I have been asked about any helpful and advantageous learnings from running BearTax , a SaaS startup solving cryptocurrency tax problems.
Testing proactively
User testing is more than important in the B2C world. Make sure you get some users to use your product right in front of your eyes so that you get a fresh perspective on how things are done outside in the real world. We use a heatmap application Hotjar to understand user behavior and continuously improve our application every day.
Customer support
The volume we serve every day has been increasing and it has become almost impossible for founders alone to tackle it, so we ended up hiring support staff. I would suggest everyone starting a business to get a support person early in the game so that they know in and out of the application to provide better customer service.
Have a solid FAQ page and redirect most of your traffic there and still get their questions answered perfectly.
Handling rebuttals and getting back in the game.
Network & Distribution
Networking well from being reserved. In the era of technology, meeting people outside has become less prominent. The old techniques always work, try to attend networking events and get to know people. Learning from other's mistakes and experiences is important. One of the beginner mistakes that tend to happen is not following up with the people whom you’ve met at the event. The big guys/speakers will always listen to what you say and end the conversation with “reach out to me and we can talk more.” because they know that 90% of the people don't exactly do that. So take that extra minute and just reach out to the people you’ve met. You will be surprised to know whom you get introduced to you and where your product goes.
Always be curious
Keep a track of changing winds in your domain. Also, have an eye on what you are paying in your daily life. It could be a coffee or a travel agent or tax-preparation - if it matches what you are interested in (coding, Fintech, and cryptocurrency in my case) - you can build a product out of it.
Launch
Don’t aim for a perfect product to launch. Make a minimum viable product and have an enthusiastic team to grow it further at a fast pace as a response to the feedback you receive. This has helped us grow from a bare-bones platform to something that is connected to 50+ exchanges, multiple wallets, integrations, and much more. Having a well-thought architecture for what you are building (scalability model, adaptable nature, and more which could be related to even non-SaaS products)
Track your progress & performance
Tools that can help you track the utilization of certain pieces of your platform will give you a clear picture of prioritization. Having them from the initial stages will definitely help. Tools are always good - but it is also important to infer in the right way. This is the responsibility of the co-founder who knows the domain well and what has to be inferred from user-actions.
Partnerships
Explore partnerships and where you can pitch in to help solve someone’s problem. They might not be looking for it or they may be rebuilding or reinventing what you already did. Identify and lend your hand and these partnerships could help you get a better reach. BlockFi has been one of such good partners for us in the initial stages.
Classic marketing
Email lists, SEO, and other classical concepts that have been in existence since the beginning of web 2.0 are the most important ones and cannot be ignored. All the new tactics are to enhance the conversions after you get your prospects - but these are not to be ignored.
Check out our platform and let me know your feedback.