Posted by drvroom 1 day ago
Ask HN: Why there is no demand for my SaaS when competition is killing it?
I posted to all channels (except HN) yet I don't see much demand. We clearly see how businesses, small and large, could benefit from our SaaS saving their staff at least 10 hours for real. Our initial testing shows it works great.
Is there slump in SaaS selling or are we doing something wrong. I am pretty sure it is the later.
Why businesses, especially marketing/sales leaders or product managers, won't show interest in our SaaS. My competition research shows they are growing fast.
Yet, I can't get anyone to use it for free when we clearly add more value for 1:1 feature comparision.
Am I missing something? Has all marketing changed to paid campaigns on Google or Influencer marketing on X, TikTok? We don't have a big (or even medium size) budget.
How do I sell my SaaS to SMBs and large corporations when they don't even reply.
Also get out in the real world, go to meetups, or wherever you might meet potential clients and show them your app up close. They will probably be cordial and kindly dismissive, but you might get some real feedback. It's harder to ignore someone when they are standing in front of you.
Paid marketing doesn't work in my experience. Social media is cheap. I've had an app get thousands of views based on a reddit post, and not one person (literally 0) bothered to click outside of the page (i.e. were curious what app this is). Social media is a false sense of validation, even if you get a hit.
Direct sales is the only thing that I found that works consistently. Get in front of anyone in this organization.
My guess is you're trying to do too direct so you send a spammy email telling them how great your product is. Don't do that. Don't try to sell them anything. Don't even tell them you have a product. Just get them on a zoom call and ask them what they do now and why it sucks. People are much more receptive to take a call and tell you about what they do or their problems than they are to hear a sales pitch.
I also do the same with anyone that cold emails or calls me - 99% look to be a waste of time. When we still worked in an office you'd hear the telephones ring across the office one by one, as the robocaller worked through the extensions. Many ended up turning the ringer off, because otherwise it is an onslaught that is far more disruptive than whatever pain point they might actually be able to solve. So "Get in front" of someone sounds good, but I would guess it is hard.
But almost all the cold emails I get are trying to sell me something like an award or a list of potential clients which is something I'm not interested in so i react the same
And if you don’t believe in it how on earth are you meant to sell it?
This is a bit late to solve that problem. You ideally figure these things out before you build an entire product.
It's random. See it as something like gambling. It's a healthy way to approach it. And ideally, do it with someone else's money.
your users are most likely going to stick with: products they already know, or something that's already popular. To entice users away from the competition, they need to see a clear value proposition that addresses their pain points, and preferably not just in marketing copy.