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Description by @mijustin
Is there a time where a SaaS hits a certain MRR and can stop growing?
Episode details
Also: will paid podcast feeds be a thing?
Published on Sep 10, 2019
in Entrepreneurship
US English
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Build your SaaS
@buildyoursaas
One listener DM'd this question:
"You mentioned 'needs to accrue $10K MRR in a reasonable amount of time.' Do you care to elaborate on this time threshold? Is it different for ever company/market. If at 6 months you haven’t met '$X MRR,' you should just quit? At what year should you do that?"
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Justin Jackson
@mijustin
I wrote a bit about this here: https://justinjackson.ca/giveup
A lot of this depends on the market, the type of product you’re selling, and the outcome you’re looking for.
However, all of us need to have some sort of "circuit breaker" for killing an idea. I think most folks stay with bad ideas too long.
Jason Cohen says: "If you're two years in and you still need a day job then by definition it doesn’t have good fundamentals."
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Build your SaaS
@buildyoursaas
Another listener wrote in to say:
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Justin Jackson
@mijustin
Patreon is a big player, but their success (and effect on the market) is difficult to quantify for a few reasons.
First, Patreon is venture-backed ($47 million). They're truly trying to create a new category. Most businesses shouldn't pursue that strategy (because they don't have the time or money to make it happen).
Second, Patreon has admitted their business model isn't sustainable: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/23/crowd-funding-platform-patreon-announces-it-will-pay-out-half-a-billion-dollars-to-content-creators-in-2019.html. Even with all that funding, they haven't figured out a way to make it work as a business!
Third, Patreon's focus isn't just on podcasters, but rather for "all creators." This gives them a huge potential audience of video creators, journalists, musicians, artists, etc...
From a VC's perspective, Patreon may have passed "The Mom Test" in that there were thousands of creators actively looking for a way to earn a living (and the momentum with Kickstarter, Gumroad, etc.. was good evidence of this). But from an entrepreneur's perspective (especially a bootstrapper), Patreon wouldn't haven passed the test, because most artists and creatives aren't making any money. There's not enough evidence that there's sufficient momentum.
(Only 2% of creators on Patreon make a living wage: https://theoutline.com/post/2571/no-one-makes-a-living-on-patreon?zd=1&zi=bbapfovl)
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