Alexey

i'm totally the same. Never considered myself a great developer. Just a guy who can code 😄

well, it was a tough thanksgiving day this year 😂

oops... 🫣

closing my code editor

4. The trick?

Made it look NON-automated
No fancy formatting
No images
No marketing BS

Just a simple "hey, noticed you left, what happened?"

People actually reply to these because they don't scream "automated message" 🧠

3. 2 hours of coding later:

- Auto-sends plain text email (looks like I typed it myself)
- Saves me 3h/week
- Already got 2 customers back
- Collecting gold mine of feedback

2. I was spending 2-3 hours EVERY week just copying and pasting the same stuff 🤦

Then my dev brain kicked in:
"Dude, you're wasting time on repetitive tasks"

1. Here's what my weekly routine looked like

- Check dashboard
- See cancellation
- Write personal email
- Wait for reply
- Try to help
- Repeat 5-10 times

Lazy guide to handling cancellations that saved me 3h/week 🧵:

4. My biggest lesson?

Listen to what customers say
But watch what they do

Took months to get this balance right, but transformed how I build

3. My best decisions came from data, not discussions

Proof:
- Abandoned cart recovery: $10k+ back to customers
- Basic promo codes: 20% conversion jump

Both outperformed my "dream features" list

2. The feature requests trap got me good

Sure, my users knew their problems

But finding real solutions meant ignoring half of those requests

1. Customer feedback hits different when you're the founder

Got caught between users demanding opposite features

One needs tax management
Another runs away from it

The real growth came from decoding what my product lacked

Things I wish I knew before launching my SaaS 🧵

7. Speaking of which...

Our Black Friday deal drops today at @marketsyai.bsky.social

No gimmicks. Just our best work yet

bsky.app/profile/mark...

6. This year will be different

Not because I've become smarter

But because I've become more honest with myself about what our customers actually want

5. Looking at purchase data:

- Most bought our highest tier
- Many asked about annual plans
- Several inquired about bulk licenses

They had budget. They needed value. I was solving the wrong problem

4. The reality hit hard:

These weren't price-sensitive customers hunting deals

These were entrepreneurs investing their year-end profits into tools for 2024

And I was competing on... price? 🤦‍♂️

3. Mistake #3: Obsessed over discount numbers

Analyzed our buyers later: 90% were course creators, coaches, and indie founders

2. Mistake #2: Started prep 2 weeks before BF

My emails? Buried under hundreds of offers
My ads? Crazy expensive
Me and my co-founder? Stressed and overworked

Should've seen it coming. Most buyers had already picked their tools weeks before BF

1. Mistake #1: Copied big SaaS playbooks blindly

- 50% off everything
- Flashy countdown timers
- Aggressive email sequence

Result: High traffic, terrible margins, wrong customers 🤦‍♂️

Don't make these mistakes when doing Black Friday offer

(I blew this out last year, and i'm not gonna do it again) 🧵:

5/5
The real secret isn't going viral

It's being there with the right solution when someone needs it most

Boring beats viral every time

4/5
Most overlooked opportunity:

Converting help articles into products

Every support ticket, forum question, and confused email reveals exactly what people need enough to pay for

3/5
Skip the fancy marketing. Focus on being the answer to specific Google searches

Your digital product becomes the obvious solution when someone is desperately looking for help - not when they're mindlessly scrolling

2/5
Create content addressing their midnight panic moments:

- Email templates that land dream clients
- Legal contract packs for freelancers
- Step-by-step system migration guides
- Video tutorials fixing specific error codes
- Templates for professional case studies

1/5
Boring truth: your best customers never scroll social media looking to buy digital products

They're stuck solving an urgent problem at 2 AM, frantically searching for solutions

I spent over 1,000 hours learning to sell digital products, and found the "boring" strategy beats viral hacks 👇:

I admit that I saw and liked that 🫡

Listing Bot - #1 for directory submission sites! Over 10,000 directories in db and growing in ListingBott! List SaaS, product, or website on 100+ directories in one click, saving you days of work to focus on more creative tasks. Listing Bot.

All of the above options are free—you just need to put in the time to create valuable content

But half of my backlinks actually came from listingbott.com, which might be a good topic for the next post with a list of paid content submission sites for indie-preneurs

6. Product Hunt
DA: 91
Difficulty: 🟡 Moderate

Love it or hate it, it gives me super juicy backlinks
A product page gives me a dofollow link with highly relevant context

Plus, my profile can hold multiple links to all my projects