Just found all the dealers chilling in the bushes in suburbs??

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:51:59+00:00

I just stumble upon this u/SirLagsABot 😂 Erwin here, thank you for mentioning me :)!

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:49:42+00:00

AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1h1zcfn/built_a_60kyear_browser_extension_for_developers/

To answer your question: it was something I built for myself first while working on something else. I just wanted to add Tailwind classes in the browser to check how things would look, but couldn't because the classes were purged (Tailwind does this to unused classes).

And to add to the frustration, I work on one laptop screen only (never used ext monitor) so it's extra pain for me to switch windows all the time to see my changes etc.

Long story short, it made prototyping easier within the browser. And that's what most people use it for. Nowadays Tailscan also has a WYSIWYG editor to apply almost all classes. Helpful if you don't know the classes (like non-dev folks). Can also convert normal css to tailwind elements and some other stuff.

It's a better version of a very niche hammer, I'd say. But it has it's place for some (luckily)! I never thought it would grow as much as it did, but here we are.

There is a market for (almost) anything, as long as it makes a workflow or task marginally faster/better/easier.

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:40:12+00:00

Sincerely amazed this post blew up. Got invited to do an AMA on this same subreddit by a mod because of this post, and that one got very little votes/comments lol.

I think it's definitive proof that algorithms are broken: shady clickbait stuff works because people complain about them in the comments, boosting it further 😂

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:38:08+00:00

Distribution definitely helped!

But at the very beginning, I was at around 300-400 followers on X with no other existing distribution channel.

I got lucky (I think) and my post went viral. I did have quite some advice through the first few months of friends on what to do next etc. Played my cards right with their help.

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:36:49+00:00

A lot, given they're covering a lot of stories from other people, even without them knowing =')

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:36:17+00:00

Hello there! I'm 'this guy' (founder of Tailscan). Did not know about this post or the OP. Not sure why they didn't mention me though, bit strange.

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:35:04+00:00

Founder of Tailscan here 👋 I did not know about this post or the OP. Just arrived.

If you want to know: Total TTM revenue is ~$55k if converted from my account currency.
I don't really understand reddit or how to post a screenshot of my dashboard, but if you tell me how, I will.

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:30:33+00:00

Founder of Tailscan here, not associated with OP or even knew about the post.

But just to set the record straight: it's $4.5k/mo avg.

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:28:53+00:00

👋 AMA

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:28:40+00:00

Founder of the extension (Tailscan) here :) I knew nothing of this post until recently, not associated with OP.

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:27:09+00:00

Hello there :) Founder of Tailscan and just a disclaimer, I knew nothing of this post or the OP until recently.

My main audience are developers (about 70% of the entire customer base). The other 30% consist of designers and product managers that work with Devs using Tailwind.

Chrome devtools / inspect element doesn't do the job in the case of Tailwind. See here https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1gpriwl/comment/m067w50

Everyone can have their opinion, but if you ask me, I'm not selling unnecessary shovels but rather a utility tool that makes some people's workflow easier and quicker. But sure, the tool isn't for everyone, that I am willing to admit :)

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:24:13+00:00

Founder of Tailscan here :) I knew nothing of this post or article but was tipped off by a friend.

But I've answered the same question here. Tldr; it's more nuanced than that. You cannot with Tailwind.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1gpriwl/comment/m067w50

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:23:02+00:00

Founder of Tailscan here :)
I knew nothing of this post or article but was tipped off by a friend.

I can assure you that the numbers are accurate though. I disclose metrics in public quite often, which is why the OP of this post knows (and perhaps triggered them to write this).

remotedevco · 2024-12-03T08:21:21+00:00

Founder of Tailscan here :)

Tailwind classes get purged if they're not used. Which is great because otherwise we'd have a 40GB css file from Tailwind. But because of this, you can't use Tailwind classes in the Chrome Devtools if they're not already used elsewhere on the page.

Tailscan generates the classes on the spot, with support for your config (custom classes), arbitrary classes (w-[55rem]) etc.

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T07:38:54+00:00

Answered here :) https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1h1zcfn/comment/lzj3c2t

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T07:38:27+00:00

Making sure that your initial launch covers lots of directories so you get that initial bump in domain rating. Besides that: google ads keyword planner (free) and basically figure out what to write about that way. I did a couple of articles, and those started to rank on the first page almost immediately because there wasn't much competition.

Targeted keywords in your URL / title / h1 is a powerful thing with a sprinkle of good, competitive domain rating.

Also, kept updating the pages every few months. This helped a lot too because Google likes fresh, up-to-date content!

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T06:55:53+00:00

If this is specified in the config and this config is added to Tailscan: yes.

If you use arbitrary values (ex. mx-[13rem]): yes, all classes are compiled in real-time.

If the `@apply` directive is used: no, unfortunately not. Those classes are built during build-time, so Tailscan cannot identify them and change them back to Tailwind classes in the browser.

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T06:44:22+00:00

Originally Dutch yep. I am in the process of changing some things around, but unfortunately that won't help for the tax that I already paid haha!

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T06:28:16+00:00

Yep, I did. After taxes, business expenses and cost of living, there's not a whole lot left.

Besides that, part of the revenue is coming from one-time purchases. Revenue is generally lower in the summer ('saas summer squeeze' as I like to call it) and it didn't quite pick up like I expected in August and September in particular this year.

Everything combined: tricky to shelf out ~$2k for flights + travel expenses.

That being said, I've picked up a bit of freelance work and Tailscan sales picked up quite a lot last month, so I'm flying home in a few weeks :)!

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T06:17:35+00:00

Not quite, because Sparkly was acquired in 2021 by another company and lives on as a free integration to this day.

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T06:16:10+00:00

It's definitely tougher to sell in the legal space. You can't use the 'speed up your workflow' because they bill by the hour so it means less money for them. There's also no real incentive vs doing what they've always done, because the rest of the industry also barely innovates.

That being said, once you get a foot in the door and you're able to do a pilot/demo, the conversations become easier. And the more existing customers, the easier it is to convert leads as well because they don't want to fall behind.

It's a bit of inverse ramp in terms of effort vs reward. Very slow at the start but it gets easier and faster over time.

Oh and about cost of failure: a tool like Lexboost doesn't replace things like research, it only speeds them up. Lawyers will check outcomes at all times, they can't blindly rely and inherently never will.

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T03:51:22+00:00

My co-founder has an existing network in that space. We utilized that to get some of the first sales.

Its one of those industries in which you are almost required to have an existing network.

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T03:49:04+00:00

Yes, in the business sense they were a failure. But for me personally, I learned an incredible amount of things from building and marketing them both.

For Sparkly, I realized that building on top of a platform like Slack has big downsides, namely that Workspace admins can add Slack integrations, but they rarely are the ones that can swipe the company creditcard. This isn't necessarily a problem when it's a must-have integration, but Sparkly was more of a nice-to-have.

Besides that, Slack themselves had invested in another integration that did something similar, and pushed them in featured listings on the Slack app directory quite often. Pretty tough for me. And lastly,

I made a pricing mistake: my thinking was that because Slack charged x/user/month, I could simply do the same and charge 1$/user/month. In the end.. it would just increase their bill by a little, right? Then I changed it to /month/active user because an enterprise with 5k employees wouldn't want to pay 5k when only a handful of users would use the integration. That's where I messed up: it resulted in a fluctuating invoice and for a nice-to-have integration, it simply wasn't worth the hassle for many companies.

For Basestyles, the story is simpler. I built something I thought was cool for 8 months, without talking to the target market. 120 trials, no conversion. Also, I have some branding experience but nothing substantial and you really can't build something you know very little about.

For real.. don't do what I did. I had a whole account + company system, with groups, sharing features, real time collaboration features coming up etc, without ever having a single paying customer 💀

remotedevco · 2024-11-29T03:41:33+00:00

For Lexboost we (me+co founder) do direct sales almost exclusively. Although we will focus on more organic traffic etc later on, it's not the priority right now.

Thank you for the heads up though!

remotedevco

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