SaaS •Entrepreneurship

I Make $17K/Month With One Strategy

Starter Story • • 17 min • #143
I Make $17K/Month With One Strategy

Ben makes $17K/month from a SaaS he grew without ads, going viral, or being creative. His strategy: make the same video over and over again. This is his full breakdown.

Summary

  • Ben
    • Builds software products and runs Follow Buddy, a tool for safely finding who unfollowed you on Instagram.
    • Has run a marketing agency for seven years after starting it in college.
    • Learned through agency work that YouTube could become a high-converting revenue channel for software companies.
    • Built Follow Buddy after years of seeing Instagram users ask about unfollower tracking and account bans.
  • Follow Buddy
    • Helps users find unfollowers through Instagram’s export data feature without violating Instagram’s terms of service.
    • Lets users upload follower and following information, compares it to a previous audit, and shows unfollowers and non-followers.
    • Links results back to Instagram so users can clean up their account.
    • Uses weekly, monthly, and yearly subscription plans with a free trial.
    • Pushes the yearly plan most strongly at $50 per year.
  • Metrics
    • Makes about $20K per month according to Ben’s intro, while the episode frame says it hit $17K per month.
    • Has 82,000 users and 3,128 paying users.
    • Has 2,752 active subscriptions and 484 active trials in the shown dashboard.
    • Spent $0 on ads.
    • Generated 40,000 views over the previous 28 days on the branded Follow Buddy channel.
  • Origin story
    • Started with Ben making content about how to grow online.
    • Became a support-like resource for Instagram questions because viewers asked him about account growth and unfollower apps.
    • Investigated why users were getting banned and found that many apps violated Instagram’s terms.
    • Found a safer compare-lists method, made a video that got over 1M views, and later built the product once development became affordable.
  • YouTube search strategy
    • Uses organic, search-based traffic across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
    • Focuses on high-intent searches where users have already decided they need a solution.
    • Ranks videos for terms such as best Instagram unfollower tracker apps and unfollower app Instagram.
    • Uses low-competition YouTube search results where even simple videos can rank.
    • Keeps creating variations around target keywords until videos rank.
  • YouTube SEO playbook
    • Map the customer’s awareness ladder from problem awareness through purchase readiness.
    • Use ChatGPT, VidIQ, or Keywords Everywhere to understand how people phrase their questions and how much they search.
    • Prioritize video ideas by buyer intent and search volume.
    • Review current ranking videos, then make a more useful or shorter version where competitors are weak.
    • Front-load the primary keyword in the title while still writing for humans.
    • Confirm the viewer’s click immediately, deliver the answer quickly, and honestly show pros and cons.
    • Use descriptions and tags with multiple relevant keyword variations.
    • Monitor rankings and keep stacking videos across keywords and channels.
  • Tech stack and tools
    • Built with React.
    • Uses SendGrid for customer communication and signup-related email.
    • Uses MongoDB for the database.
    • Uses AWS for cloud computing.
    • Uses Keywords Everywhere for keyword research.
    • Uses RevenueCat for payments.
  • Advice
    • Partner with excellent technical people and give them meaningful skin in the game.
    • Move quickly to validate even the smallest product idea.
    • Avoid overcomplicating the process because search-based content can work without much creativity.
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