Founder stories
$1K MRRin 1 year
Status Page SaaS: Learning Customer Support While Reaching $1K MRR
Founder
Ali Salah
Solo Founder•Technical•USA
Commitment
Full-timeExperience
First-timeProduct
Status page service for monitoring uptime.
Type
SaaSIndustry
ProductivityModel
SubscriptionMarketing Strategy
How Ali acquired customers
Primary Channel
SEO / Content
Tech Stack
Tools used to build Instatus
ReactNode.jsPostgreSQL
The Full Story
Ali Salah built Instatus, a service for creating status pages. Reaching $1K MRR was his goal for 2020.
Product-Market Fit
Initially offered a free forever plan, no one would upgrade. Now some customers upgrade within a day.
Customer Support
His initial tendency was to fix issues first, then reply. He evolved to over-communication: send emails proactively.
- Time to $1K MRR: 1 year
- Early churn: High, now very low
- Channel: SEO
Key Takeaways
1
Don't invest heavily in marketing until product-market fit is proven
2
Over-communicate with customers - reply fast even if just to acknowledge
3
Early churn is normal - focus on improving the product based on feedback
4
Freemium can work but requires patience before users upgrade
Originally published onIndie Hackers
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Ali's Path to $1K MRRPremium
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
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