The Frugal Maker 💸

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Never let your expenses surpass your revenue. Launch your idea on the cheap with these lessons I learned from my own products.

This issue is all about making on the cheap 💸
 

TLDR

• Use free services whenever possible

• Scale slowly, and only when it's affordable

• SaaS products are the long game

A lesson from Score Zone

Score Zone was my first native app venture. It was cool. Crowdsourced high school sports scores. Unfortunately, due to several factors, it never really took off. I would have liked to keep iterating on it, figuring out how to make it more attractive— maybe get it to be a household name among high school students and alumni.

But it was bleeding money.

So my business partner and I abandoned the project. We couldn't justify continuing to pay sizeable monthly fees for something that was generating zero revenue and had little hopes of building the critical mass audience it required.

If it hadn't been so expensive to build, we could have taken it to the next level. This experience completely changed my outlook on building products.
 

dropdrop, an experiment in free

After Score Zone, I wanted to see if I could build something with zero overhead. I didn't want to have to make the decision to kill a product due to expenses. I have not regretted that decision.

dropdrop has cost me nothing for four years. Zero. I haven't had the time to devote to scaling it or promoting it since its launch, but I still have the option on the table because there's no need to kill it. When I'm ready, it will still be there waiting for me.
 

Watching Link My Photos grow

When I first launched Link My Photos, I had secured one paying customer at $10/month and was paying $7/month in overhead, for a staggering profit of $3/month.

But it was profitable.

Link My Photos has always been profitable. I made sure to never scale beyond the bare minimum. Only once did I have to make the tough decision to cut profits in half when a major customer put a huge strain on our infrastructure. But even then, the revenue outpaced the expenses.

Unlike social media apps or similar ventures, bootstrapped SaaS apps do not require blistering growth at all costs. It can take 10 years before all the hard work really starts to pay off. Patience is key.

By scaling slowly for over three years, automating piece by piece as elements become redundant, and refactoring when growth outpaces resources I've managed to keep Link My Photos as a sustainable and profitable business venture that continues to grow month over month.
 

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I've compiled a list of the free tools I use across a number of my products. If you want to share something that's helped you build your own product, I'd love to hear about it.

Keep making, and thanks for reading! 🙌

Hit reply to tell me what you're making. I'm looking for anyone interested in talking about their own side-projects and maker journey, so speak up if you'd like to appear in Serial Maker. I'd also love to know what you thought of this issue, and what you want to hear about in the future.

Until next week,

Craig