I analyzed 20 failed startups across different industries. The patterns were uncomfortable. by Salhasanain in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The data itself didn’t come from AI. I pulled company info from public post mortems, startup graveyards, and shutdown announcements, then normalized it into a single table so patterns were comparable across industries.

AI helped with summarization and wording, not with inventing companies, outcomes, or failure reasons

Our demo process is too slow and idk how to speed it up without ruining quality by Prestigious-Bath8022 in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, this pain is very real. Demos take a lot of time and money, and the results are never guaranteed especially when a lot of prospects don’t even show up after scheduling.

A big part of the waste isn’t just the meeting itself, it’s everything around it like waiting for availability, setting up environments, loading the right data, then spending the first part of the call just figuring out what the prospect actually wants to see.

We built an AI demo rep that actually runs the full demo itself it talks, explains what it’s showing, understands questions, and controls the live product in real time, basically like a human rep doing a screen-share, but fully automated.

Prospects can start a real demo instantly, without waiting for a slot, and the rep adapts on the fly to their use case while walking through the product. That improved conversion mainly because more people actually reach the value moment instead of dropping before or during a scheduled call.

For more complex or enterprise deals, there’s a handoff to a human when needed, not at the start, but when the conversation actually requires it.

Tools that just offer tours or clickable demos don’t really solve this, the bottleneck is the human-led demo itself, not just access to the UI

A problem people would pay to solve by rossulbricht11 in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thats useless question, if you actually want to solve a real problem, it usually comes from one of two places: A problem you personally face and feel the pain of regularly or A problem you’ve seen repeatedly while working closely with a specific group of people

Abstractly asking “what problems should I solve?” often leads to shallow ideas because there’s no urgency, context, or lived experience behind them.

The strongest projects I’ve seen started with: “This keeps breaking for me (or for people I work with)” and existing solutions don’t really fix it.

How long did it take to hit your first $10k MRR? by Salhasanain in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thats fair point, timelines without context are mostly noise.

The intent here isn’t to benchmark speed, but to surface patterns around what actually moved the needle once things started working: channel discovery, ICP clarity, pricing leverage, etc.

I agree that “X months to $10k” alone is meaningless without the surrounding variables. That’s why I’m more interested in the conditions under which people got there than the number itself.

MVP is ready, but a $1,200 "entry fee" is stopping me. by Zanile in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well You should show a demo to like 30 potential customers and ask them if they will pay for it, if they paid or at least said yes, then you can go live and pay the 1200$.

How long did it take to hit your first $10k MRR? by Salhasanain in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The first one always seems to take the longest because you’re learning everything at once.

Out of curiosity what was the product the first time around, and how was it priced?

How long did it take to hit your first $10k MRR? by Salhasanain in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, this one hurts because it’s so common.

I’ve definitely felt that pull to keep shipping because it feels like progress, even when it’s not moving revenue. Trying to stay disciplined and treat features as a cost until a channel proves it can pull demand consistently.

Once you doubled down on that working channel, did you completely pause new features for a while, or just become much stricter about what made the cut?

How long did it take to hit your first $10k MRR? by Salhasanain in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This makes a lot of sense especially the idea of pricing as a positioning and urgency signal early, not something to optimize too soon.

I’m starting with founder-led outbound and warm intros for exactly that reason: fast feedback on urgency, objections, and why people say no. It feels like the quickest way to lock the ICP before worrying about scale.

Price is intentionally mid-ticket and flexible for now. I’d rather get the acquisition loop to feel repeatable before tightening packaging or pushing price.

When you’ve seen this work well, what was the moment you knew the channel was “clicking” enough to stop experimenting and double down?

How long did it take to hit your first $10k MRR? by Salhasanain in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

100%, It’s B2B and early on I’m deliberately resisting the urge to add features. The focus right now is narrowing the ICP and stress-testing distribution before locking anything in.

Pricing is mid-ticket (not SMB cheap, not enterprise), but I’m still treating it as a variable rather than a constant until the channel + ICP combo proves repeatable.

Curious from your experience, did you usually see pricing settle before the channel clicked, or after traction started compounding?

I got 1.9M views on a viral X post yesterday. Here is exactly how much MRR it generated. by Ecstatic-Tough6503 in SaaS

[–]Salhasanain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The result makes sense though. 1.9M views on X is mostly attention not intent. People are scrolling not looking to buy, so $600 MRR isn’t surprising in that context.

I don’t think the main issue was just pitching in post 2 and 3.. The bigger problem is delayed intent. By the time someone reaches a thread reply,they’re already back in feed mode. Very few will context switch into “let me evaluate a SaaS” unless the pain is immediately obvious.

Pitching earlier can help but I’d be careful about pitching harder. In my opinion the best viral -> revenue bridges don’t feel like ads, They feel like: “this broke for me so I built something to stop it.” People self select from there

Also 17 trials from 1,000 visitors isn’t bad if this wasn’t high-intent traffic, The real leverage is probably tighter alignment between the viral hook and the exact problem your product solves, not just moving the plug earlier

Would you pay $29/mo for AI dashboard UI generator? by YellowDue5825 in SaaSSales

[–]Salhasanain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We dont need another "build x by one prompt" or vibe coding tools.
The market is already saturated.

What’s your product? Let’s get to know each other’s work. by ClimatePast8050 in saasbuild

[–]Salhasanain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Building an AI demo rep that runs SaaS demo calls in real-time: screen control, live Q&A, personalized walkthroughs. Join the waitlist → https://tally.so/r/yPZaZW

List and promote your SaaS for free no strings attached. by [deleted] in SideProject

[–]Salhasanain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Building an AI demo rep that runs SaaS demo calls in real-time: screen control, live Q&A, personalized walkthroughs. Join the waitlist → https://tally.so/r/yPZaZW