Launching a Microsaas in Two Days
We recently had the opportunity to put our no-code development skills to the test with a new microsaas product. We wanted to solve a problem we were experiencing ourselves - the need to manually keep a notion board up-to-date with a linear project board.
As an agency, we often have to give clients view-only access to our project boards. However, the project management tool we were using at the time, Linear, didn't have this feature. This meant that we had to manually keep a notion board up-to-date with our Linear project board, which was time-consuming and tedious.
We knew that we weren't the only ones experiencing this problem, and that there was a need for a solution. So, we set out to create one. But first, we needed to prove that it was possible.
To do this, we reached out to the Linear customers slack channel and asked if anyone was interested in using our product. We were pleasantly surprised by the response - people were excited about the idea and asked how to sign up and when they could start using it. This was validation that there was a real demand for our solution.
With the prototype and interest from potential users, we were ready to start building the actual product. This was an exciting and intense process, as we told potential users it was already live! But with our no-code development skills, we were able to quickly build a the first version and launch.
After spending just 20 hours building the actual product over the course of two days, we were ready to launch. We immediately started getting people signing up and using the product. It was gratifying to see our idea come to life and provide value to others. However, launching also brought some challenges and learnings.
Challenges and learnings
One of the biggest learnings we had was that production data is different from test data. When we launched, we quickly realised that there were organisations with much more data and teams than we had anticipated. Luckily, people let us know about this and because we built the product in Bubble, we were able to quickly add features such as pagination and merging statuses from two teams, in just a few hours.
Another issue we encountered was that bulk changes in Linear, such as issues moving to a new cycle on a Sunday night, sent hundreds of webhook requests to our server all at once and caused timeouts. To solve this, we implemented queuing using the Google Cloud Tasks service, ensuring that massive spikes could be processed in an efficient manner.
After launching and dealing with these challenges, we moved into maintenance mode. We implemented logging via an external platform to ensure high observability, and linked it with our status and incident management platform to alert us whenever there were errors or high strain on the system.
Throughout the process, we also listened to feedback from users and had to say no to some ideas because they were outside of our scope and would complicate things. We have to be strict on our use case for agencies and large internal teams, as the product needs to be sustainable as a microsaas. We also continue to use the product ourselves and implement things that we find useful as we solve our own problem.
Moving forward
Now that our product is up and running, we're starting to think about monetisation. We're messaging the people who have signed up and are using the product to see if they're interested in upgrading to a paid version. We're also exploring other potential revenue streams, such as offering custom development and integration services.
Overall, we're thrilled with the response to our product and the value it's providing to others. We're excited to continue improving and growing it, and we're grateful for the opportunity to put our no-code development skills to the test.