The launch that taught me about audience fit

The idea is to package my approach into a reusable SaaS starter kit for developers — authentication, payments, deployment, and other common setup already handled.

I'd seen another developer successfully do something similar, which gave me confidence that developers would pay for this kind of shortcut.

Since I want to spend most of my time exploring Japan, I limit myself to about an hour of work each day. I slowly shape the framework into something more usable, often working in the morning before heading back out into the city.

Once back in the UK, I finish the product, create a landing page, and launch it to my email list.

I sell two memberships during the initial launch and another three over the following months, generating $295 in revenue.

Compared to my previous SaaS attempts, it feels like progress. But the launch still falls far short of what I'd imagined when I started building.

Looking back, I think I was too influenced by seeing someone else succeed with a similar product.

What I overlooked was that his audience was full of developers actively trying to build SaaS businesses themselves. Mine wasn't.

Although I had started making videos about SaaS, I launched mainly to an older email list built around very different topics. Many subscribers probably had little interest in what I was offering.

This project made me realize that the relationship between an offer and the audience around it matters far more than I understood at the time.