SaaS •Entrepreneurship

How I built my first SaaS without an audience ($25K/month)

Starter Story • • 14 min • #124
How I built my first SaaS without an audience ($25K/month)

Hassam is a non-technical founder who built his app 100% with AI. Then he hacked distribution by using someone else's audience to share his work. This video breaks down his distribution strategy that helped him his $25K MRR in 90 days

Summary

  • Ham

    • Built Launch Fast as his first SaaS from his Amazon business experience.
    • Is a non-technical founder.
    • Worked a corporate job while running two Amazon brands on the side.
    • Discovered Cursor and AI tools early through Twitter.
    • Built about 10 to 12 projects across different spaces before Launch Fast.
    • Said most earlier projects never made it to production.
    • Realized his Amazon domain knowledge was an advantage most developers did not have.
    • Built a tool he wished he had as an Amazon seller.

  • Launch Fast

    • Is an AI-powered Amazon product research tool.
    • Is built specifically for private label sellers.
    • Helps users find, validate, and source products in minutes instead of weeks.
    • Replaces manual research that had taken Ham 20 to 30 hours per product idea.
    • Serves a niche audience of Amazon sellers.
    • Has an official Chrome extension with 330 active users.
    • Has only paying users at the time discussed.

  • Metrics and Pricing

    • Reached over $20,000 in MRR within 90 days.
    • Hit about $10,000 MRR around day 30.
    • Reached around $17,000 to $18,000 MRR around day 60.
    • Reached about $21,800 MRR around day 90.
    • Offers $50 per month pricing to Legacy X coaching customers.
    • Offers $199 per month regular pricing to the general public.

  • Distribution Partnership Strategy

    • Recognized that no audience meant no distribution.
    • Remembered Legacy X, a coaching program he had bought two years earlier.
    • Saw that Legacy X already had thousands of active Amazon sellers.
    • Chose to partner with someone who already had distribution instead of building an audience from scratch.
    • Traded equity for instant access to target customers and validation.
    • Believes 50% of $20,000 MRR is better than 100% of zero MRR.
    • Reached out to Legacy X and offered to build a better product research tool in 48 hours with no strings attached.
    • Sent a demo and woke up to a call telling him to quit his job and work on it full time.

  • 48-Hour Build Process

    • Spent the first four hours mapping Legacy X systems, SOPs, data, and workflows.
    • Combined their workflow with his own Amazon seller process to define the MVP.
    • Used hours 5 to 12 to build core features in Cursor.
    • Prioritized functionality over perfection.
    • Used hours 13 to 20 for bug testing and iteration.
    • Used hours 21 to 30 to polish the UI and branding.
    • Treated branding as important because of his Amazon experience.
    • Used hours 31 to 40 for more testing and edge cases.
    • Finished with demo prep, recorded a video, and sent it to Legacy X.

  • Domain Knowledge Playbook

    • Identify three to five industries or domains where you have deep knowledge and have personally solved problems.
    • Find validated markets inside those domains.
      • Look for niches with existing successful SaaS tools.
      • Use tools such as Sensor Tower, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console to study competitors.
      • Remember the idea does not need to be unique if execution is better in a proven market.
    • Deep dive on user pain points.
      • Study Reddit, Facebook groups, Twitter, and review sites.
      • Identify the user, their ultimate goal, and the defects in current tools.
    • Build the MVP around the highest-ROI feature with the easiest implementation.
    • Partner for distribution instead of building an audience from scratch.
      • Look for coaching companies, communities, influencer groups, and others with target customers.
      • Send demos and offer partnerships.
    • Iterate daily after launch.
      • Use bugs, feature requests, and user feedback as inputs.
      • Ship at least one improvement every day for 30 days.

  • Tech Stack and Costs

    • Uses Cursor to write code.
    • Hosts on Vercel and deploys with the CLI from Cursor.
    • Uses Supabase for database, auth, and storage.
    • Uses Resend for personalized onboarding emails.
    • Uses Apify for data aggregation.
    • Builds with TypeScript and Next.js because Ham sees it as modern and AI-friendly.
    • Expects costs to stay low early, with Cursor Max at about $200 as the main expense before finding a winning product.

  • Lessons and Advice

    • Monetize domain knowledge by turning it into software.
    • Stop waiting and stop overplanning.
    • Ship something this weekend and put it in front of at least 10 people.
    • Listen to feedback, iterate, and ship again.
    • Repeat when the first attempt does not work.
    • Remember that AI tools closed much of the gap between idea and execution.
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