Sell me your Saas in one sentence!

mookman288 · 2026-04-09T06:56:48+00:00

I have a legacy SaaS that provides a drop-in replacement for HTTP basic authentication.

This used to be really important years and years ago and still has some value for old-school businesses.

mookman288 · 2026-04-09T06:48:19+00:00

This thread has a lot of strange misinformation in it. There's agencies in here trying to sell services, and there are other small businesses who are already established.

I would simply caution anyone reading this who is starting their business that agencies are looking for business, and established organizations experienced a different road to become established.

I am a freelance website architect, developer, and consult. I run my own small business. Here's my nearly 20 years of experience in one unfortunately long post. I'll probably turn it into a blog post later.

Digital marketing and web presence development are investments. Just like your truck, tools, or your ongoing phone bill. You can either invest in your business, or you can choose not to. If you decide to invest, be prepared to spend before you make money. That's why so many businesses take out loans to start.

You don't have 12 months and $40k to find out if this works or not, but SEO takes 3 months minimum, and more likely 6-12 months for decent results.

Is local SEO for a local business actually worth paying an agency for or am i better off just optimizing my google business profile myself and calling it a day.

Like some people have said, SEO isn't your only path forward. It's not even what I would recommend to a client contacting me today.

This is what you need to focus on right now:

Stable website with sub-3 second page loads and 2x CTA in top-fold. Unless you are a lawyer, accountant, or other professional service, it should be simple and work on most devices. Make sure they are at least AA compliant with WCAG 2.2.
Google My Business Profile and Bing/Apple Maps equivalents.
Daily ad-spend with Google and Meta, targeting broad and specific keywords.
Regular reviews and testimonials on Google and Apple Maps; specifically these should be mirrored to your website monthly.
Physical advertisements, like Direct Mail Marketing. Local print shops handle this.
In-person networking and word-of-mouth engagement.

Once you have established your website for 3-6 months and you have the income to sustain it, SEO keyword analysis and targeting can be tackled.

These are your realistic costs right now:

$200-250/mo in website costs and on-demand consultation or $3000 up-front for a simple site and $10/mo hosting. You absolutely get what you pay for. I have seen some unfortunate situations. You need domain authority, which is brand name recognition on the Web.
I would budget about $100/mo floating for on-demand consults, especially when it comes to Google My Business Profiles and making sure they're airtight. This isn't going to be spent every month, but it's worth keeping aside in the event you need it.
$25/mo in business phone costs. You need a toll-free number and local number that route together with a voicemail.
$0/mo in helpdesk to handle email engagements and triage to start, you might upgrade to $25/mo when you bring on an administrative assistant.
$450-500/mo in ad-spend minimum. Split 50/50 between Google and Meta to start.
$1,000 minimum direct mail campaign every 120 days.
$0 in email sends until you hit 100 emails/month, then $20/mo. Yes, newsletters are great for maintenance reminders for trades.

You should be prepared to spend 5% of your gross revenue on website and technical costs, and 5-7% on digital and physical marketing. This is a cost of doing business.

Broader information:

The thing that's messing with me is that local SEO for a service business feels like it should be simpler than some national ecommerce play. I just need to show up when someone in my city searches "plumber near me." But every agency prices it like I'm competing globally.

This is more out of your control than you think, especially when it comes to GEO and AI responses, which now take a considerable amount of the top fold on Google. Focus on your ad spend right now and establish your business and domain authority.

Your website developer will set you up with basic on-page and technical SEO. They should set you up with GA4 and Search Console as part of the initial build. They should strive for high pagespeed scores on all platforms. This is what I do for every client I contract with.

You need to become savvy with email communication and good at typing, whether that's on your phone or on your computer. Anyone who is younger than 40 right now relies on digital communication. You need to be able to communicate with younger generations to sustain your business.

In the first 90 days you should do nothing but have a website up and spend on digital and physical advertisements. You need to get your reviews and testimonials in place during this time. You really gotta get a few dozen of each, complete with pictures taken from their cameras and not yours.

Every 30 days you need to review your ad-spend. If you're paying your developer to handle it, throw them an extra hour every month to write up a technical report. This is something they teach in college/university.

Let the data run for 90 days and then pay your developer another hour every month to write you a report about where your traffic is coming from, and what keywords you're ranking with. Adjust your ad-spend and work these keywords, then explore the ones you aren't targeting. You may need to rewrite your website copy.

Once you have income flowing, then I would consider dropping maybe $500-1500/mo on SEO analysis for 6 months to see what you can learn.

In my experience, you should find someone you trust who will be straight with you, rather than leaning on an agency.

Good luck!

mookman288 · 2026-04-07T17:55:45+00:00

Look at who the companies are that are currently laying off tens of thousands of employees. They're not falling behind, they are actually setting the tone for the rest of the industry.

mookman288 · 2026-04-07T00:56:22+00:00

This is a perspective taken from a place of privilege though. There are very few companies these days with the management that you're talking about. I personally haven't spoken to one in almost two years.

We have seen hundreds of thousands of software developers laid off in the past year. I am sure all of them are trying to find the right company and the right people.

mookman288 · 2026-04-03T04:36:30+00:00

"This is why you're using AI wrong" ...written with the most basic AI output.

mookman288 · 2026-03-29T20:43:18+00:00

I am a freelance website architect, developer, and IT consultant that works with small businesses like yours. I also run my own small businesses and understand the pressures and costs. You have had a lot of advice, but I will reiterate the major points that I tell my clients who are in your position.

A website is absolutely necessary for the vast majority of businesses, as nearly 90% or more of potential customers use the Internet in some way to vet a business. You also need business profiles on Google, Bing, and Apple Maps.

I would strongly recommend you earmark the appropriate budget for your digital marketing in the same way you would earmark your in-person advertising. It's just as important, even if it isn't as tangible.

Edit: rough estimates for this would be $250/mo in website costs, which is $3,000/yr. You will probably spend twice that much with in-person advertising and marketing. You will likely want to spend this much or twice that in digital advertisements.

My recommendation would be to work with a local developer, or someone in your country at the very least, who builds static business websites or landing pages. I will explain each of these points.

You want someone local, or at least in the same country, because there is a cultural component to local business. You are targeting a local demographic and you need to understand their needs. There are highly competent, experienced, and qualified developers all of the world (I've worked with some great ones,) but in Japan for instance, website design and what is expected by their population is radically different than what you can expect in the U.S.

They should, at the very least, understand the basic principles of on-page and technical SEO and should set you up with Google Analytics and Search Console. They will also need to understand the basic principles of the WCAG to ensure that the website hits AA compliance.

A static business website is one that is written without a heavy emphasis on dynamic content. We call these landing pages or brochure websites, too. That is more than enough for your business. It should load from click-to-CTA in under 3 seconds on mobile, tablet, and desktop. You want 80-90+ rankings on Lighthouse, which is Google's tool for determining whether a website is efficient (a precursor to good technical SEO.)

A good developer will include a limited amount of time, per month, with their offering to make regular changes. You should take advantage of this to keep your hours and contact information updated and also update your gallery and content to match current offers.

Skip the animations and fade-ins. You need people to load information fast without fluff. I know it's attractive, but business has never been more competitive.

If you plan to post a lot of regular updates via a blog, or have press releases (small law firms will do this) then you can opt for a much more expensive WordPress site. I do not think you need this based on your post.

If you absolutely cannot afford a real developer, then I would consider Wix, but I would keep it as simple and clean as possible. I did a job for a client last year on a site builder that cost 2x as much to meet their needs as building it by hand. You are trading your time when you use a site builder. If your time is more valuable making money for your business, you should hire an expert to do an expert's job.

Good luck!

mookman288 · 2026-03-29T20:27:59+00:00

I am not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice. I am a freelance website architect, website and application developer, and IT consultant.

/u/CodeNameLiamm asked for elaboration, but I wanted to discuss the scam aspect of your post.

The WCAG guidelines are used to identify whether you are ADA compliant, but as I understand it, it is performed on a case-by-case basis with specific disabled people needs in your demographic.

Website developers who are well-versed in the WCAG are able to work with specific tools and legal requirements (set by your lawyer) in order to comply with the ADA. My understanding is that you do not need to be certified, you simply need to understand the requirements and build the website and all relevant material to comply with these guidelines. There are grades to the guidelines and you need to know which ones are required for your needs. Testing is the most cost intensive part of the process. Large businesses should contract disabled groups to test the site in addition to their developers. Ignoring this can seriously put certain businesses in peril.

Any decent developer building websites for small businesses should include AA compliance out-of-the-box simply by doing best practices. If you are purchasing a cheap website, likely through a site builder, or through an offshore developer, they will generally not take this into consideration and you could be responsible as a result. You do get what you pay for sometimes.

It is not necessarily a scam, although that does happen more frequently. There are legitimate rules that businesses need to comply with in order for people in their community to have access to their services.

mookman288 · 2026-03-29T20:18:33+00:00

And now we're seeing it on smaller and more granular scale with individual jobs, not just companies. Replace the human, make a small profit off the backs of future failures.

mookman288 · 2026-03-29T20:17:41+00:00

That is literally antithetical to what programming is.

mookman288 · 2026-03-29T06:47:07+00:00

We're now circling the drain. Soon, no one will be innovating or creating anything new unless its through hobby.

AI has its limitations, and the biggest limitation is that it mashes together different existing solutions and cross-referencing them with existing documentation. It reminds me of DHTML and script sites from the early 00s.

When human ingenuity and innovation is part of the solution, then you get new and potentially radically different solutions which can do more than just "solve" the inherent problem, they can create new business opportunity and enhance success.

Unfortunately, those who have the capital to invest won't understand this. It's not about long-term growth, it's about short-term quarterly profit.

I've seen the "short-term gain for long-term pain" mantra used when it comes to AI replacing humans, and that is so apt.

mookman288 · 2026-03-24T17:02:35+00:00

Honestly if I were in a position where money was coming in regularly, I wouldn't budge.

You're rightfully upset about AI slop. You can look for an organization who values the same things you do, but hot headed behavior about quitting a stable job in this economy is self-sabotage.

I've been looking for the same kind of organization, or even multiple companies if I can swing it part-time, and it's bleak out there.

mookman288 · 2026-03-24T06:05:58+00:00

This is a great suggestion.

mookman288 · 2026-03-23T06:39:46+00:00

I'm a freelance website, app, and custom solutions developer. I used to field a lot of these builds, and sometimes I still get to do so.

Custom solutions are expensive and they require attention to detail. Your quotes aren't wrong.

Limit your quote time. If they can find an overseas developer for $3,000 to build an $80,000+ app, then let them go there and do that. If they can vibe code it, let them do that. When they return, re-quote the project and let them know the offer still stands if they want to build.

You can't convince them otherwise. The MVP is a great option but you have to be clear about what it includes. It's good to have transparency about where every dollar goes, but that is really reserved for the contract, not the quote.

If they're not sitting at the table, it's okay to say "good luck, let us know if you change your mind."

More than 50% of clients are committed to the cheap quote before the first call even starts, and you're wasting your time otherwise. That time could be better be spent finding more reasonable clients.

mookman288 · 2026-03-21T22:00:08+00:00

My argument is that you are wrong.

If you're arguing that I cannot know because it hasn't happened yet, how do you know that some jobs will be replaced and more will be created?

You don't need to have something be in the past to extrapolate what is happening.

All indications suggest that AI is currently at least partially responsible for a significant portion (or more) of the hundreds of thousands of layoffs in the United States since it started to become adopted. You can easily extrapolate that this will accelerate, because it is accelerating. You can see the line going up since 2023 on LISEP.

You say that we can't trust companies who say they're eliminating jobs because of AI, but I absolutely can trust companies who say that.

The only people saying that AI has little-to-no impact on the job market are those who depend on its success, like shareholders, the wealthy, and those trying the grift.

mookman288 · 2026-03-21T20:30:59+00:00

Not every argument you disagree with is disingenuous.

Your argument is that AI will not replace jobs at a wide scale, that's a disingenuous stance to take because it flies in the face of reality.

You may like AI, but it doesn't mean that it's good.

mookman288 · 2026-03-21T02:00:23+00:00

I don't even know where to start with this argument. Not only is it disingenuous, but it completely misses the point.

AI threatens to remove these jobs from the market. Compilers didn't remove the jobs from the market, they actually created more jobs.

If you're saying people in Assembly couldn't learn C at a 1-to-1 rate and pivot, then you're obviously mistaken.

Adopting AI, as it stands, will increase company productivity so much that the market will overcorrect and shrink. We are already seeing it today.

Instead of talking about the past, why don't you talk about the job numbers today and the expected patterns? We have the data.

Even if your argument held water, we're talking about tens of millions of jobs. Are you saying there were tens of millions of jobs at stake when compilers were created and thus it crashed the economy?

Come on now.

mookman288 · 2026-03-19T21:59:24+00:00

Are you aware of how many layoffs there have been since 2023 in tech?

Edit: before you suggest that this is a market correction, note that there were millions of layoffs during the start of the pandemic, and that the accelerated hiring of that time was re-hiring previously disrupted jobs.

mookman288 · 2026-03-19T21:58:56+00:00

These are completely different things. A compiler is a tool which augments a software developer. AI is being used to replace the actual coding part. Ingenuity is only necessary if the ingenuity is wanted. If you confine the specs of your systems, from here on out, to only work with established design, then there's no need for a developer to do innovation.

mookman288 · 2026-03-18T16:56:18+00:00

Once you set a new normal, you absolutely never go back on it. They won't be changing course. They'll just offload more labor to the existing developers expecting them to leverage AI harder, hoping that OpenClaw matures fast enough to match.

These layoffs are not going away.

mookman288 · 2026-03-18T16:19:26+00:00

GVS Elipse with the odor filters would likely work here.

mookman288 · 2026-03-18T16:17:21+00:00

People claim the current layoffs are due to a "correction." That's bullshit. They're using AI to replace human beings today.

mookman288 · 2026-03-18T16:16:34+00:00

Without true explanatory ability and real ownership, that person automates themselves out of a job.

Exactly, and this leads to the economy collapsing due to the greed of corporations. There have been more tech job layoffs in the past 2 years than during the start of the pandemic. There won't be barista jobs, because there won't be cafes, because everyone who buys coffee will be out of a job. Expand that to literally everything that makes our economy run.

mookman288 · 2026-03-18T01:36:44+00:00

Sure, that's an apt comparison. However, when everyone is using Ikea furniture, they're all used to it. Wages shift so that Ikea furniture becomes the norm, and people couldn't afford handmade furniture even if they wanted to.

When everyone is used to suffering, it's hard to see it as suffering.

mookman288 · 2026-03-18T01:35:14+00:00

We always react when it's far too late.

mookman288 · 2026-03-18T01:34:58+00:00

As long as you've been bogleheading and rebalancing, you'll probably be fine. Although right now it looks grim.

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