First SaaS revenue, what’s next? | London UK Software Engineer (ep. 19)
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In this video, I explain how I got my first annual paying customer for my SaaS product called interlu.io. Interlu is a product that makes searching for UK companies quick and simple. The tool is similar to Companies House, a register provided by the UK government for all UK companies. I have been documenting the whole process of building interlu.io and my life as a freelance software engineer, based in London UK.
If you're new here. Hi, my name is Jacob and I've spent 6+ years working with startups as a founding or lead product and design engineer. Spent the last 4 years leading the build of internal and external software for a boutique tax consultancy firm in London, which has handled £55m+ to date. I'm currently based in London UK.
If you have any feedback while looking at Interlu, I'd love to hear it in the comments below. Previous comments have significantly impacted the product, so be sure to leave your thoughts!
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I can only say congrats, i am also a SaaS founder, and got my first anual payment last year and i know how it feels. Congrats again, there are going to be more paymets soon. keep improving the saas. :)
That is an awesome comment - thank you! Yes the hard work continues 🙌🙌🙌
Hey everyone! Thanks for watching my latest video. If you're new here and curious about Interlu, check it out at interlu.io. Interlu is a SaaS that simplifies and enhances your search for UK companies. I'd love to hear your thoughts on both the product and the video. Your feedback is greatly appreciated! I hope you all had a smashing week ❤👍
Nice to see someone doing similar things, keep it up! I am also a founder of a SaaS startup (AI hiring software) but I'm pre-revenue so I still have to experience the first paying customer.
Keep going! You can do it 👌 thank for your comment 🫡
First SaaS youtuber who speaks authentically and doesn't try to frontload the conversation with paid courses or false claims.
Great work Jacob. I'm a fellow engineer, co-foudner / CTO, keen to connect on LinkedIn if you're interested.
Thanks for your kind words Rob! I'm just trying to share my journey and hope that people find it interesting. Happy to connect on Linkedin 👍
@@JacobSargentTech just sent a connection request
Accepted!
Hi Jacob, congrats for your first customer !!
I was wondering something : you've been building your SaaS for several months now and you've got your first customer now. How do you consider the fact that customer growth is rather slow? Do you think this product has a good market fit ? I wonder if you should focus more on getting your product known to prospects.
This is a great point/question and something I am very aware of. As I split my time between freelancing, building interlu, marketing both and this youtube channel I don't have too much time... so everything just does take longer. Having this validation is a step in the right direction and in other positive news I have had more requested features which I think will really improve interlu's value prop!
I look forward to sharing more soon 🔥
@@JacobSargentTech Great to have your feedback, keep up, it's really inspiring !
Thank you!
Congrats🎉
Best of luck for future ❤
Thank you! I have got a long way to go :)
Loving the progress , congrats on your first paid user !
Thanks Leigh 🙏🙏 so much more to come 🥳
Hey! Have you considered adding webhooks so that your clients can have messages sent in a slack channel instead of/as well as email?
Also, what ui frameworks did you use for this? I've got a saas product i've been working on, but I can't get the interface right
Hey, Alfie thanks for your comment! Great suggestion ref webhooks it has been noted.
For the UI I’m using material ui joy - it’s really great 👍
That is a really great product, I am an accountant (also based in London) so will be a great tool to use. Would also be good to be able to follow when their deadlines are for filing etc
Hi Michaela, great to hear your thoughts on the product. It would be great to chat on a call to gain a better understanding of this feature request. Book a call with me here: app.interlu.io/book-demo
Thanks for your comment ❤️🙌
Hi Michaela, you can actually do this now with interlu... woohoo!
Love the content!
Thank you 🙏 so much more to come 🙌
Congrats Bro!, I am still trying from 3 months.
You can do it - you are closer then you think. Try to get closer to your customer if you can :)
15secs into this was hoping the SaaS was how to get luscious locks
Hahaha maybe my next idea!! 🤣🤣🤣
Congratulations 🎉
Thank you 🙏
This is amazing, congratulations 🎉. I would love some insights in how to pitch to potential costumers. For example, are you offering them a discount if they sign up before the feature is live? Thanks.
Great suggestion! I’ll think about including it in my next video 🙌
@@JacobSargentTech Awesome! Thanks. 🤩
You're welcome :)
Looking great!
Thank you! Cheers!
Could you do a video explaining how you planned out your company alert feature or of another feature you created in the future
I mentioned the plan in my previous video - but if you don’t think it’s enough then perhaps I should put together a specific video!
@@JacobSargentTech Please do :) You might not, but do first prototype new feature'S on Figma before you start coding, do you work out complex logic using flow charts first. I've always wondered what workflow founders use to build out complex new feature's
@@DavindarSinghKang Noted! To answer your question it really depends on the feature - before coding at all I always research and write out a plan of what I'm going todo, now if that includes a new UI then yes I'll do that in figma. Mainly I'm focused on speed and not breaking everything!
Great videos, subscribed! What makes those paying customers to pick your solution over a free web version of Companies House while the data is the same there, in your opinion?
A few things, great question. First is we save them time, the UI of CH isn't built for specific use cases - ours is. Second we present the data in a nicer more digestible manner. Third custom filters, every customer so far has wanted niche specific results on company house data. I hope this answers your question :)
Congrats mate, just stumbled on your channel while researching an idea. What's your tech stack for interlu?
Thanks 🙏 I’m currently working with the MERN stack (with Next.js) for interlu. Thanks for your comment!
I’m guessing, future customers would want an Interlu for charities. When I had a short accountancy apprenticeship, some of our clients were charities.
Good point and notes for a potential further feature - Charities do exist on companies house but interlu doesn’t sync with them yet!
Great videos Jacob, keep up the great work! What's your tech stack out of interest?
Thanks Matt! I use MERN at the moment, only because I'm familiar with it. What tech stack are you currently using?
@@JacobSargentTech I'm using a fairly vanilla LAMP stack but using Laravel for the codebase. I do want to start getting into using some new front end framework, I've been playing it very safe with standard jQuery for the last 20 or so years I've been developing.
Hello, congrats on your success! Love to watch your dev progress :) What's the app name you are used to draw in this video?
Yes it is! Thanks for confirming 👊
Amazing
Thank you! Cheers!
great progress mate! What platform are you using for video recording?
Thank you!! I just use quicktime it comes with the Mac. I then film my face using my 90D and then sync it all up in premier pro 🫡
Congratulations. Thank you for sharing. Do you mind sharing how did you come up with the idea? 😊
Great question, at my old job I was using companies house everyday and felt there must be a better way of doing this... and there wasn't (IMO)! So I thought why not build it. And here we are 🎯
@@JacobSargentTech Thank you 😊
You're welcome!
Sir do you earn 120k pound sterlings a year in London? Plz reply. Thanks a lot.
Have a search on Google for average salary for software engs in london, it will give a good mark for salary!
onwards and upwards!
Yes sir!
Impressive. Which tech stack did you use?
Thank you - for intelru I'm using the MERN tech stack!
@@JacobSargentTech awesome. Also my fav stack. Keep it up 👍🏼.
@@Nmdt-d Will do!
Is stripe your primary payment processor?
Yea it is! 🙏 why do you ask?
what is your main tech stack when making a new web application?
Hey Griot, I mainly use JavaScript so for for the front end I used next.js and back end node.js with a MongoDB database. I like to keep it simple 🙌
@@JacobSargentTech dope, congrats btw on the first annual customer
@@griot1722 Thank you!
1. Amazing app
2. Is there anything you can do to make it faster, its pretty fast but after I used algolia at work it seems average xD
Thanks for your comment! I’m still working on it, stay tuned as I believe it’ll get much faster soon!
@@JacobSargentTech 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
🔥
I think you have found a great niche. Good luck to you
Thank you - a long way to go but we’re making progress 🫡
Can't hear what are you saying at all😍
Oh no! Well in short I got a paying customer for a product feature which doesn't exist yet. Thanks for your comment 🫡
@@JacobSargentTech Sorry, What I meant was you looks so handsome that I can only focus on your face, and I completely overlook what you are saying.😘
@@JacobSargentTech Why aren't you responding to my comments? If I offended you, I apologize, my baby😭
You're good! Thanks for the kind words 🫡