Simon started his career in selling software. As he learned more about the world of software, he gradually transformed into a software developer and freelance consultant.
Simon build a SaaS product last year. Here is what he learned from trying to build an audience:
About Building an Audience
He spend a month on trying to understand his audience without trying to sell anything. His focus was on being helpful and consistently offering help.
He’s giving away 90% of his content for free, and asks for money far down the road.
The first 500 followers are the hardest. Social proof helps you as soon as you overcome the initial bump.
Simon’s top tips for starters:
- provide actionable value
- don’t ask for anything in return
- post content consistently
- focus 75% of your effort on engaging with your audience
- follow big social media accounts, and provide value there without copying the content, show respect
There will be haters on social media. Don’t feed the trolls. Prepare for the critics.
About Building a SaaS Business
Simon build the tool that he wanted to see (scheduling social media posts). He build a small open-source application first.
He build a MVP and found people interested in the product via Twitter. Then he constantly sought feedback and improved the product.
He’s now bootstrapping the business. As a founder, you might need to dog-food the business, as it might not be profitable yet.
On social media, you’ll see a lot of success stories. But often you don’t see the hard work that happened before the “overnight success”.