I am launching a new education platform for Blockchain developers. This is the story of why I am doing it. I have been dreaming of this project for a long time. And it’s finally happening.
What is a SaaS?
Running your own SaaS is the wet dream of every software developer. And I am not exception.
Saas, or software as a service just means a web or mobile app that runs a service. Netflix, AWS or Udemy are all examples of SaaS.
And you also have much smaller SaaS that performs a very specific service, like Indiehackers who run SaaS as a one-person operation.
So why is it so attractive to software developers like us?
- With a SaaS, you have your own business, meaning that you can quit your job and be your own boss.
- With a SaaS, you can leverage your programming skills.
- And finally with a SaaS, you can get recurring revenue.
So running as SaaS has been dream of mine for a long time, and I am finally doing it.
Giving up without a fight
A long time ago, when I was still an employe, I was already dreaming of running my own SaaS. But I quickly realized that it was harder than I thought.
With a SaaS, you spend a long time working on a product, without any guarantee that you will have customers. It’s really scary. And… I have to admit… I have been a coward. I let this fear get the best of me and I didn’t even try.
But I still wanted to become an entrepreneur. And I also wanted to leverage my coding skills. So I decided to become an infopreneur. An infopreneur is someone who sells training, like video courses.
So I became an infopreneur by creating and selling courses for Blockchain developers. And this is what I have been so far.
Back to coding
As an infopreneur, I became a weaker coder.
I became weaker, because I was doing mostly easy tutorials, and not production code. I was still having SaaS fantasies from time to time. But with my weaker coding skills, this seemed even less likely.
And I realized one thing.
I have every reason in the world to get back to production coding:
- First of all, it makes me more credible for my audience of Blockchain developers here.
- And second, it will make more feel more confident if I ever want to launch a saas.
That’s why I went back to production.
I went back to working as a freelance Blockchain developer. And last month I made $30k from it. Pretty good.
So now that I have my coding skill back, the next question what am I going to build for my SaaS?
Some SaaS ideas
When you build a SaaS, there are 2 parts:
- The product
- And the marketing
The reason why most indiehackers fail, is because they don’t like marketing. So they don’t do it. They just work on their product, they have no users, and they give up. End of the story.
In my case, I have a big advantage, because I already have this audience on Youtube. So if I decide to do a SaaS for this audience, I have already solved half the problem.
I already have the users. Now, I just need to build something they want.
So I thought of different ideas:
- One idea was building tools for crypto investors, like trading bots or investment analysis app for crypto.
- Another idea was tools for crypto entrepreneurs, like a token creator.
I might do some of these ideas in the future. But, I think I have a better idea.
My first SaaS project
My core audience is Blockchain developers, and I teach them Blockchain coding. Could we do something related?
In the past, I tried to do an education platform for Blockchain developers. With a subscription, you had access to all my video courses. This was very successful.
A lot of you became subscribers, and it was great. But I quickly ran into a huge problem:
For a lot of these courses, I had to hire instructors to create all these courses, because I couldn’t do it myself. And… it was extremely difficult and painful.
You have to find a Blockchain developer:
- technically competent
- interested in teaching
- and who knows how to record video
And, it’s just not easy. Most developers don’t want to create video courses. They just want to code. And I understand that.
Also, I did this a few years ago, when the industry was much smaller. The pool of potential instruction for Blockchain courses was much smaller. That’s why it was really difficult to grow the catalogue of courses. That was one big issue I had.
Another big issue was how to keep the courses up-to-date:
- Blockchain technology changes so fast.
- A video course will become outdated in just a few month.
- But making a video courses takes a lot of time.
- It can easily take you a few month.
That’s why it’s so hard to keep a video course up-to-date. So in the end, I decided to not continue in this direction.
The best way to learn programming
And this leads us to now. Because now, I have another idea.
I am still not giving up on building a SaaS. And I am not even giving up on building an education platform.
I love education. I think that learning is one of the most powerful thing you can do. Everyday, I spend a few hours learning something new. And I think everybody should do this.
So what about learning programming?
I don’t do another video course. I want to innovate. So what can I do?
One of my most popular courses was a course called “30 days to learn Solidity”. People loved this course. The idea was pretty simple. For 30 days, I give you one coding challenge. And after you tried, you can see the solution.
This is the best way to learn. You just have to do a lot of projects, of increasing difficulty.
You don’t know to spend 40h watching some long-ass video course. It doesn’t work, it’s too passive. You have to actually code, and challenge.
My second SaaS / the 30 day academy
And this is how I got the idea for my project, the 30 day academy.
The 30 day academy is an education platform to learn anything in 30 days. We will focus on Blockchain at first, but the concept can apply to anything.
On the 30 day academy, you will have a series of 30 challenges and solutions. Everything will be text-based:
- Text is great because it’s easy to update, so we can keep the courses up-to-date
- Text is also great because it’s faster than video, which means we can do grow a huge catalogue of courses
The v1 will be released for Black Friday, on November 29th. The first course will be 30 day coding challenge for Solidity. And when you finish it, you will have a certificate that you can share on social media.
And after that, we will quickly add new courses. We are going to have 100’s of courses.
For the launch of the 30 day academy on Black friday, there will be a special discount. If you want to receive this discount, register with [this link[2. You will receive the discount on November 29th, so don’t miss the date.
I am so excited about this project. I have very ambitious plans for the 30 day academy. This is something that’s been on my mind for a long time, and I am finally doing it.
I am not using any existing platform, it’s all custom coded. And this is why I can do any customization:
- The v1 will be simple, coding challenges and coding solutions, but later I will quickly iterate and add other features.
- For the v2, I am planning to use AI to give you feedback.
- And once we have a feedback system, we can have a leaderboard where you can see how well you are doing compared to other people.
Ok, so if want to receive a special discount for the launch of the 30 day academy, sign up with this link. You will get the discount for Black Friday, which is November 29th.
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