The Advice SaaS Startup Founders Would Give Their Younger Selves

This is the HN thread, which doesn&#x27;t seem to be linked: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37834908">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37834908</a>

My advice is pretty simple.<p>Start with the customer. If you can get them excited &amp; keep them that way, you solved most of the problem. If you are building something with hopes that &quot;they will come&quot; you are burning cash for fun and no one is going to care when it runs out.<p>The other piece of advice I would add is that, even though SaaS starts with &quot;Software&quot;, you should <i>NEVER</i> start with the software. You should be starting with on-site meetings with your customers. Consulting about the processes the software <i>might</i> be able to help with. You should only start talking about things like clouds, containers and code once you have a schema that the <i>customer</i> can look at and go &quot;aha! That&#x27;s our business!&quot;.<p>Both pieces of my advice deeply involve the customer in some way. It&#x27;s incredible to me how many &quot;entrepreneurs&quot; are blind to the fact that someone is eventually going to have to <i>want</i> their product, and for profitability to occur that prospect probably can&#x27;t be their family member, SO or best friend.

&gt; Genuinely create value for society - not just look to make a buck. It&#x27;s more sustainable and rewarding in the long run.<p>I loathe reading stuff like this. Money is so important until you have it, and then it becomes fashionable to talk how there are more important things.<p>To any SAAS founders who feel strongly that there are more important things than money, feel free to give away your fortunes to feed the hungry if you’re in search of a higher calling. There are many who would appreciate it.

Well intentioned list, and generally peppered with survivor (or failure) bias when trying to consume these bullet points without the context of the contributor.<p>The best across-the-board advice that I&#x27;ve heard from others:<p><pre><code> - Own it. Be the best operator for everything in your business. - Scale last. Very few companies have failed because they couldn&#x27;t scale the business (but did everything else right). - Keep at it. Blood, sweat and tears. </code></pre> Even at that, the mentors who I&#x27;ve had in the past said take these things with a grain of salt.

Some truthful but slightly generic tips in here. The big missing thing always is not so much the &quot;what&quot; but the &quot;how&quot;.<p>How do you find good people? How do sell before building? How do you find a good marketer? How do you reach $500k revenue in one year?<p>There are no easy answers, playbooks etc. here. It all depends on industry, customer profile, market circumstances etc.<p>Also, without trying to be overly sour, these tips should have a source with them noting the founder&#x27;s company stage. Tips from folks doing $1M ARR+ tend to be more useful than those from $3000 ARR.

This would be much more valuable and fair to the contributors if it linked to the original posts. Reading isolated HN comments is like eating the cheese from a pizza: it might be great on its own but you get the real good stuff when it’s all together.

Prioritize relationships and sales over technical excellence of the product. “Never give up” is horrible advice, this isn’t a movie script- if your formula isn’t working change it.

Gonna sound like an asshat, but really, a mere 40 answers filled with what I could read in any Wired or similar publication... not too much value.<p>To boil it down: at the end of the day you need capital, clean execution, and aquire the correct customers. (the classic and infinitely repetitive trope of PrOdUcT MaRkEt FiT)<p>As many comments say, the magic is in <i>how</i> you do this (which no one seems to know! or explain!)<p>Maybe that&#x27;s the real SaaS product we all need!

Also some questions<p>- how much is the role of product vs distribution? - should be go aggressive on distribution with a relatively new product?

Good advice here!

My advice for founders building a B2B SaaS...<p>* YOUR FIRST HIRES SHOULD BE CUSTOMERS *<p>You&#x27;ll be building the right thing from the start. Selling will be easier too since confidence in the team is just as important as the product. Onboarding will be easier too. Support will be easier too. Heck, everything is easier.<p>Other advice:<p>*DO NOT HIRE A PROFESSIONAL PRODUCT MANAGER*<p>Instead, provide product management training to that customer you hired. You&#x27;ll avoid playing the telphone game. Your devs will be closer to the customer this way.