| Readwise URL | https://read.readwise.io/read/01kt2kt8w9a2yg7camvg7rcda6 |
|---|---|
| Readwise ID | 01kt2kt8w9a2yg7camvg7rcda6 |
| Date | 2025-08-02 |
| Author | youtube.com |
| Category | video |
\n\nSource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KaFS4Dxs5k
I met a guy who has the perfect strategy for finding micro SASS ideas. >> I think anyone can build a business like mine. >> And with this simple strategy, he’s been able to build a pretty successful business. >> Today, EUFO makes 11,000 MR. >> He didn’t need to come up with a brand new idea. He didn’t need a crazy marketing strategy. He just focused on one simple thing. I think anyone can copy this strategy to make their first $10,000. and I had Abby Shake come on the channel and break down this strategy
step by step. >> In my opinion, the best approach to build a SAS is >> in this video, we’ll go over where to start looking for ideas, how to identify if one is worth working on, and how to get your first customer without actually building anything. I think you’re going to like this one. Let’s dive in. I’m Pat Walls and this is Starter Story. All right, welcome Abby Shake to the channel. Tell me about who you are, what you built and what’s your story. >> My name is Abhishek and I built EUform. It’s an alternative to Typeform. I
launched it in 2023 and over last 2 years we have grown it to around 11,000 MR now. >> Okay. So immediately I just want to get into it right away. I think your approach is super cool kind of finding this big idea building a small version of it. Can you tell me about how you even came up with the idea on how to do this? I was working on my previous SAS which was a no code chatbot builder. It was called Bflow and it had 200 users or so. So majority of them were using it because they wanted a conversational
form. And when I talked to them and found that they were using it as an alternative to Typhone, I found that Tyform recently uh raised their pricing. So then I found there was like a gap in the market. But pricing is something that I found like that can’t be the only reason. So I then searched Twitter, Reddit, Typhform’s own forum and all. I found there are like some other features as well that users want and Typhoon is not providing. So then I solved uh that chatbot builder botflow and started
working on new form. >> Okay. I mean you just talked about it right there. You called it finding the gap. What do you mean exactly by that? >> Finding the gap is something where you can you know take something which is already working. people are using it but there are some gaps like uh some pain points people are not finding with the current competitors. If you can fill that gap you can definitely get users. I think like most of our developers think most of the ideas or most of things have already built in the market right but there is always a gap.
Thank you for sharing that. I mean I just love this strategy taking a big idea building a really small version of it maybe even undercutting the prices building other features. Tell me about why you think other people watching this should adopt this approach as well. >> In my opinion, the best approach to build a SAS is you should not invent things. As a indie hacker, as a bootstrap, you can’t create the next Uber. You can’t create the next Facebook. You need a lot of money for that in your BC funding. In fact, you should approve the market which is already validated like there are already big players there. So, people are
actually using it and then just find the gap. Okay, let’s take a deeper dive into the finding the gap strategy. Can you break down this strategy so that someone watching could think about how they could do something similar? >> The idea is simple. Step one, you look for a popular tool and search social platforms like Twitter and Reddit with keywords like X alternative where X is basically the product with lots of users. So for in my case, it was type form. Then step two, find the pain points or gaps which they are not
solving. It is fine if the pain point is pricing but only if pricing is too high. Then step three reach out to those users with your solution with just a basic landing page explaining your solution. So messaging is the key here. And bonus point step four have a tool to simply easily migrate your competitor’s user to your platform with a one click. In Uformm we have a landing page where you can paste your type form URL and it will generate a U form within few seconds. So people can see like okay uh this is what we are getting in.
Okay cool. So I mean that’s that’s an awesome strategy. You’re a busy founder. You don’t have time to go build other things. But people watching this might be wondering okay how can I do this strategy right now? What are the big hundred million dollar companies out there that I can kind of go do the same thing you did? So what would be your advice or ideas you have around that? >> Yeah. So there are uh lots of opportunities there which I would love to build but I don’t have time to do. Two of them which I can state right away. One is getting alternative. This is the my personal pain point I have faced because we are small startup and
Kenny has recently trying to go up market. So I searched for a lot of Cany alternative in the market but none as simple as cany. Apart from that there is a one gap that I found recently. This is an app where you can build your forest the digital forest by doing some habits. And why you should build an alternative right now is if you search with the latest reviews there most of them are one star. I think these are the things that you should do but you will find that there are people who say that okay Facebook is crap I I don’t want to go there but definitely don’t build things
like a social media and marketplace or something that is something that as an indie hacker you should always stay on >> all right before we wrap up with Abby Shakes’s story I wanted to pop in with a question what do you want to build no seriously what project have you been thinking about for a long time maybe it’s a microSAS like the one we’re talking about today or Maybe it’s just a simple tool that will help you be more productive. Whatever it is, AI has made it possible to build anything. But let’s be honest, it’s still really hard to
figure out where to start. I get DMs every single day from people asking me how to build, what to build, and what tools to actually use. So, I decided to create something that makes it easier for you to build with AI. It’s called Starter Story Build, and it’s our program where in just a few days, you’ll go from a simple idea to a productionready app. You’ll get guidance from our resonant experts and you’ll get the road map for how to build with AI forever. Honestly, I wish this existed when I was just starting out. So, if
you’re curious, check out the link in the description to learn more about Starter Story Build. All right, let’s get back to the episode. I’d love to learn a little bit more about you form and just walk me a little bit through kind of how you built it. Just give me a highle overview of like what you did until you got the first paying customer and so on. So my approach was simple. I uh didn’t actually made like all the features that Tyform was providing. So we initially didn’t do anything which might be like a fancy landing page or a logo or anything that like that. The
first version of Euform had just you can collect some data using like fields like name, email, star rating and all. And uh apart from that you can just download your uh data as a CSV. There was no integrations with Google sheet API etc. Nothing was available there. So this was an MVB that I think uh I built in 2 weeks and the landing page was a basic landing page that time which just had a start using uh EU which used to take you to the EU build and later on like my
wife created the current page when we got like I guess 200 plus users. >> Okay, cool. I mean that’s awesome. The next question that I have is around some of the numbers behind it. I know you’re super transparent about that stuff. So how’s the business going and and share with me some of the numbers? Yeah, currently we are doing around 11,000 MR and there are around 35,000 or so users, registered users and paying customers is around 500 something. We are actually basically done a premium model I guess 90% plus of features are free. So our
conversion rate is around somewhere around 1.5 to less than 2%. traffic per month we get around 35,000 visitors per month unique visitors and apart from that a good stat right now is we have recently crossed 4 million form submissions >> cool well thanks for sharing that uh what tech stack did you use to build this business and what tools do you use on daily basis >> yeah so is built on Laravel I chose Laravel basically because I love it I’m working on this since last I guess 10 years so I wanted to keep the stag which
I’m comfortable with and it is hosted on AWS Amazon AWS We use cloudflare for security and um storage. Apart from that stripe for payments. Uh we use open AI uh a lot for fraud detection because our premium model lots of bad users comes in who tries to get the system. Then we use slite for help docs. They are great. Apart from the Gmail for bugspace, simple analytics for web analytics, carry for feedback management and mail gun for email. Then in total I think our
last month expense was around less than $1,200. Next question I have is you know you built this successful business. What have been some of the most surprising lessons that you’ve learned along the journey? >> First of all the messaging is important with your app. The message about what your product does should resonate with basically your ideal customer. After that it is all about how good your product is and uh your customer support which will not only keep your existing customers but they will also refer others to your product. And the last question is, if you could stand on Abby
Shakes’s shoulder before you had this successful business, this amazing SAS business that you built, what would be your advice to yourself or to people watching this who want to do something similar? If you are young, take risk early because you have less responsibilities and don’t neglect marketing. That is important thing. Apart from that, I would say don’t build things because you can. If you really want a SAS business to support your lifestyle, then I think you should first search for what people are looking for and then build it. >> Well, that’s great advice. Thank you, Abishek, for coming on. I love the
business that you built and I hope to see you at 100,000 MR. >> Thank you, V. Thanks a lot, >> man. I just loved hearing about how Abbyek thinks about building apps. I think this strategy is cool because it’s very approachable. There are a lot of lowhanging fruit out there that exists like this where you can go find a big company, figure out what users like and dislike, and then build that micro version of it. It’s not necessarily easy, but the strategy is pretty simple, and I think it’s very doable. And with
tools like Lovable and Cursor, you can spin up these projects and get started and have a real working prototype in just a few hours. And that’s exactly why we built and launched Starter Story Build. In a few days, you’ll learn how to build stuff with AI. And who knows, in a few months, you might have your own $10,000 per month microsass. If you’re interested in Starter Story Build, head to the first link in the description to learn more. Thank you again for watching. I’ll see you in the next one. Peace.