them for websites. It's also a great collaboration tool since it's web-based and easy to share projects with other users.

Icons

Many people make the mistake of starting with clip art for their logo. Clip art usually has too many colors, doesn't size down well, and often just looks terrible. Start with an icon instead. They're much simpler, resize well, and are easier to edit.

If you've got experience with vector illustrations, you can illustrate your own. But I usually download icons for free and alter them in Figma. For a quick startup logo, it still looks pretty professional if you keep it simple.

If you download icons for your logo, make sure to download SVGs and not PNGs. PNGs look fuzzy when you resize them above their natural dimensions and have a much larger file size.

Make sure you always check the license before you download an image to use for your logo. Many websites will let you download their images, but their license requires you to link back to their site or prohibits you from using the image for commercial purposes entirely. UXWing is a great resource for icons that are free for commercial use without attribution. Start there and move to Google if you can't find something that works for your logo.

Research

Don't create your logos in a vacuum. Look at competitor logos and imagine yours on a list next to theirs. Does it stand out?

Do research on your target audience as well. What other kinds of brands do they like? If possible, create a poll or survey to ask your target audience directly what they think about your logo options.

Tips

Simple logos are harder to screw up, look great in a variety of different use cases, and usually stand the test of time better than more complex logos.
Only use 1 color, and pair it with black or white.
Only use 1 font. If you need variety, use one other weight of the font.
Don't do all capitol letters if your brand's name is two words combined into 1. Proper capitalization can help users pronounce the name at a glance. Example: "DesignSync" is much easier to read at a glance than "DESIGNSYNC".
You should be able to blur your eyes and still read the words and identify any imagery.
Adjust the spacing between letters (this is called "kerning"). Go with what looks natural and feels easiest to read.

Logos I've made using this method

You can see a few of the logos I've created in the cover image at the top of this article. Nothing revolutionary, but they were all free and none of them took longer than 3 hours or so.

How to Start Your Own Webflow Agency

Kennedy Rose — Mon, 02 May 2022 15:17:56 +0000

A few months ago, we publicly launched Snap, a subscription-based web development and hosting service/micro-agency. We use a number of tools, some are code-based, but many are no-code like Webflow. Webflow helps us do frontend development at an exponentially faster pace than our old development process.

Starting Snap was much easier than I initially thought it would be. So I wanted to share what I learned in case anyone else is thinking about starting their own Webflow agency as well.

Pros

Speed of development
Plenty of resources and tutorials
Clients can update their own sites easily after development

Cons

If you don't know code, you might have to string together a few no-code tools to do certain things that Webflow can't do alone.

How to Position Your Agency

Pick a specific niche. Don't just do Webflow sites. Couple it with something else you can do well, or a niche market you are involved in. Find pain points in your selected market and create your service around solutions to those pain paints.

Make sure you're not doing the same thing every other agency is doing. Compare your website with other agency sites often and make sure yours stands apart through who you are marketing to, or the kind of problem you are solving.

Building a Website

Write your copy first, before you design your website. Your copy should determine what kind of layout and images you need. I have a whole article about writing effective website copy if you want to dive deeper.

If you're a Webflow agency, you will definitely want to use Webflow to build your site. Your own site will be your clients first impression of the kind of things you delivery and quality they can expect. So make sure it is something that is very appealing to your target audience. Starting from a template is fine, I would just recommend that you change it to the point where it no longer resembles the template you started with.

Don't worry about having a client dashboard or anything like that. You can send payment requests via email with Stripe and let the client manage their billing through Stripe's customer portal. If you really want to build a dashboard for your clients, worry about that after you've successfully got a few customers and have validated that your agency's positioning actually works. Otherwise you're building a dashboard for no one, and wasting valuable time that should be spent on acquiring your first customers and finding your niche. Identify that you have a successful idea before investing any more into it. Customers don't care about if you have a login page on your website or not. They just want their problems solved.

Pricing Your Services

You can charge differently for each client, or have clients contact you for a personalized quote. If everyone in your target audience generally falls into the same price range, then showing public pricing on your website might be a good idea. But if your clients vary quite a bit in the size of their needs, then it might be best for then to contact you for a custom quote.

Find ways of creating ongoing value to your customers. This will help you charge a regular monthly fee and generate monthly recurring revenue (MRR), which will give you much more financial stability. You can resell faster Webflow hosting through CryoLayer, offer to monitor their website with monitoring tools, and/or do a few hours of revisions to the site every month. Just ask the client directly what their problems are and see if it's something you can solve every month on an ongoing basis.

See this article for a more detailed look on many different pricing models you can use for your service.

How to Find Webflow Clients

I would highly recommend reaching out directly to your ideal clients. Don't underestimate cold emailing and DM'ing. Directly selling is still booming and can work great for Webflow agencies. Cold emailing can be a great way to directly and instantly find reach hundreds or thousands of ideal customers all at once.

If you're running a Webflow agency, your ideal client is someone who is already using Webflow. You won't have to convince them to change platforms, and you can probably work their existing site if they don't want to rebuild it. Prospective clients who are already using Webflow will instantly be able to understand the value your agency provides.

Normally getting a list of potential Webflow clients would be time consuming or expensive. Fortunately this is a problem I have already solved for you. No-Code Movers is a live list of thousands of Webflow sites with contact information and social links and updates every month with new sites and site information.

You can search the list for keywords based on your niche, and instantly generate a list of prospects to reach out to via email or DM.

Going Further

Try to listen to feedback and pivot often until you find a good fit between your services and your target audience.

Subscribe to this blog if you'd like to get more information about running your own agency or SaaS business.

5 Things You Need to Do Before Building a SaaS

Kennedy Rose — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 13:52:15 +0000

Before you start building your SaaS, there's a few important things you should do first.

1. Don't Quit Your Job

If you are currently financially reliant on a day job, don't quit if you haven't already. These next few steps you can do when you're still employed. They can take time, but don't require your day-to-day attention full time. Ideally, you should have 2 years worth of savings, as SaaS businesses take time to ramp up. So start saving while you jump into the next steps.

If you already did quit your job, consider freelancing. This will help connect you with people who might buy your SaaS later, while also keeping you financially stable while your SaaS is getting traction.

2. Build Your Skills

If you don't feel confident in one of these areas, you might not be ready. Just take a weekend here and there and learn the basics. None of this stuff is as complicated as it seems, and you don't need to be an expert right off the bat.

Sales

Sales is how you will find and communicate with prospective customers. This doesn't necessarily have to mean meetings and phone calls. Sales can be done through live chats, texts, message boards, and virtually anywhere you can connect with a prospective customer.

Marketing

Marketing is how you will position and present your solution to prospective customers. You don't have to be a designer or copyrighter, but getting down the basics can help tremendously. You can usually buy assets or outsource, but if you don't know the basics you won't be able to distinguish between good and bad design/copy.

Operations

Operations is how you will organize, automate, and scale your idea. Good documentation skills are key here. The better you can document, the easier it will be to outsource, hire, and scale.

Product Development

This doesn't necessarily mean code. No-code tools can get you to a pretty good minimum viable product in the early stages of your solution. Products also don't always mean dashboards and databases. A website with a form that emails you to do something manually is a perfectly fine way to launch the first version of your solution.

3. Generate Ideas

You may want to go broad and build something that works for everyone, but that is counter productive to building a product that stands out and markets itself. It's better to be the sole expert in a niche than to try to break through thousands of products that all solve the same problem. Try to stick within a niche or industry that you already understand.

You will then want to start with one single problem within that niche. Ideally, one you enjoy solving. For example, don't build a hosting solution that does everything for everyone. Maybe just build a landing page generator for one specific industry or one type of customer.

Most people bomb their first few products. Expect it, and get them out of the way as soon as possible. So don't come to the table with one make-it-or-break-it idea, come with at least 10. Keep the ideas pretty simple, ideally things you can build a prototype of in 4 months or less. Here's a few tips for coming up with SaaS ideas.

4. Do Your Homework

Subscribe to newsletters, podcasts, and blogs (like this one!) related to building SaaS products. Listen to the mistakes of other founders so you can protect yourself from the same mistakes. Many founders don't do this and wind up wasting months or even years of time. Give yourself a head start. By listening to others you can boost yourself closer to their level at a fraction of the time/cost that they incurred learning the lesson for themselves.

How I Choose the Right Software to Build Any Product

Kennedy Rose — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 14:23:04 +0000

Picking the right tools to build your product/SaaS is incredibly important. Most people just use the same tools to build every project no matter what it is, and if you're building an MVP or validating a product, sometimes this is perfectly fine! But you should still pause and think a little before selecting the right tools to avoid skyrocketing overhead, technical debt, impossible requirements, etc.

Here's a little insight on my process when I'm planning projects.

Goals

I first create a list of goals. These should not be technical requirements, like programming languages and platforms. Don't think on a technical level yet. These are overall things you are trying to accomplish with the project. Here are three that I almost always start with:

Scales financially: Scales up and down with the budget/needs of the project. If I'm not making any money yet, I shouldn't have any overhead.
Collaborative: Hear me out on this one even if you're not collaborating. If you're working on a team, high-collaboration tools mean you don't have to work on other people's problems. If you're working alone, high-collaboration tools mean you can outsource when you make it big or go through life changes. This one can protect you from disaster no matter what happens.
Efficient: The tool should be fast at the job its doing, and not require much or any maintenance. I don't want to work on the tool itself, I want to build with it.
Optimized for change: There are no perfect solutions, and your needs will change over time. You can sidestep a lot of problems by making sure all tools and platforms you use are easy to swap out when the time comes.

All projects are unique, and usually require additional goals. So I make sure to adjust my goals for each unique project.

Features

Now that I've identified what my goals for the project are, I identify features that are commonly seen in the software that get me closer to those goals.

Web-based: Helps me move much quicker, and easy/cheap to outsource.
Skill-agnostic: For me, this usually means no/low-code tools when possible. Anything that's efficient and easy/cheap to outsource and collaborate with.
Free plan available: I don't want to pay if I'm validating an idea and don't have customers yet.
Shareable: It should be easy to share account control to another employee/freelancer.
Modular: No monolithic frameworks. This helps me optimize for change when I need to swap out part of the stack for any reason.
Popular: I was surprised to find this one was important to me. But to put it bluntly, popularity generally means there is more documentation and free resources available. Network effects are real. Don't just always pick the most popular option without research, but when you're on the fence about 2 options, go with the popular one.

Now think about how different this list would look if even one of those goals in the first section was replaced with a different one. Even one small change would likely lead to completely different features, which would lead to completely different software choices. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for building software, so make sure you're looking in the right places to find what you need.

Prototype

Make a to-do list of every task you will need to do to build your project. Put question marks next to things you're unsure about how long it will take to build, or if it will even be possible.

Select software that has most or all of the features you're looking for and try to build out the parts of your project you're unsure about first. Utilize free trials with everything and just go for it. If you start with the hardest/most unclear tasks first you will very quickly get an idea for which platforms will and won't work for your purposes.

Revise, Revise, Revise

If you use this strategy, you will probably want to edit or add to the features you listed out previously as you discover new issues. This is okay, and a big reason why I go with modular services to build things. If something doesn't work, you don't have to uproot everything you just built, you just replace the one small service that doesn't work for you.

Avoiding Bias

By starting with goals and working your way towards software, you can usually filter out some bias, but not always. For example, most designers will always pick Adobe, and most developers will always always pick code. Bias is normal and expected.

But try to consider the user of the software (the client in many cases). For example, if you're building a blog for a non-technical writer, you should probably avoid giving them something that requires them to edit HTML to make a change on the blog. But if you're building a documentation site for a code library and the only people who will ever edit the documentation are developers, then using code to edit the site is probably fine.

Another example: You absolutely could edit social network marketing images with Ink if you like open source software. This may even be a great option if you're working with a team that is very familiar with Ink. But probably not. Try exploring tools you wouldn't normally use. It's possible using boring tools like Canva would lower the entry barrier and get more people to help you do the things you probably didn't want to do in the first place. If you're working alone and you get overwhelmed, you can find help for dirt cheap if you're using boring tools. The more complicated the tool set, the more likely you are to work alone on your project forever.

How to Create an Explainer Video for Your App

Kennedy Rose — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 16:04:02 +0000

72% of people prefer watching a video explaining your product rather than reading copy about it. Video explainers can often educate users quicker by showing quick visualizations explaining the product, rather than just forcing them to scroll through text explaining what the product does.

Write a Script

Write a few bullet points outlining what you want to go over. You will want to briefly explain the problem, then explain how your product solves the problem. If it helps, pretend each bullet point is a slide in a slideshow.

Then expand your bullets into sentences explaining any additional detail about those sections a user might want. Keep your language simple and informal. Read through it and make sure it isn't too short or long. Keep the length around 60 to 180 seconds.

Make sure to include a call to action at the end, so watchers know exactly what to do if they're ready to sign up.

Record the Voice Over

To easily record yourself from your computer:

On Mac: Use Quicktime Player to record your voice over.
On Windows: Use Voice Recorder to record your voice over.

You are probably your best voice actor. It's free, people like hearing from the founder, and having a personal touch to your products is usually a good idea.

However if you don't want to record the voice over yourself, hiring voice actors from Voices.com is really easy. You pretty much just upload a script, hear a few lines read by a bunch of different actors, and then hire the best one to read the full script.

Editing the Video Together

You've got a lot of options here. But I'd recommend Canva if you don't have video editing experience. There's lots of templates available for you to use and you'll only have to drag & drop in your images and change some text.

Turn each one of those sections from our bullet points earlier into its own scene with a new animation or video of your product.

Recording a Video of Your Product

If applicable, your explainer video should also show some of your actual product in action. Show people what it looks like to get value out of your product. You don't have to show everything start to finish (unless it's quick), but just show a few key features that will help your audience understand your product better.

On Mac: To record a screen capture, press Cmd+Shift+5 and then hit the record button.
On Windows: Use the Game Bar to record your screen.

Music

You'll probably want music, unless you're making a tutorial video. In which case just speech is fine.

You can buy cheap royalty free music at Audio Jungle. There is a lot of free music out there, but the quality is spotty. I wouldn't recommend going free on this one, unless you get lucky and find the perfect free track.

Animations

What would an explainer be without some animations. Canva has some animations built in, but you can find a lot of other great free animations on the Lottie Files site. Just find the one you want, and download it as a gif. Then you should be able to import that to Canva, or whatever other software you're using to edit video.

What's Next?

If you want to take your explainer video even further, you can try A/B testing a few explainer videos with a new script or new visualizations.

You can also try adapting your video for other platforms like social networks.

6 Biggest Mistakes Technical Founders Make

Kennedy Rose — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 14:40:51 +0000

Usually developers like to think of an idea and just start coding. Which is exactly what I did for my first couple of products. But to have the best chance of success, you actually shouldn't write a line of code until you have a plan for a few very important things.

Ignoring Product Market Fit

"There's a gap in the market, but is there a market in the gap?" is a common quote that describes this perfectly. Technical founders often don't have a well rounded enough understanding of the market they're in, and just think their tech skills will be enough.

Make sure you have an idea of the right audience for your product, and make sure they are actually willing to pay for it. Have plans to pivot to new audiences if it doesn't work out.

Not Having a Plan for Monetization

Can you even sell your product? What does the overhead look like? Do your tools and libraries have permissive enough license for you to use them for a commercial product?

Make sure you are pricing your SaaS correctly to cover everything. Ideally, you should be revenue positive after your first client. You should also consider pre-selling your product so that you're revenue positive before you even launch.

Not Researching Competition

Sometimes technical founders don't check competition at all. When they do, usually their plan is to make a simpler version of their competition's product and undercut on pricing. But often undercutting the competition isn't enough.

Instead, what can you offer that your competitor can't? Do some research into your competitors and how their customers feel about their product. Find what their customers need that they aren't getting and offer it in your product.

Not Having a Marketing Strategy

How are you actually going to bring your product to your target audience? SEO on your product's website alone will not likely get you anywhere near where you want to be on the search result pages.

You will need to find out where your target audience is when they need you the most, and find a way to be there to help them. This can be done through ads, social network content, email campaigns, or even cold calls.

Underestimating Time

Developers are notoriously bad at predicting how long it takes them to do something. Which I completely understand. Development on a new project often involves learning some kind of new skill, library, or framework. And the time it takes to do that can depend on documentation, and whatever other resources are available online. Quality in the learning resources can vary wildly, so some things that you'd think would take you a few minutes wind up taking you a week.

I usually take the amount of time that I think a job will take and multiply it by 4. If it seems like a lot of time, then great, you'll finish early and be a hero. Most of the time, I find the padded number winds up being accurate when you factor in bugs and other issues that pop up that you didn't initially know about.

But the real unsung hero here is outsourcing. I know you don't want to because you can do it yourself. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Outsourcing the simple stuff can let you focus on the real business problem you're trying to solve.

Too Much Focus on Technical Features

Don't fall in love with the technical aspects of your product too much. Remember that all your customers care about is what's in it for them. They don't care about how fast your server is, they just want to know how that benefits them directly. If it doesn't benefit them enough or at all, maybe don't put any more time into that particular feature or don't spend any money marketing it. Benefits > Features.

Going Further

If you're a technical founder, me too! Make sure you subscribe to my blog if you want more tips on things to look out for while building your product.

5 Ways to Increase SaaS MRR Without Any New Users

Kennedy Rose — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 11:59:42 +0000

There are many creative ways of using what you have to increase your SaaS revenue without acquiring any new users. You may think this is hard to do, but it can actually be pretty simple for most SaaS businesses. It just requires you to adjust your thinking away from seeing users as the only dial that can turn into the only dial you can't.

1. Charge More

The most obvious, and usually the most effective. If you're worried about what your existing customers will think, you can use new pricing models to upsell. For example, you can offer additional users at an additional cost. Or start charging for usage, or some kind of "credits" system for buying additional usage past a certain maximum amount. This won't affect most of your low-usage users. Your users who are high-usage are more likely to be affected, but they are also getting more value out of your SaaS and are usually fine paying a little extra for their extra usage.

2. Add On Features

If you're about to launch any new features, considering launching them as paid add-ons, instead of just attaching them to your existing plans. Alternatively, if you know your new feature is going to be popular, you can put it in your highest tier. You will likely see a few users upgrade after you announce the feature.

3. Send Emails

It's possible many of your users don't know what the advantages are of your higher tiers. Send out an email to your low-tier users letting them know the benefits of upgrading. You can even offer them coupons if it's not a lot of overhead for you.

4. Remove Your Free Plan

It doesn't have to be forever. But you might have some users on your free plan who are actually fine with paying if there's no alternative. Or if you don't want to shut it down entirely, see if you can remove some important features in the free plan to make it less valuable to stay with or more temporary.

5. No Unlimited Plans

The same is true of your unlimited plans. You can always get rid of these and turn them into usage-based plans, or split them into even higher tiers.

Going Further

You can probably come up with all kinds of other ways of rearranging your pricing to incentivize your existing users to pay more. Just get creative, and pay attention to the features your users get the most value out of.

How to Price Your SaaS Correctly

Kennedy Rose — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 11:56:15 +0000

Most founders only take 6 hours to determine their SaaS pricing strategy, only to realize later that they've priced incorrectly. 98% of SaaS companies changed their prices and saw positive results. If you aren't properly thinking through your SaaS pricing, you may be leaving a ton of money on the table. Or worse, you might price your business into the ground.

There are a few commonly used pricing models for SaaS you need to understand before pricing your product. You can (and should) use a few of these models together. But try not to use more than 2 or 3, as it will confuse your potential customers into not buying.

SaaS Pricing Models

Flat Rate

Flat rate pricing is when you offer a set monthly price for customers to use your product.

It's much easier to understand flat rate pricing than the other models. You can focus all of your copy on just selling a single product at a single price. On the flip side, it's difficult to target multiple types of similar customers when you only have one flat price. You may be out-pricing some of your customers.

Tiered

Tiered pricing is when you offer multiple pricing options to customers, and is very common in SaaS. You usually see this as three or four columns of varying prices.

Tiered pricing can help you target multiple types of customers, making sure that you have a good fit for users with different levels of needs. Just make sure you're not offering too many tiers. Too much friction during the purchasing flow can hurt sales.

Tiered pricing is also great from a negotiation point of view as well. When you offer three or more options, prospective customers are less likely to research alternatives, and more likely to view your tiers as their only options.

Tiered pricing can create challenges if a user exceeds the limitations of what your maximum tier offers. So make sure you have a plan for that, possibly using one of the other pricing models like usage based pricing.

Per User

Per user pricing is when you charge a flat rate for each user on an account using the product. It's not my favorite pricing model. But probably fine if you're building some kind of collaboration software, because then it acts as usage based pricing in a way.

Per user pricing is very easy for customers to understand and calculate, but may not accurately reflect your overhead per user. It is also easy for customers to cheat by having multiple users sign in to a single account.

Freemium

The freemium model is when you allow anyone to use your product for free, but users have to pay to unlock some features of your product. I would consider this more an acquisition method, not a pricing strategy, but I'm still going to include it on this list as it still should be considered at the same time you're setting your SaaS pricing.

Freemium is great for acquisition since it instantly shows users the value of your product (TTV, or "time to value") with considerably less friction signing up. The only downside is that it can unnecessarily increase your overhead. So just make sure you've factored your free users' usage into your paid plans to make sure overhead is covered. Also, make sure you're not giving away too much for free. Free tiers can lead to a higher churn rate if your paying users realize your free product works for them just as well as the paid options you offer.

Usage Based

Usage based pricing is when you charge for some kind of usage unit, like for bandwidth, API calls, or storage space.

Usage based is definitely the safest pricing model you can choose as you can directly tie it to the factors that influence your overhead. There is also a lower barrier for small use cases, since the cost might be pocket change for low-usage users.

Unfortunately, usage-based pricing can often be the most difficult pricing model to set up from a technical point of view since your payment processor will need to be wired up to your infrastructure. The development time can sometimes be costly.

Hidden

Hidden pricing is when you don't publicly show your pricing on the site, but it can be provided upon some kind of request, like a phone call or email.

I've heard some people say to not do this, but I would say it definitely depends. There are some products that work better with hidden pricing. Hidden pricing can be good any time you're doing a lot of processes by hand that may take a different amount of time or overhead for each customer, which is common in SaaS products still in beta. So I say just use it when it makes sense. But if you don't have a good reason for doing it, don't do it.

Annual

Annual subscriptions are a form of flat rate pricing, but it has enough differences to make it worth examination as its own model.

Annual pricing is great if your product is something easily stealable by your users after purchase, like source code licensing. This model can protect you from the churn cost of customers who might dip out early for this, or any other reason.

Just make sure it doesn't clutter up your pricing page if you're also offering monthly plans. A simple toggle button between monthly and annual pricing is usually all you need. Don't change the features in your annual pricing, and give a discount for choosing it over monthly.

Choosing the Right SaaS Pricing Model(s)

You'll want to choose 1-3 models and combine them to create your own pricing strategy. The right models for you can depend on your product and overhead, and there's no single strategy that will work for everyone.

It's usually good to profile different use cases and base your pricing off of each profile of person that is likely to buy your product. Consider what the benefits of your SaaS might be worth to them, not just what it's worth to you. Also, be very aware of the overhead each type of user will need and make sure your pricing covers it and leaves room for margins you can reinvest in the growth of your business.

General Tips for Choosing Your SaaS Pricing

You can use a spreadsheet to run calculations on how many users you need to hit your target. Make each row a different pricing setup and play with the numbers to see which pricing model setups get you closer to your goals.
Don't do free pricing for beta. This doesn't validate your product. Validate whether or not people will pay for your product, not whether or not they will use it for free.
Y Combinator determined that the biggest mistake startup founders make with pricing is pricing their products too low. It's more beneficial, and easier to start with higher prices and reduce them when necessary. People get angry when you raise pricing, but everyone celebrates when you lower it.
Lastly, don't listen to customers on what you should price your SaaS. They don't know your goals, overhead, or anything else that's going on behind the scenes. You have more knowledge about your business than anyone else on planet earth. Use that knowledge to your benefit.

The Easy Way to Write Website Copy for Your SaaS

Kennedy Rose — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 12:14:46 +0000

These tips are for busy SaaS developers. No need to take a full course or become an expert on copy writing. There's lots of great writing advice out there, but I wanted to drill down on writing SaaS copy specifically.

General Tips

Content First

Write the copy before even thinking about the design, or buying a website template. Your design should fit around the content, not the other way around. If you start with the design, you will likely start to write "fluff" content to fill out parts of the design you don't have copy for. Writing fluff can seriously damage your conversion rates. Every bit of copy on your marketing site should be working towards converting your website users to customers. You have very little time to capture your users' attention. Use it wisely.

Write Everything Down

Initially, openly accept every bad idea that comes to mind and write it down. Don't worry if it's a bad idea. This will "unclog" your creative faucet. Sometimes the notes from your bad ideas will point the way to the good ones. You can easily see what you're getting wrong once you can visualize your thoughts. Then you can shape those thoughts into something more concise and valuable.

Omit, Omit, Omit

If you can leave it out and the sentence still says everything it needs to, then cut it. You're not writing Shakespeare, you're writing Hemingway. It's okay to do things like end sentences with prepositions, or start sentences with "and", so long as it sounds natural and brief when you read or say it verbally. Avoid large words. Liars tend to use large words and long sentences to cover up the fact that they don't have anything of value to say. Customers can smell this a mile a way. Don't do it.

Break things into paragraphs and sections wherever you can. Don't worry about if it looks too short, so long as it's easy and quick to read.

Lastly, lists are always easier to read than comma-separated sentences. If you're listing something on your site, use a billeted list.

If you want to really see the difference, here's a great visualization of these concepts

My Writing Process

Step 1: Lots of Bulleted Notes

First write your copy down as unorganized bulleted notes. Don't worry about getting the order right, first just get it down. Nest bulleted lists within other items when you need to expand into more detail. I would suggest using digital tools like Notion so you can rearrange the bullets easier.

Step 2: Arrange Notes into Slides

Thinking in terms of slides of a presentation, rather than pages can really help you understand the appropriate hierarchy and order of your content. I usually try to arrange my notes into 5-10 slides if I can.

Include images if you can, since you'll need those for the website as well. Every slide should have some kind of visualization on it, whether it's a screenshot of your product, visualizing data in a graph, or icons on lists of technology. No slide should look boring.

Examine every line and word of copy. Ask yourself if it helps sell your product. If the answer is no, remove it. Be ruthless, and keep doing this until your copy is as simple and clear as possible without losing any of the important details necessary for the customer to know. Avoid big fancy words.

As a bonus, this step can also help if you actually do needs slides. In my case, I usually reuse these slides for things like Product Hunt listings and video conferences with potential enterprise clients.

I use Figma to create my slides, but Google Slides is perfectly fine too.

Step 3: Arrange Slides into Pages

Group slides that should be on the same page, or just combine all of them if you need a single page site. You should use the images you created in the slides to put on the website alongside your content as well.

You will likely need to add a little bit more copy, for things like contact form pages or privacy policies. But having the slides ahead of time helps you focus on the stuff that really matters for your product. You don't need images and visualizations for any page that isn't in your slides. Anything outside of your slide content should not be your main focus. That doesn't mean you should overlook it, just don't spend all your time perfecting the small print in your footer. You have bigger fish to fry.

Now, for more detail on how to actually arrange your landing page...

Landing Page Structure

Your landing page is split into 2 parts, each with their own goals. There's the "above the fold" area and "below the fold" area.

Above the Fold

In website vernacular, the term "above the fold" refers to the top part of a web page that is visible in the browser when it first loads. The goal of everything above the fold is to hook the user and get them to want to keep reading. Because of this, the copy above the fold should do everything to grab the user's attention and be as concise and clear as possible.

Here we'll break down the different parts of an effective landing page above the fold.

1. Title

Explain what you do as simply as possible. Don't be afraid to use industry terms only your target audience would know about. The more you can speak directly to your ideal customer, the better.

One way to hook your ideal customer is to immediately mention their biggest objection, followed by a solution.

Own your niche. Don't be "a" solution, be "the" solution. If you can't do this, that might be a sign you haven't niche'd down enough.

2. Subtitle

Support the title with a very brief explanation how your solution works.

3. Visualization

Show your product off with an image, video, or widget. If you can get your customers using a small prototype of your app, then that's probably the best route. If you can't do this easily, a video or image is fine. Don't get cute a funny meme or something, actually show your product. Would you buy a box of cereal that didn't show you what was inside?

4. Social Proof

Show that there's actual people or companies using your product. This is a great place to show off your best review if you have any. If not, consider giving your product away for free to someone in a community for your niche in return for a quote you can use.

Showing off logos of popular clients who use your service is also an effective method.

5. Call to Action

Make the next step clear. The text in your button should make it obvious what will happen next when they click it. Show your main benefit, or remove doubt by mentioning that it's free.

Below the Fold

I stack the sections below the fold vertically, giving generous space between them. Unlike the above the fold area, we have already hooked the reader into scrolling down, and the letting the content breathe a little bit will make it more readable.

6. Show the Benefits

Don't list out your features, list out the benefits. Customers care about the value your product is adding to their life, not your product's technical specifications. (Unless the technical specifications is what your customer is after.)

Place another CTA button under the list, and reword your main benefit inside the button.

7. Show How Simple It Is

Can you sum your product usage up in a few simple steps? Here you want to give the users some idea on how quickly they can get all the benefits your SaaS has to offer.

Same as before, we'll reword your CTA under this section.

8. Pricing

Put your pricing section here. I'll go into more depth about pricing your SaaS in a future article.

9. Frequently Asked Questions

Address common concerns. Every time you hear a question, put in in the FAQ. Especially if you hear the same question from multiple people.

10. Contact Form

It's good to put the contact form right under the FAQ in case their question wasn't answered in that section.

Other Great Resources for Landing Page Tips

Marketing Examples also has some great tips on this. I use their method above the fold, but vary slightly under the fold since I believe SaaS requires a slightly different touch.

SaaS Landing Page has some great examples. You'll likely see a lot of these following similar layouts, and you might be able to get a few other ideas.

Lastly, I would recommend just looking at what other SaaS websites are doing. But be careful to not just rip off their layout. Strategies that work for larger products, or products outside your domain, might not necessarily work as well for you.

Closing

Using this method doesn't even feel like writing most of the time since I'm just writing bullets, and then rearranging them in different ways. But it can produce some pretty great copy. It's by no means the only way to write website copy, but it has worked out amazingly well for me personally.

Let me know if you also have success with your SaaS by doing this, or if you have a different strategy!

Why You Should Use Low Code Tools to Build Your SaaS

Kennedy Rose — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 15:47:36 +0000

I wanted to dig into some common criticisms against using low code for SaaS.

Why low-code and not no-code?

No-code tools are great for many things, and I use Webflow for the frontend of my websites all the time. But I haven't found any great no-code tools for building web or native apps. Either they don't scale well, or aren't financially sustainable for one reason or another.

Go entirely no-code if you can. But I've found that to create a really great SaaS app that performs unique functions out and stays sustainable at scale, you'll need at least a little code. But I'm sure that varies depending on the project.

What's wrong with coding everything?

Nothing is wrong at all with code. A little code is great when you need it. However, research has been done that shows that bugs increase with lines of code. The simplest way to have stable software is to write less code. The easiest way to write less code is to use mature no-code tools.

Relying on no-code tools for certain things can take a lot of pressure off of developers. It can allow designers to make their own design revisions, marketers to make their own SEO tweaks, and business owners to edit their own business logic. The less time developers are spending on problems that have already been solved, the more time they can spend on the problems your SaaS is trying to solve.

Also, as your SaaS grows, you will likely need to start outsourcing some things. Outsourcing to a copy writer who can edit a Webflow or WordPress site is much cheaper than outsourcing to a copy writer, as well as a developer who needs to implement the changes.

Tactically applying code only where necessary can make the difference between a good product that solves its users needs and a bad one that has elegant code but no users.

What about the overhead?

No/low-code tools are pretty cheap these days, especially tools for website development and user management. A lot of them even have generous free tiers that will get you through the early stages of your SaaS without paying a dime.

So when should I use code and when should I use no/low-code?

Only use code to work on the actual problem your SaaS is trying to solve. Don't code infrastructure, billing, account management, and your marketing site if you don't have to.

Ask yourself if it can be no-code without sacrificing quality of your core product or an increase in overhead. If it using a no-code tool doesn't affect either one of those things, use a no-code tool.

How to pick the right no/low-code tools

When choosing the right tools for the job, always consider the editor as well as the end user. Webflow is a great choice if the editor for that part of the project has design skills, but a terrible choice for working with a developer documentation site that requires syntax highlighting and would only ever be edited by a developer.

For example, the DesignSync.js website is on Webflow, since we may have to pass control off to an marketing agency or freelance designer. But the developer docs are built with a developer tool called Docusaurus. Since I know they would only ever be edited by a developer, it would likely take a developer longer to edit if it was in Webflow.

Ideally, the most boring tool you can pick for the type of person using it is the best tool.

Validating Your SaaS Idea

Kennedy Rose — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 14:50:16 +0000

35% of startups fail because there was no market need for their product. This is alarming since there are a few simple things you can do to protect yourself from this before you even start building your idea.

Product validation is the process of finding customers who are willing to pay for your product, usually before you start building, or in the early stages of building. Here are some common ways founders validate their ideas before they start.

Quick Market Research

Google search your product's domain, plus "market size". For example, if you were building a WordPress plugin for all types of WordPress users, you might search "wordpress market size," and then click on the first few results. This can give you a good overview on the market you're trying to sell in. If the market seems too small, try searching in adjacent markets, or think about charging a higher price if you can.

You should also use sites like Reddit and Quora to find questions about your product idea. For example, if you were going to build a website hosting service exclusively for Drupal sites, you might search for "drupal hosting sucks" and then see why people think it sucks, and see if your idea can solve those problems.

Use Google's Keyword Planner (it's free) to look at search volume for terms related to your idea. If nothing comes up in those searches, but there is a high search volume, you might have found an under-served market that would pay to use your idea.

Lastly, look at reviews and online community posts of similar products or competitors. What are the common praises, complaints, and requests? Could your idea solve those problems?

Selling Without a Product

This is probably my favorite method of validation. It's quick, cheap, and gives you a clear answer on if there is an interest in your idea or not.

Screenshot your prototype. Your prototype does not have to even work yet. If you don't have one, mock one up with a Figma template, or your design tool of choice.
Create a single page website with whatever quick tool you like. I use Webflow. Include your screenshot and a "contact for pricing" or "notify me when this product is available" form.
Launch it! Submit your site to be indexed by Google. Submit it to Product Hunt, Betalist, and any other sites that will allow listings for your SaaS's industry.

Ideally, you want to find your first 10 paying users before you get serious about building your final product. You also want to figure out what your potential customers are wiling to pay for your SaaS if you can. If not a lot of people fill out the form, don't waste your time building an idea no one wants!

If you have a beta version of your product available, make sure you're actually charging for it. We're validating whether or not users will pay for your SaaS, not whether or not they will use it for free. Free and paid customers are not always the same people. Don't worry if you don't have a login, or have to set things up manually for each client. Wistia didn't have a login for 4 years after they launched.

Ask Clients

When in doubt, just ask! If you have freelance or agency clients, just ask them if a product like that would solve their problems, and what they might be willing to pay for it. In my experience, clients love giving their opinion on these kinds of things.

What If Validation Doesn't Go Well?

Sometimes you can often just change your target market to something similar. Maybe businesses don't want your software, but what about schools? YouTubers? Writers? There's loads of other markets out there, see if you can adapt to something else.

Make sure you're listening to all the feedback, complaints, and questions. Do you hear any common trend among them? Can you pivot your idea into something that works for those people?

Lastly, if all else fails, just move on to the next idea! You should be working with a large list of ideas, so it's no big deal if one doesn't pass validation.

9 Most Successful Ways to Brainstorm SaaS Ideas (2022)

Kennedy Rose — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 19:01:00 +0000

Idea generation is super important to coming up with the right SaaS business. Instead of coming up with one idea, you should come up with dozens of them, and then attempt only your best and most feasible ideas. Here are the nine most successful SaaS idea generation methods that have worked for us at Smarter Labs.

1. Freelance/Agency Client Problems

If you do any freelance or agency work, you probably encounter all kinds of problems on behalf of your clients. Keep an eye out for the most frequent problems that you hear multiple clients talk about. This is a good hint that there might be an under-served market for a SaaS that solves that problem.

If you aren't doing any freelance or agency work, you should consider it. You can come up and test a lot of great SaaS ideas, and it's a great way to keep yourself financially covered while you work on your SaaS projects. If you don't want to commit much time, you could try selling your services on Upwork.

2. Public Support Issues

Take note any time you see an issue go unresolved on a support community or forum for another product. It might be a good opportunity to create a service that layers on top of that product that solves the problem for them, or even a brand new product that competes by solving this problem that they can't.

3. Failed Google Searches

From time to time you might try to start problem solving something with a Google search. Occasionally nothing comes up. This can either mean there's no product that solves this problem, or there are products that solve the problem but they aren't marketing to your wording/framing of the problem.

If there's no product on the market, you can use Google's keyword planner (no credit card required) to see if other people are coming up empty on Google too. If a lot of people are searching for the same thing, you may be able to turn it into a good SaaS idea.

If there are other products, but they aren't covering those search terms, you might be able to create a similar product that is more niche to that specific problem. Make sure you write copy so you come up as the first result on Google when people search for that term. This should be very easy if nothing relevant came up for you.

4. App/Plugin Stores

Go to any app or plugin store on popular platforms. Shopify apps and WordPress plugins are two we search around on a lot. You can usually search by category. Find apps/plugin that get lots of bad reviews. The more bad reviews the better. Then try to find an alternative app/plugin. If you can't find an alternative, or all the alternatives also have bad reviews, there's probably a market for building a better version of the broken one you found. Pay close attention to what people say in the reviews, so you know which features to focus on.

5. Use What You Have

Sometimes it's best to not overthink it. Even if you think the tools and resources you have available are lacking, you might be surprised.

Nintendo popularized a methodology of creating products referred to as "lateral thinking with withered technology". The Game Boy wasn't exactly a groundbreaking piece of technology when it came out, but it still sold insanely well. Look for ideas that others may have missed with what you have available. You can often assemble old, mature parts into something new and useful.

You also shouldn't assume that just because the parts have been around for a long time that everything possible would have already been done with them. Suitcases have been around for hundreds of years, and wheels have been with us longer than recorded history. Yet no one thought to put wheels on a suitcase until the 1950's.

6. Job Openings

Search for job openings within an industry that you're very familiar with. Do some research on common job titles and required skills. This can give you an idea on the types of things that people in that industry are struggling with, and give you some indication on what you might build for a SaaS targeting that industry.

7. Adapt Your Other SaaS Products For New Markets

This method is great if you already have already launched at least one other SaaS. You can repurpose the same technology of your other products to serve new markets. Sometimes this can be as simple as adjusting the marketing copy and user dashboard copy/layout, and might not require reworking any of the business logic of your app.

For example, if you have a form building service for booking events, it might not take too much effort to duplicate it to create a new service that books sales calls instead.

8. Sell Your Byproduct

While working on your SaaS projects, client work, or anything else, you are probably generating things to sell that you don't even know about. A few examples:

Blogs can be edited into a book you can sell.
Code from previous projects can be tweaked to serve a more general audience, and you can sell the source code.
Sell keys to a useful API you wrote for another project.
Turn widgets from previous projects into WordPress plugins.

Just make sure you can actually legally sell your work from your clients, and you're not in violation with any of your contracts.

9. Predict Trends

If you have a good track record of predicting trends in the industry that you work in, you may be able to leapfrog competition just by building the thing that you know the world will need next. However, you will still want to validate your idea and make sure there's actually a market for it.

What NOT to Do

Just a few notes on common ways people come up with SaaS ideas that I don't recommend:

Don't just go with your gut. Gut calls are fine, but make sure you also do your research before you start the work.
Don't just come up with only one idea. I used to be an indie game dev, and the best advice I ever heard was from Jesse Schell's "Book of Lenses": "Your first 10 games will suck — so get them out of the way fast." This quote also works very well in the SaaS world. You're going to fail. So expect it the first few times, never repeat your mistakes, and always have new projects to move on to.
Initially, only come up with ideas that will take you 4 months or less. If the idea is too big, try to split it up into a smaller version of the product, so you can still launch in 4 months and iterate over time. You should be growing your features based on customer feedback, not creating everything you think your customers will need. You might be surprised when the feature that took you months to build doesn't even get used.

Conclusion

Often, we will use a combination of these ideas. For example, CryoLayer was born out of our need for better performance for our agency clients, and because we noticed many public support threads of Webflow's other customers having the same problem we did. We then launched DesignSync.js, which contains some of the source code (aka byproduct) that went into creating CryoLayer.

Of course, coming up with an idea is just half the battle to even get to the starting line of building your SaaS. Now that you've come up with a bunch of (hopefully) great ideas, you will also want to validate your ideas before starting to make sure you're not wasting your time building a bunch of products or features no one wants. I'll discuss validation tips that have worked for us in another post very soon.