档案库 · 开发与企业工具 · 战略决策 · 2016–2017
Canny在转向付费反馈SaaS后实现拉面盈利
一个停滞的反馈社区变成了面向产品团队的付费SaaS:月收入3500美元,约100个客户,零融资。
Canny
做的是什么生意
Canny sells software teams a hosted widget to collect, organize and respond to user feedback, with a free trial and paid subscriptions starting around $19/month.
起因
Andrew Rasmussen, a former Facebook software engineer, and his co-founder Sarah, a product designer, launched Canny in October 2016 as a public community where 5,000 people posted and voted on feedback for any product. Retention was weak and revenue was zero, so they interviewed product teams and found the business problem behind it: teams genuinely could not manage feedback scattered across chat messages, emails and support tickets. They built a widget to collect and track that feedback, and in December 2016 a stranger paid $19/month for it — the first money either founder had made from something they built.
经过
They forked the community into a SaaS tool, soft-launched to teams already using it, then launched on Product Hunt, where over 350 companies tried Canny that week and dozens converted after a 30-day trial. An organic engine took over from there: because the product is user-facing, 'Powered by Canny' links turned end users into new signups, most months had zero churn, and the pair reached about 100 paying customers without any outbound sales. By October 2017 monthly revenue was $3,500 against a few hundred dollars of hosting and SaaS costs, enough to declare ramen profitability and move from San Francisco to Valencia, Spain.
还没有结局,它还在跑。
背景
Canny是一款SaaS工具,让软件公司收集、组织和响应用户反馈。赌注是产品团队愿意为简单的反馈小部件支付月费,两个自力更生的创始人能手靠这笔收入生活而不必融资。
创始人在2016年10月起步,做一个公开社区,5000人可以在其中为任何产品的反馈发布和投票,但留存率低,没人愿意付费。与产品团队交谈揭示了真正的业务问题:经理们无法管理散落在聊天消息、邮件和支持工单中的反馈,即使他们非常关心。第一个付费客户在2016年12月出现,每月19美元。
Canny随后把社区分叉成SaaS产品,低调发布给已经在使用它的团队,并在Product Hunt上发布,第一周有350多家公司试用。增长变得有机:终端用户在客户网站上看到“Powered by Canny”,为自己产品注册,大多数月份零流失。到2017年10月,Canny约有100个付费客户,月收入3500美元,而成本只有几百美元——没有一通外联销售电话或一个投资人,就达到了拉面盈利。
创始人是住在西班牙瓦伦西亚的数字游民夫妇,计划从转化现有流量转向通过博客、小规模广告实验和免费副产品来增长流量。
这件事要成立,得有什么
- 他们从作为用户的自身痛点出发,然后采访团队,直到付费问题——反馈淹没在聊天、邮件和工单中——变得具体。
- 从一开始就收费,在规模化之前验证了产品:第一个支付每月19美元的陌生人仍是一年后的客户。
- 低调发布给5000名现有社区用户,并在Product Hunt上发布,给了第一天精准瞄准买家的牵引力。
- 面向用户的小部件创造了有机循环:终端用户看到“Powered by Canny”并注册自己的产品,保持流失率接近零。
- 极低的成本使盈利触手可及:两位创始人在瓦伦西亚工作,每月只花几百美元用于托管和SaaS。
可借鉴之处
尽早向陌生人收费以证明问题,然后让面向用户的产品的“Powered by”链接做营销:在创始人在广告上花任何钱之前,漏斗就在增长。
后续进展
截至2017年10月24日,Canny实现了拉面盈利:约3500美元的月经常性收入对几百美元的开支,约100个付费客户,大多数月份接近零流失,没有外部资金。创始人计划从转化流量转向增长流量,通过针对目标客户的博客、小规模Facebook和谷歌广告实验,以及免费副产品,并表示会在后续文章中报告结果。
资料来源
- How We Bootstrapped Our SaaS Startup to Ramen Profitability
- How We Bootstrapped Our SaaS Startup to Ramen Profitability | Hacker News
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