Borrowed dreams

After having to deal with downtime, database crashes, and all manner of emergencies, at ungodly hours, weekends, holidays, on my own SaaS products and others’…

It finally hit me.

I don’t really want that for my lifestyle.

I don’t want to wake up at 3am to fix a server on fire.
I don’t want to have to bring my laptop on vacation ‘just in case’.
I don’t want to be super stressed trying to get my app back up with angry customers breathing fire down my neck because it’s a mission critical infrastructure for their businesses.

Maybe SaaS is not for me after all…
Maybe it’s all just a borrowed dream.

All along, I’ve never really questioned it. Everyone successful in the indie hacking scene runs a SaaS. So I took that as what I should work towards too. Some do do well with content or media, the whole influencer thing, which I generally dislike, so that’s out for me. Occasionally you see someone doing well on the kind of SaaS which is not a critical part of a business, more of a useful vitamin, and doesn’t require that level of vigilance. Only a select few does non-SaaS products and are doing well.

Actually all along so far, that’s where I was at. My most profitable projects are not SaaS – Carrd plugins, Lists Kit, Outsprint (if we include productized services and consulting). All are one-time payments, monthly non-recurring revenue, or just selling my time or knowledge.

People buy my plugins, they pay once, and that’s it. The support load is light. Some might need help, so they send me an email. Though I try to reply within a day, the situation is never urgent, never stressful. In fact, most of my plugins for free, so the expectations for timely support is even lower. I launch a new plugin every month, but don’t expect it to go viral within the day or week in order to succeed. It grows in SEO and word of mouth, slowly, steadily. I don’t need to build in public. Or write click bait tweets that make me question my own integrity. Or even do Tiktok dances. Best of all, there’s no downtime to worry about, no server to tamagotchi over. Very rarely are there angry customers.

Just a calm, slow business.

It’s perfect for my life stage, my lifestyle.
I think that’s where I am headed next.
More of such kinds of calm products.

No more SaaS.
Not that kind of high vigilance SaaS anyway.

No more borrowed dreams.

Just what works.
For my family.
For me.