In this article, we’ll break down how you can scale a simple SaaS to $40k MRR with just one marketing channel.
Background
Meet Jack. He learned how to code using ChatGPT in late 2023.
Jack started his journey working at McDonald’s, saving money and trying different ways to make money online.
He tried a lot of things, and eventually, something clicked.
He found one winning TikTok format that started generating hundreds of thousands of views and bringing people to his mobile app: a simple video showing 4 hobbies with a catchy, and sometimes provocative, title.
Because his app helped people learn new hobbies, this format naturally drove downloads and sales.
After growing 2 mobile apps to $1K+ MRR using TikTok, he realized that something was missing, so he built a tool to solve his own problem. Let’s break down how he did it.
Marketing Breakdown
Step 1: Solve your own problem
After learning how to code, Jack built his first app, Curiosity Quench.
Every day, he spent one hour marketing it. But out of that hour, 30 minutes went into cross-posting the same promo video across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, using multiple accounts on each platform. The only tool available to automate this cost over $100/month.
Considering that Jack wasn’t making much from his app at the time, that price wasn’t justifiable, so he decided to build his own cheaper version of it.
Step 2: Build a simple MVP
The first version of Post Bridge wasn’t a perfect all-in-one scheduler.
On launch day, YouTube didn’t even work yet. It only supported TikTok and Instagram.
But his teasing tweet blew up, so he shipped it fast to turn those views and hype into customers:
Even though the tool wasn’t ready, he launched and after 2 weeks reached $869 MRR:
Step 3: Start with simple pricing
Jack started with one simple plan: $9/month for unlimited everything.
Since it was a simple tool in a crowded market, setting a high price wouldn’t have worked. So he focused on volume instead of high prices.
After a month, he realized he needed better pricing and moved to two tiers.
One big move that helped Jack increase conversions was adding a free trial, letting people try the tool for free for 7 days. Around 50% of people who start the trial convert.
Another strategy that drove a lot of revenue was offering a 40% discount on yearly pricing.
Now, his pricing starts at $29/month:
But he has a lot of social proof that helps to justify it:
Step 4: Get results for yourself
A lot of founders create tools that promise results they aren’t getting for themselves. But Jack absolutely nailed this part, and it became one of the key reasons he succeeded.
Since he built the Post Bridge for himself, he started using it to post TikToks that promoted his own mobile app. His TikToks got views, and those views turned into sales. Then he shared his sales results on X, which made people want the same results.
Since his app was cheap enough, people were buying it and posting TikToks. And because people were buying his app, his MRR kept growing. He posted about that growth, which attracted even more attention:
This loop helped him grow both his audience and MRR at the same time.
Beyond build-in-public content, Jack also created a free course on how to grow apps, naturally showing how he used his own product in the process:
The main lesson from this is simple: get great results with your own SaaS. Become your own case study and your best client. Then document exactly how you’re doing it so others can replicate your results.
Make your product a core part of the workflow, so anyone who wants to copy your strategy naturally needs to use your tool too.
Step 5: Build in public
The main strategy Jack used to grow his X account to over 120K followers was building and marketing his app every day, while documenting the process.
Jack is living proof that build-in-public works, but only if:
You are building a cool tool for other builders.
Jack built a tool that app builders can use to grow their apps.You are getting results (preferably financial ones) from using your own tool.
Jack grew his mobile apps to thousands of dollars in MRR and used his own tool to promote them.You are documenting the journey every day in an entertaining, relatable way.
Jack documented his journey, but made it relatable by sharing every financial milestone, his background working at McDonald’s, and his current situation: shipping from his mom’s basement.
At the end of the day, because he was having fun and doing cool things, people had fun watching him.
