One and a half years ago, I would have never believed that I would be running a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business. In fact, I was quite annoyed with all the hype that was generated around them.
"Reliable monthly income!"
"Just follow this blueprint!"
"Here is a template, just fill in your content!"
"Just raise your prices!"
All of these slogans – and more – were thrown around on Twitter – and they really antagonised me. It felt like running a SaaS business was some kind of cult. A cult where there's only one metric that counts. The holy grail – monthly recurring revenue. You better squeeze the last drop out of it.
The mindset is "growth over everything". New customers, higher prices, outsource the repetitive tasks.
And I get it. If your goal is to sell your business as quickly as possible, all of that is valid.
But I don't run Magic Pages to sell it. I run it because it's incredibly fun for me. And because I don't need to squeeze every last drop out of it, I make the conscious decision to spend as much time as possible in customer support. Don't tell the money-bro SaaS founders though – because customer support is the real gold mine – and let me tell you why 🤫
Of course, we could sit down and run the SaaS blueprint everybody is raving about. Create an MVP, a barely functioning product, then pump everything into marketing. Maybe later, think of optimisations. The usual advice I saw on Twitter (back when I was still on there) was to spend 50% in marketing, 50% in development.
Here is my formula: spend 50% in customer support, 25% in marketing, and 25% in development of your product.
Why? Because the questions that pop up in customer support – be it emails or live chats – will show you exactly what your next steps should be.
An hour ago I received this chat message:
I quickly answered it – and poured the answer into a new help center article:
Jannis Fedoruk-Betschki
Baaam. Great customer support (they got a reply within 2 minutes) – and new content. I have been doing that with every single question lately.
What are the terms and conditions of the affiliate program? You got it.
Why is my Magic Pages website using the www. subdomain? Here you go.
And the most important question of all: Can I get a discount? Sorry, no.
By spending so much time in customer support, I don't need to do much audience research. I don't need to figure out what people are unsure about.
Everywhere I go to talk about Magic Pages (forums, reddit, etc.), I always tell people to use the support chat as much as they can. It might be a huge pain for some founders – but it's absolutely worth it.
By being present, actively listening, and then transforming these insights into content pieces, I have not only saved myself countless hours of research, but completely smashed people's expectations towards a one-person business, and built a real content machine (Hi Google 👋) along the way.
So, if you're running a SaaS yourself, give it a go. Get rid of the 50/50 split between marketing and development, and spend half your time in customer support. You'll thank me in a few months!
(And yes, the clickbaity title was necessary, because that's what good SaaS founders do, right? I mean, that's what Twitter bros say. So, it's gotta be correct, for sure.)