From Zero to $45k MRR: The Feedback SaaS Built After a Seven-Figure Exit
How Mike validated demand before writing code and scaled a feedback product by listening to users.
This week’s case study:
→ From a SaaS exit to $45k MRR building a feedback tool
Why it matters:
→ Demand validation before code + product-led growth
Worth your time if:
→ You’re building (or planning) a SaaS
Hello! Can you briefly introduce yourself and explain what you’re building?
MHey all! I'm Mike, a serial SaaS entrepreneur and currently the founder of Upvoty (upvoty.com) & Pixally (pixal.ly) and also the creator of the Zero to SaaS course (zerotosaascourse.com) in which I teach my 10+ years of experience building SaaS products. On top of that, I'm also the founder and host of the Zero to 7 Club Community (zeroto7club.com/community) and podcast show (youtube.com/@zeroto7club).
So yeah, on a day-to-day, busy with building products and the community. When I'm not doing any of that, you can find me running in the woods, playing squash, or traveling. I love working remotely.
How did your project get started?
My story begins when dropping out of school at the age of 19. School just wasn’t for me. I was too busy scaling my internet business during classes, lol.
At the age of 16, I started my first e-commerce store selling printed t-shirts. To scale the business, I needed to learn SEO.
When successfully scaling the store nationally, other businesses started asking me to help them with their SEO.
This was the kickstart of my SEO agency.
I scaled that one to over $200,000/year with 3 employees.
But I wasn’t really fulfilled and I wanted to build my own product.
That’s when I started working on my first SaaS, a home improvement platform where we generated leads for contractors who paid us a monthly subscription fee + commissions on every lead. I managed to scale that one to over $1m in annual revenue and exited it for a life-changing amount.
During the last months of running that platform, I already started working on my next SaaS called Upvoty, which is a user feedback tool. This came from my own need to collect and manage user feedback of the home improvement platform more efficiently.
After doing research, I couldn’t find software that did what I needed it to do and thus I spotted the opportunity to build one my own.
How did you get your first customers and and validated early demand?
Before we wrote a single line of code, I quickly ramped up a landing page with an explainer video and a signup form. I shared the page with my audience on Twitter (twitter.com/mikestrives), Instagram (instagram.com/mikestrives), and YouTube (youtube.com/@mikestrives) and asked people to share and sign up if they were interested in such a product.
Besides that, I launched the idea on launch platforms such as Betalist, IndieHackers, and within Facebook groups.
Within a couple of weeks, we had 100s of sign-ups, and that’s when I realized I was on to something.
I started building the first version of the product, and we worked closely with beta users to build the platform.
During the private beta, we listened carefully to the problems of our users and solved those by building features.
By doing so, a couple of users were so keen on using the product to its full potential they already wanted to start paying a subscription.
That’s when we acquired the first paying customers.
Since launch, what channels have driven the most consistent growth?
We officially launched the product on Product Hunt and to the people who signed up for the waiting list.
Within 3 months, we acquired the first $1,000 in MRR.
Since the launch, we have invested highly in content marketing by researching our potential audience’s biggest issues and questions and creating content for them.
Over time, we grew our Domain Authority to over 80, and we converted many monthly visitors into customers.
One of our most converting channels, however, is our own product.
And by that, I don’t mean word of mouth, actually.
It’s the little referral in our product that does the magic.
Our users are sharing their own Upvoty boards with their users and customers, and in that board, there’s a little mention ‘by Upvoty’ which generates a lot of clicks and new sign-ups.
The thing is, users of our customers so much like the feedback portal they’re using, they want to use it for their own products as well.
And thus, they click through and sign up.
*note: probably good thing to embed this video outlining my complete startegy?
How is the product monetized today?
We charge a monthly or annual subscription to our customers. Since 6 months, we've been promoting the annual subscription with a 10% is discount, and we've seen great success in terms of customer LTV and trial-to-paid conversion rates. This is something I highly recommend experimenting with.
Can you share some actual numbers about revenue?
For my SaaS, Upvoty, we’re currently at $45,000 in MRR. The Zero to SaaS course (zerotosaascourse.com) is doing around $5/month, the Zero to 7 Community and Podcast (zeroto7club.com) around $1k/month, and my personal brand (sponsorships) around $1k, and I have some minor income streams like affiliate marketing, etc.
So in total, I’m making around $55,000/month now.
How can we know more about you?
twitter.com/mikestrives
instagram.com/mikestrives
youtube.com/@mikestrives
Love the demand validation approach here. Building a landing page before any code is something most founders skip because they're eager to build, but Mike's strategy of getting 100s of signups first probably saved months of wasted dev time. The part about users begging to pay during beta is the ultimate signal, way better than any survey or market reserach. I've been on teams that built entire platforms assuming demand existed, only to find crickets at launch. That embedded referal link in the product boards is lowkey brilliant too for free user acquisition.
great case study. So it was content marketing in the end.