SaaS •Entrepreneurship

How I Built a $13K/Month SaaS

Starter Story • • 23 min • #129
How I Built a $13K/Month SaaS

Ayush built Elephas, an AI app that’s making $150K/year. He grew the business in two phases: Phase 1 was Reddit and Phase 2 was SEO. This video breaks down his exact Reddit playbook and his SEO strategy, that helped him go from zero to $150K/year in just a few years.

Summary

  • Aayush
    • Co-founded Elephas after joining the original founder, Kamban, first as a consultant and later as the marketing co-founder.
    • Quit an 11-year corporate job before consulting with early-stage startups on product and marketing.
    • Focused on marketing while Kamban handled development.
    • Grew Elephas as a two-person team through Reddit first and SEO second.
  • Elephas
    • Is a Mac AI assistant that indexes local files, PDFs, Apple Notes, web pages, YouTube videos, and other personal knowledge.
    • Lets users create knowledge bases called super brains and chat with their own documents.
    • Supports an offline version using downloaded open-source models.
    • Grounds answers in the user’s own files so users can trust the output more than a generic chatbot.
    • Sells monthly subscriptions, annual subscriptions, and lifetime deals because Mac app customers often expect one-time payment options.
  • Metrics And Revenue
    • Grew from zero to about $150,000 per year over three years.
    • Reached around $12,000 per month.
    • Uses four revenue channels: the website, Setapp, the Mac App Store, and the iOS App Store.
    • Generated around $110,000 in the shown year’s Gumroad data.
    • Brought in around 180,000 website visits per year.
  • Reddit Growth
    • Used Reddit to reach niche, high-intent audiences in the early days.
    • Posted in niche subreddits to ask for feedback, show the product, and share demos.
    • Used Reddit feedback and customer insights to shape the product.
    • Went from zero to about $3,000 MRR in six months through Reddit.
    • Treated Reddit as a fast feedback channel rather than only a scalable traffic source.
  • SEO Growth
    • Discovered SEO after support articles written for early users started getting Google traffic.
    • Made around $70,000 from Google over a 12-month period in 2023.
    • Used SEO to scale beyond Reddit after Reddit produced diminishing returns.
    • Found underserved search queries with low competition and high demand.
    • Ranked with listicles such as best ChatGPT Mac apps and captured high-intent traffic.
    • Started receiving AI answer engine traffic from tools such as ChatGPT and Claude referencing Elephas articles.
  • SEO Playbook
    • Define the product’s exact positioning in the market before keyword research.
    • Think like the ICP and identify what they would search on Google or ask AI tools.
    • Use Ahrefs to find keywords with difficulty below 20 and search volume above 500.
    • Start with low-volume, high-intent, low-competition terms when domain authority is low.
    • Buy Ahrefs for a short period if needed, collect 30 to 50 topics, then write consistently.
    • Use AI as a research assistant for outlines, then add original insight, user data, and market knowledge.
    • Win by adding net-new information instead of repeating what already exists online.
  • Tech Stack And Tools
    • Built the native Mac app with Swift.
    • Uses Claude Code for development and marketing work.
    • Uses Ahrefs, NeuronWriter, Map of Reddit, N8N, ClickUp, Discord, Superblog, MailerLite, Plausible, and Google Search Console.
    • Uses Discord for team communication and user community feedback.
  • Lessons And Advice
    • Put more buy buttons on the internet instead of hiding behind waitlists and free signups.
    • Run short experiments, fail quickly, learn quickly, and double down on what earns traction or revenue.
    • Use Reddit to build thick skin, hear real objections, and improve the product.
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