Ray Deck tells SaaS founders to stop chasing recurring revenue from early adopters. Instead, serve paying customers with services or simple solutions they actually need now. You'll earn cash, build credibility, and learn what your market really wants.
Get the wrong revenue from the right customers. I find I talk a lot to SaaS-type entrepreneurs, and they tell me they really want their MRR. They want a certain type of revenue they think is the revenue they're going for, revenue as they put it, will scale or that will go in their sleep. But when you're first starting out, the most important asset you have is not your technology, it's your brand, it's your reputation in the market. And the best way to get reputation in the market is to be out there serving the market and the market will pay you for it. I would encourage you to go find what your customers, what your target customers, want and need. And if that's not exactly what you're offering today, offer that to them, the thing that they need. I bet there's a form, probably a service or something that you can be providing them today and be getting revenue from them and getting reputation and knowledge about their business all at the same time. Further your business far more than getting revenue from, I don't know, like a bunch of random little startups that are sort of experimenting with your tool because they have a high tolerance for risk. Get the wrong revenue from the right customers to build your business.
