jkulmala

Michael, I learned Rails from your tutorial and started implementing my SaaS app the day I hit chapter 14. That's how I went from corporate Java slave to location-independent entrepreneur. Your tutorial is that good, it's all I needed.

Thank you so much for keeping the tutorial alive!

Do you subscribe to Seth Godin's or Simon Sinek's posts?

This is a series of similar very small posts, but instead of being inspirational, they talk about SaaS metrics and how to use them.

Here's an example:

"At Growth Ceiling MRR your current marketing spend is required just to prevent your SaaS from shrinking.

As your business grows, eventually the back door will have as much traffic as the front door. Aim to be profitable at that point. Try to keep the Growth Ceiling MRR 20-50% higher than your MRR goal".

I've used Scrum/Agile for several years and daily stand-ups seemed to the thing a lot of people hated. As a started my own business (Financial Analytics for SaaS) I finally understood why. An effective process shouldn't need polling to keep it going - which the meetings really are.

I'm happy to see new processes appear, where that kind of extra hassle is removed, like: http://timeblock.com

In timeblock, communication happens when a developer can't get his task done. Otherwise everyone can assume that the week will proceed as planned.

In practice this seems to keep people happier than Agile/Scrum.

It's not what they pay, it's what they get to reduce. If you purchase supplies etc. you get to reduce the VAT you've paid.

So if you have $0 VAT from EU purchases, but $40 VAT from sales, you pay $40. But if you paid $40 VAT from EU purchases, and have $40 VAT from sales, you pay out $0.

Yes, as said, they have pretty much covered everything.

You can find some more detailed information here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-and-custo...

That's a great blog post, Major_Grooves - Thanks for shouting out!

I totally agree and addressed that in my other blog post which is targeted to EU folks: http://www.happybootstrapper.com/2014/eu-vat-changes-online-...

I hope lots of people read it and sign up the petition to set up a revenue threshold: https://www.change.org/p/pierre-moscovici-a-unilateral-suspe...

Thanks for the correction, I updated the blog post.

I explain that in this other post for EU guys: http://www.happybootstrapper.com/2014/eu-vat-changes-online-...

Reverse charge moves the VAT-paying responsibility from you to your customer in another EU country. The responsibility can only be moved from business to business.

You’ll write an invoice/receipt without VAT (or 0% VAT) and include a text “Reverse charge, VAT directive art. 44” and you are done. In practice the text is often missing, as people re-use the same invoice format they use for non-EU sales.

+1 to this. I use Highcharts in my product and have saved much more work than their licensing fee cost me.

Thanks for letting me know. I'll take a look at that.

Dave's Pirate Metrics is great. If you like it, you might also enjoy this matrix that maps the most common SaaS key metrics to pirate metrics phases: http://www.happybootstrapper.com/2013/pirate-metrics-matrix/

You are totally entitled to your opinion, but here's what happened from my point-of-view:

1. You read/skim my post

2. You assumed I'm selling advice (or info-product)

3. You assumed I didn't know my topic

4. You assumed I would be stupid enough to tell people "gee, I don't know anything about this biz optimization thing" while selling advice on the topic via the same channel

5. You assumed I was a "get rich quick seeker" out of my depth

6. You assumed that Amy's course somehow was responsible for this

7. And now it's not Amy - it's us students, who the courses like this attract

I'm not offended though, I'm just amused. LOL. And I can see how my communication and not being native english-speaker are partially responsible for this.

The funniest thing here is that many of us "get rich quick seekers" in Amy's course have spent years building online businesses. Yeah, we definitely don't like what you are saying :D

I'm not trying to sell 'how-to' while learning 'how-to'.

There's a reason why my blog articles are boring "how to calculate your metrics right" posts instead of more sexy "try these things for better conversions" type of posts. I'm not a CRO or business optimization expert and I'm not trying to pass as one.

That would be fake and it would hurt my business.

Like I said in my post, my problem is that people don't realize that SaaS Compass doesn’t rely on my knowledge on how to run a SaaS. They, like you (even after reading my post!), expect that it would and look for that authority.

It's a question of perception and selling, not of a real lack of experience/expertise.

As Amy said, it's about copywriting. But I also have this gut feeling that no matter how I present SaaS Compass some people are still going to look for more "authority" or whatever it is.

Thanks, Amy!

I can honestly say that what you have taught me in 30x500 has sliced years off the learning curve of online business!

Hmm...

Do I need authority to solve a problem? No. If I can solve a problem, I can solve it.

Does missing authority mean that I'm not an expert? No.

I need (web) authority for selling. Don't mix up authority and expertise. It's possible to know a lot about something and still have zero authority in web.

Does solving a familiar problem mean that someone will buy it? No. And if you don't have customers, you don't have a business.

What you present here is just a more intelligent version of "if you build it, they will come" and we all know that doesn't work.

It doesn't matter what all fancy stuff I'd have skill & expertise to build if I can't sell any of it.

And as I said in that post, I'm happy and proud of this launch's performance :)

You are mixing up the mistakes I made and what 30x500 teaches.

I went against Amy's advice when I picked my audience/product. The process does take care that you'll have the authority to sell what you build. I just wasn't following the process to the point.

That's hardly someone else's fault than mine. In fact, I'm very happy with 30x500 and recommend it to anyone interesting in building an online product business

Thanks! You are SO right!

I had some extra challenges on authority all along since I didn't pick an audience that I'd belong in myself. I just couldn't see myself writing technical tutorials for Java developers - and I didn't want to pick accountants either.

And I did a huge amount of little mistakes! I consider myself lucky in that I eventually reached the launch goal at all.

Yes, you are right. I found out the name conflict only week before launch and it was too late to change it for this particular launch.

Maybe later...

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

Well, immutable classes are final. Thus, suggesting to make it abstract does suggest the opposite, IMHO.

String is immutable for good reasons. It's explained in Joshua Bloch's Effective Java, which should be mandatory reading for all Java programmers.

Thanks for the tip! I'm going to cover the individual metrics in my future post and it's a great idea to later on link the individual articles to this one.

Thanks! I have another sheet for SaaS. With SaaS, you'll want to compare MRR and/or Customer Life-Time Revenue instead of single price-point sales revenue.

But nothing is stopping you from using this for services too.

I just finished reading this and it's a goldmine of information.

If anything, it's priced too low ;)

The best part for me was the focus on bootstrapping costs and the lists of things to take into account when budgeting.

Sure. The diet I follow is Schwarzbein Principle, but I've had lots of influences from Art Ayers (http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.fi), SCD and Paul Pitchford's Healing With Whole Foods. And from several other sources too...

I came out from paleo/lowcarb with very high insulin levels. Also had my adrenals exhausted (ASI test show this one). It took me several years to regain my health.

I follow up the situation using Genova Diagnostics Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis (CDSA2.0) and measuring certain vitamin and mineral levels.

My personal experiences on gluten intolerance supports the views in this article.

I started fixing my health problems with gluten-free low carb paleo in 2003. After 6 years I had to face the fact that even though my weight was optimal, my health was deteriorating.

I switched into a diet optimising gut bacteria and hormonal balance. To my surprise, it seems I am no longer gluten intolerant. I still don't eat it much, just to be on the safe side. But when I do, I get no adverse effects.