One Person SaaS Business: Side Project to $40K MRR and Sold
Show notes
Tyler Tringas was $50,000 in credit card debt after his venture-backed startup failed. All he had left was a one person SaaS business making $1,000 a month from store locators priced at $5 each. In this episode, Tyler reveals how he grew StoreMapper to over $40,000 MRR, sold it for "level up" money, and used the experience to launch Earnest Capital - a fund for bootstrappers. Tyler built his one person SaaS business MVP on a single 30-hour flight and had five paying customers within 24 hours of landing. His niche SaaS strategy: latch onto a fast-growing platform like Shopify, prioritize retention over acquisition, and use just-in-time feature delivery to avoid wasting limited time as a micro SaaS solo founder. He never ran paid advertising across the entire five-year history of StoreMapper. Growth came from Shopify App Store listings, forum engagement, and intercepting freelance gigs on Upwork by pitching his one person SaaS business as a cheaper alternative to custom development. 🔑 Key Lessons 🎯 Validate a one person SaaS business by spotting repeated client requests: Three freelance clients asked Tyler for store locator functionality within two weeks - pattern recognition was stronger validation than any survey. 🚀 Latch onto a fast-growing platform for niche SaaS distribution: Tyler listed StoreMapper as the only store locator in the Shopify App Store, giving him a free and steady stream of customers without paid advertising. 📉 Prioritize retention over acquisition during the side-project phase: High retention meant small trickles of new signups still compounded into meaningful MRR growth for his one person SaaS business. 🛠️ Use just-in-time feature delivery to protect limited founder time: Tyler manually emailed receipts from Gmail for two months rather than building automation - only building features when absolutely necessary. 💰 Start cheap to get traction, then raise prices later: StoreMapper launched at $5/month. With 100+ happy customers, Tyler had leverage and data to raise prices substantially for his micro SaaS product. Chapters Introduction Tyler's motivational quote - Hemingway What is Earnest Capital The StoreMapper story begins How Tyler came up with the one person SaaS business idea Building the MVP on a 30-hour flight Five paying customers within 24 hours What is micro SaaS How much StoreMapper sold for $40K MRR and five years to the exit Running StoreMapper as a side project with minimal time Getting the first 100 customers through Shopify No paid advertising - ever Focusing on retention during the side-project phase Just-in-time feature delivery Raising prices and growth strategies Deciding when to hire vs do it yourself Lessons from selling StoreMapper How Earnest Capital works Lightning round Wrap up and where to find Tyler Resources Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/207 Join 5,000+ SaaS founders: https://saasclub.io/email
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