My Landing Page obsession killed my SaaS product.
The Spark: Why I Quit My Job
About ten months ago, I was still working at a telecom company, developing software for WLAN systems. It was my second year out of college.
To be honest, I hated the telecom industry. The shrinking profit margins and vanishing bonuses were constant reminders that this was a "sunset industry." My heart was getting restless.
The turning point came from a friend. He started a Shopify store selling niche gadgets and business was good. But what shocked me was that he paid an agency $1,000 just to set up the site. After looking at his website—which was incredibly simple—I realized that becoming a Shopify agency might be a profitable opportunity.
So, I handed in my resignation and started my first entrepreneurial experiment.
The Reality Check & The Pivot
In the first three months after quitting (Months 1-3), I built a niche e-commerce social media account and grew it to 5,000 followers. I even got a few orders for Shopify site setups.
But reality hit me hard.
Most clients knew absolutely nothing about Shopify. 95% of my DMs were just people asking free questions with zero intent to buy. I was trapped in "free consulting" hell. For those who actually wanted to buy, 80% wouldn't accept a quote over $200.
Although setting up a Shopify store isn't hard, it is tedious. I realized that even if I worked 24/7, my income would barely match my old salary.
I needed a pivot. I looked at the Shopify App Store and saw SaaS apps making healthy profits. I analyzed my DMs again and realized: Clients don't need expensive full-site builds; they usually get stuck on specific styling tweaks.
So, I decided to build a SaaS to help Shopify store owners break through template limitations. "ElemSprite" was born.
The Brutal Lesson
I forced myself to become a full-stack founder overnight—learning UI design, frontend/backend coding, marketing, and taxes.
- I spent 2 months (Months 4-5) building the core product.
- Then, I spent 3 months (Months 6-8) just on the Landing Page and payment logic.
The Landing Page consumed an enormous amount of time. I had heard that "the Landing Page is crucial for conversion," so I obsessed over every pixel. As a backend developer with no design experience, this was torture. I scrapped and redid it countless times until I was finally satisfied.
Finally, in Month 9, I launched. I ran social media campaigns and did cold outreach (I even built a system that found 1,200+ precise leads per day—remind me to write a post about that later).
In one week, I got 50 signups. But zero paid conversions.
I thought I just needed more time. Then, the unthinkable happened.
Shopify released an update. They introduced a native AI feature that allowed users to change styles directly in the dashboard. It did exactly what ElemSprite did—but better, and completely free.
That was my darkest moment. Six months of hard work evaporated instantly. I felt completely lost.
The Post-Mortem
After a few hours, I calmed down. I told myself: If I quit now, I truly fail. I must learn from this.
I analyzed the entire ElemSprite launch and found critical errors:
- Development cycle was way too long.
- Skipped the validation phase.
- Chose a "hard mode" cold start.
- Poor user onboarding.
- Built on a platform dependency (Sherlocked by Shopify).
Points 2-5 are easy to fix next time. But Point 1 was the real bottleneck. Why did development take so long?
I realized that the Landing Page took up a disproportionate amount of time. For a "non-professional frontend engineer" like me, coding UI from scratch was a productivity killer.
Saving 90% of Landing Page Dev Time
The solution? "Borrow" existing designs.
Instead of writing frontend code from scratch, modifying existing, production-ready styles would drastically cut development time.
I tested most tools on the market, but they only provided static, messy HTML (like saveweb2zip).
I thought: Why not build a tool that helps indie founders clone "Production-Ready Code"? Like Lego blocks, you should be able to snap different components into any framework.
So, I spent 1 month (Month 10) building this tool: Lift.
Learning from my past mistakes, I didn't build the whole thing in isolation this time. I want to invite fellow indie founders and small business owners who share my pain to build this with me.
If you want to stop wasting time on Landing Page like I did, come join the Alpha. I'm giving a huge discount to the first batch of users who are willing to help me test and improve the product.
I have been there and honestly this is what scares me the most about building a product. Crazy thing is, a validated idea is not even guaranteed to boom, people are kind of reluctant to part with their money on a new company.
My suggestion is (and I am solving this same problem for myself right now) make a lot of contents on social networks. Develop authority while you are developing the project.
I made this indiehackers group to discuss things like this. We still need 6 more members for the group to be live.
https://www.indiehackers.com/group/saas-onboarding-workflows
Yes, I also realized this problem.
Now, I force myself to post at least one post on social media every day, while I'm also trying to shoot videos and write articles.
Additionally, I joined this group, it sounds interesting.
I joined :)
This is literally me right now. I spent days redesigning a comparison table 6 times and adding 5 languages before I had a single signup. Reading this feels like looking in a mirror. What would you do differently if you started over today?
Love how concrete your validation metric is (200 waitlist signups by Feb) — having a single number + deadline cuts through a ton of second-guessing.
A couple ideas that might help you hit it faster without derailing the build:
Define one primary acquisition loop and run it daily for a week (e.g. cold DM → waitlist, or posting 1 short teardown/day where Lift is the tool behind it). Consistency tends to beat “big launches” at this stage.
On the waitlist page, make the promise extremely specific to a persona (e.g. “Founders who can code but lose weeks on UI/landing pages” vs “Indie founders/web agencies/engineers”). You can always broaden later.
If the local algorithms are validated, migrating to backend first makes sense — consider shipping a super thin demo where users can paste a URL and get one useful output, even if it’s not pretty.
If you want, share the current waitlist URL + where your traffic is coming from (X? Reddit? YouTube?) and I can suggest 2–3 quick experiments to improve signup conversion.
Great reflection! The landing page trap is real. I've found that the most successful products I've seen prioritize a continuous feedback loop with users over polishing the marketing. A simple way to do this is having a public feature request board where users can vote - it keeps you focused on what actually matters to them, not what you think looks good. What's your approach to user feedback now?
I am currently trying to implement this feedback loop through a waitlist+testing in different stages, and I am expanding the user base to communicate with customers.
Currently, the main methods for communicating with customers are email+discord community.
This hits deeply — it really does feel like the end, especially when you have no backup plan. I've had that feeling a few times, and it's hard being a solo dev in such a big playing field.
Trying to make your work worthwhile — something you can actually make a living off of — puts you in such a tight corner. I also recently quit my job to go full-time on my main project, and it's such a complicated time to be in.
Planning ahead to ensure I'd be fine for a year was key to keeping my sanity, but it still feels like a heavy weight — especially with the stress of making sure your system works as intended, while fixating on features, being a perfectionist, and simply forgetting or losing sight of what you're actually trying to build.
Nonetheless, although your experience has been rough, it's a bit relieving to see others in a similar position — it can feel so isolating at times. Hope your current venture is successful! Joined the waitlist and looking forward to it going live!
Thank you very much for your subscription!
Perhaps setting long-term and short-term hard goals will help solve this problem, and I wish your entrepreneurial project all the best and help you achieve your goals as soon as possible!
The 2 months product vs 3 months landing page ratio is brutal but SO relatable.
We run a product studio (Figue.io) and recorded 28 podcast episodes about exactly these struggles — the constant tension between "shipping fast" and "looking professional."
One thing that helped us: treating the landing page like a hypothesis, not a deliverable. Ugly but clear > polished but late.
The Shopify Sherlocking part hurts. Platform risk is real. We had a similar wake-up call when building tools too close to what the platform could ship natively.
Curious about your cold outreach system finding 1,200+ leads/day — that sounds like a post worth writing!
Yes, clarity and ease of understanding are far more important than beautiful design.
We are accustomed to using products from various large companies, which always look incredibly beautiful, and this has also given us the illusion that "only when designed perfectly" can products be publicly sold.
It seems that everyone is very interested in this cold outreach system. I will update this content when I have free time.
This was a really honest breakdown — especially the part about getting “Sherlocked”.
What stood out to me most is how much time the landing page consumed compared to the actual core product.
As a solo builder, that tradeoff can be brutal.
Looking back, do you think launching with a much uglier / simpler landing page earlier would have changed anything?
Or was the platform dependency the real unavoidable risk?
If a simpler landing page had been used initially, it might have secured two more months of marketing time for me, but I think the impact on the outcome would likely not have been significant. Because my product was bound to be replaced by an official one in ten months anyway.
This failure was not caused by a single issue. Platform dependency is also a key factor.
This hits different when you are living it. I am a solo founder running two businesses right now - a SaaS product and a local services business - and I catch myself doing this exact same thing constantly. Building feels productive. Selling feels scary. So you tweak the landing page instead of sending the cold email.
The Shopify Sherlocking is brutal but honestly the bigger lesson is the one you already identified: 3 months on a landing page before knowing if people would pay is the real killer. I have been forcing myself to follow a no new features until 10 paying customers rule and it is uncomfortable but it works.
Also really interested in your cold outreach system for finding 1200+ leads per day. That kind of volume with precision targeting is exactly what small founders need. Hope you write that post.
Yes, exactly. Feature iteration and paying customers should form a feedback loop—one drives the other.
And regarding the cold outreach system: I'm planning to share a detailed breakdown of how I built it soon. Stay tuned!
This is a great breakdown — thanks for sharing the timeline and the post‑mortem.
One pattern I’ve seen (and fallen into) is treating the landing page as a “safe” form of progress when the real unknown is: do people feel the pain enough to change behavior and pay?
A couple practical tweaks that might help you avoid the same trap with Lift:
Curious: what’s the smallest “manual” version of Lift you could sell this week (even if it’s a concierge service) to validate willingness to pay?
Hi moodful,
Thanks for the three practical tips—they are incredibly helpful. Defining a single 'Job-to-be-Done' is exactly what I’m focusing on right now.
I also really love your suggestion to frame it as 'speed from idea → validated page.' That’s a brilliant angle I hadn't considered. My technical background often limits my thinking to 'features' (like cloning), so shifting to 'outcomes' is a great unlock for me.
To answer your last question: I’m not planning to launch a 'manual' version this week. My current priority is hitting my primary validation metric first: reaching 200 waitlist signups by February.
However, regarding the project status: I have validated the feasibility of all promised features. To move fast, I initially wrote all the core algorithms locally. Since this local version isn't distributable yet, my immediate next step is migrating that logic to the backend before releasing the frontend client to users.
Good for you! Keep it up.
Well said, one problem am facing currently with my new tool is creating awareness and making visitors convert. With zero (0) budget for marketing and advertising, it is very hard to get your product reach where it is supposed to. I have an idea on this though, kinda crazy, want a coding partner to collaborate and build a platform that solves this specific problem, the platform is going to connect small creators with under 5,000 subs or followers, and Saas solo founders who have zero (0) budget for advertisement and marketing, this founders can list their products plus incentives, this can be a certain period of time of pro or premium plan free for the creator in exchange for content or small advertising campaign, for instance, i list my product, with perks am willing to offer for certain type of content i.e tutorial or my product, or a walk through etc. if the creator makes this, then i will offer them maybe 6 months of free pro plan of my product, i can then go further, take this video link and share on my social media handles, i will get potential customers and he (the creator) will get perks plus subs and followers, maybe likes and comments too, then the comment section of these videos can even serve as feedback for your product, everyone wins.
Hi Tayou,
First of all, congrats on taking the leap into entrepreneurship — that takes real courage, especially early in your career.
I checked out the waitlist page and wanted to share one piece of honest feedback. Right now, it’s a bit hard for a visitor to quickly understand who the product is for, the specific problem it’s solving, and how it will be different from existing tools.
As a founder, I’d usually look for quick clarity on things like: The target audience (for example, Shopify / eCommerce sellers), The core pain point, The main use case,
What makes this better or different from tools like Claude or other vibe-coding platforms
Clarifying this on the page could really help increase early interest and sign-ups.
If you’re open to it, I’d be happy to chat and share some ideas on positioning and early validation. I’m genuinely excited to see where you take this.
Looking forward to connecting,
Rid
Hi Rid,
Thank you so much for the feedback on my waitlist page—you’ve hit the nail on the head regarding its current shortcomings. To be honest, after I set up the basic email capture, I shifted all my focus to marketing and haven't touched the page since.
My initial logic for this was twofold:
Traffic Source: I assumed that anyone landing on the waitlist page would be coming directly from my marketing content (videos/posts) and would already have the context they needed.
Zero Organic Traffic: Since the Lift site is currently just a single page with no SEO optimization, random organic traffic is non-existent.
However, your comment made me realize a flaw in that thinking. While the video/tweet generates interest, the page itself still needs to do the heavy lifting to convert that interest into a signup.
I’m going to analyze my conversion rate (visits vs. signups) right away. If I see a significant drop-off, it confirms that the lack of on-page information is costing me leads. In that case, I will definitely implement the structure you suggested.
I also have a question I’d love your take on: Currently, I’m defining Lift's target audience as Indie Founders, Web Agencies, and Full-Stack Engineers. I’m wondering if this positioning feels accurate to you, or if there’s a specific method you’d recommend to validate this?
Thanks again for the genuine feedback—it’s been incredibly helpful.
Tayoou
Hi @Tayoou — thanks for the context, and no worries at all.
Since you’re early, it’s normal that the ideal use case and ICP aren’t fully clear yet. In most successful products I’ve seen, founders don’t get this right on day one — they discover it through structured experiments.
A practical approach I’d suggest:
*Start with a relatively broad positioning, as you’re doing now
*Analyze who is actually signing up and engaging
*Talk to early users to understand their real use cases
*Identify the segment getting the most value and Double down on that use case in your messaging and product
Defining a clear primary ICP and “core job to be done” early makes everything easier — marketing, onboarding, and product decisions.
So think of this phase as controlled experimentation. Your landing page + traffic sources are your testing ground.
Once you see strong pull from one segment, that’s your signal to focus.
Hope this helps — happy to continue the conversation.
Quick question for founders here:
When you’re stuck with a very specific problem,
where do you go for non-generic answers?
I see this as a paradox: If a problem is truly unique and can't be solved by generic answers, then you won't find the solution anywhere else. But if you can find an answer for it, then by definition, it wasn't actually a 'specific' problem to begin with.
This really resonates, especially the part about the landing page becoming the bottleneck.
I’ve noticed something similar on a much smaller scale: it’s easy to convince yourself that 'just a bit more polish' will unlock conversions, but without validation it mostly just delays learning. In my case, I spent far more time making things look right than confirming whether the underlying pain was strong enough.
The Shopify update story is brutal, but I appreciate how clearly you broke down the post-mortem. The platform dependency + long dev cycle combo feels like one of those lessons you only internalize after it happens.
Curious in hindsight - if you were doing it again, what’s the earliest signal you’d now consider good enough to move forward?
That urge for 'just a bit more polish' is the key to mastery for engineers, but it's absolute poison for founders.
It tries to drag us into a time black hole. But the reality? I've seen so many 'rough' products succeed—no fancy gradients, sometimes not even mobile-responsive—simply because they solved a burning problem for the customer.
Regarding the 'earliest signal': I’ve switched to a strict 'Goal + Deadline' strategy to validate in stages: Concept → Demand → Willingness to Pay → Features. Right now, I'm in the 'Demand Validation' phase. I have set a specific subscriber count target by a fixed date. Only when I hit that number will I allow myself to move forward.
The 2 months product vs 3 months landing page ratio is painfully familiar. Been there myself.
One thing that helped me break this cycle: setting a hard deadline where I have to show the ugly version to 5 real potential users. Not friends, not family - actual people who might pay.
The feedback from those conversations always makes the landing page priorities crystal clear. Turns out users care way more about "does this solve my problem" than perfect gradients.
Also curious about your cold outreach system that finds 1,200+ leads/day - would love to read that post if you write it.
You're absolutely right. Setting a hard deadline and iterating on the landing page is definitely the best way to escape that 'time trap.' I'm strictly applying that exact strategy with Lift right now—fingers crossed it pays off for both of us!
As for the cold outreach system: that was actually one of the few strategies I truly nailed with ElemSprite. It’s a fascinating setup. I will definitely share a breakdown soon on how I built it.
Good story. Real scar tissue. But the core failure wasn’t the landing page.
It was late validation + platform risk.
You spent months optimizing presentation before proving:
someone would pay for the job-to-be-done
Shopify wouldn’t ship this natively
the problem was painful enough without polish
The LP work didn’t kill the product ....it delayed feedback.
Lift makes sense if you flip the order this time:
validate demand with ugly + manual first, then automate.
If you can get founders to pay to save time before they care about design, you’re onto something.
Yes, your summary captures exactly what I've learned, and I'm actively trying to apply that mindset now.
While the Landing Page wasn't the root cause of the failure, it remains an inevitable time sink that almost every founder falls into. It is incredibly difficult to find the right balance between optimizing for conversion rates and managing the time spent building it.
My current project is actually born from this exact perspective—trying to provide a solution to this specific trade-off.
It was painful to read this. ~
I have repeatedly found myself in the same boat: helping with the polish of the landing page because it feels a bit more progressive while dodging the uncomfortable part that involves speaking to users and validating the core problem.
Your timeline is a wonderful reminder that devs can quietly become a productivity sink through continued time spent on UI. It is obvious work but it is not always valuable work.
A guideline that I make an effort to follow nowadays.
If the product is not used by anyone yet, the landing page just needs to be “clear”.
The mention of Shopify shipping a feature natively hurt. The risk associated with platforms is very real.
They are able to move far faster than any solo hacker and it’s easy to underestimate their power.
After a similar setback, I was able to solve the problem by breaking up the work.
Testing demand through conversation with potential users.
Construct a product interface polish.
Every week, I had to get the validation before getting “permission” to code.
When you look back, what do you think was the first sign that you were over-investing in the landing page, instead of the problem?
It’s a good idea to borrow other designs as well. I’m now doing the same with templates and component libraries to not have to reinvent UI.
A very useful lesson to share, albeit a hard one.
To be honest, there wasn't really a specific "first sign" for me.
As others have mentioned, spending time coding (whether it's the product or the landing page) is infinitely more comfortable than talking to customers. It gives you a false sense of being "productive."
Cold outreach, on the other hand, gives you immediate, raw feedback. That feedback can be scary—it makes you question your product and even your own abilities.
I think many technical founders struggle with this. It was that subconscious desire to "hide behind the code" that trapped me in a time sink for so long.
This hit uncomfortably close to home.
The distinction between conversion optimization and problem validation is something I wish more founders talked about. It’s easy to hide behind landing pages because they feel productive, measurable, and “safe,” even when the real work is talking to users.
Also appreciate the honesty about how much time went into things that didn’t move the needle. That’s the part people usually skip.
Curious — if you were starting again today, what would be the very first validation step you’d run before writing any landing page copy?
Actually, that is exactly what I am doing right now.
For my new project, Lift, I haven't coded a custom landing page at all—I'm just using a template for validation.
As I mentioned to @yamamoto7, I’m using a Market Research → Warm-up → Alpha framework to validate three key questions in order: Initial Market Analysis, "Do users need this?", and "Are users willing to pay?".
I’ve intentionally put full product development and custom coding on hold. I will only advance these aspects step-by-step after passing each validation gate. My goal is to build just enough to meet the current stage's requirements, rather than aiming for perfection from day one.
The timeline breakdown is useful. 2 months on core product vs 3 months on landing page is a brutal ratio for a backend developer. That's a common trap — perfectionism on the visible parts while the product-market fit question stays unanswered.
The Shopify "Sherlocking" scenario is tough. Building on someone else's platform always carries that risk. The faster you can validate and get paying customers, the less exposure you have when the platform inevitably absorbs your feature.
A few observations on the post-mortem:
Validation before building — You mention this was skipped, but the DM analysis ("clients get stuck on specific styling tweaks") was actually a form of validation. The gap was going from insight to product without testing if people would pay.
Landing page perfectionism — The irony is that conversion rate matters most after you have traffic that wants what you're building. A rough landing page with 100 interested visitors beats a polished one with 0.
Platform dependency — This is harder to avoid than people admit. Every niche tool is at risk of being absorbed. The defense is speed: get enough users and revenue that you can pivot or expand before the platform catches up.
For Lift: how are you validating demand this time? Posting here is a good start, but curious if you've gotten pre-orders or commitments before building the full product.
Hi, thank you for listening.
Let me first address your questions regarding Lift's market validation. Given the hard lessons I learned from ElemSprite, and to avoid sinking time into a dead end again, I’ve decided to adopt a staged validation process to answer two core questions:
I have structured the roadmap as: Market Research → Warm-up → Alpha → Beta → Launch. This isn't my invention, but a standard development flow used by many successful products.
Each stage is designed to validate specific hypotheses:
Next, regarding my responses to the post-mortem:
Finally: Your points about "perfectionism on the visible parts while the product-market fit question stays unanswered" and "The faster you can validate and get paying customers, the less exposure you have when the platform inevitably absorbs your feature" were incredibly helpful.
Thank you for the reminder.
This is one of the most structured validation frameworks I've seen from a solo founder. The staged gates (Market Research → Warm-up → Alpha → Beta → Launch) with clear kill criteria at each stage is the right way to avoid sinking time.
Two things stood out:
Competitive analysis timing — your point about it coming too late with ElemSprite is underrated. Most founders do competitive analysis at the idea stage and never revisit it. Doing it continuously, especially watching what the platform owner is building, would have caught the Sherlocking risk earlier.
Platform dependency nuance — the distinction between "solving a pain point the platform owner can easily fix" vs "competing with other apps on the platform" is sharp. ElemSprite was essentially building a feature request for Shopify. That's a fundamentally different risk than building on iOS/Android.
The Warm-up stage with a subscriber deadline as a kill switch is disciplined. Most founders skip the "if I miss this target, I stop" part.
Good luck with Lift — the framework gives you a real advantage this time.
Thank you, communicating with you has been very rewarding.
Also, wishing you all the best in your work and life.
Long story short: He is selling course.
If my master plan was losing $30k to sell a course, I should be fired as a businessman.
Notion Templates to make your DIgital Marketing Easy!!
20+ Social Media Templates to Organize and Simplify Your Marketing Efforts.
Stress-free marketing that works
Just one viral post can bring you 1000s of customers!!
David's single viral Reddit post gained 81,000 views, 11,000+ upvotes, and $15,000. Link
Track your blog progress
Plan and manage keyword research
Write SEO-optimized articles
Access Free SEO tools
Repurpose blogs and more
EMAIL MARKETING KIT
Notion Email Content Planner Template
Email Marketing Checklist
325 ChatGPT Prompts for Top 1% Email Marketers
Newsletter Management & Tracking Template...
TWITTER MARKETING KIT
101 viral thread hooks
111 Viral Thread Hook Cheatsheet.
Basic Twitter Content Strategy
50 Viral X Hook Master Database
X Content Planner and more...
VIRAL STORYTELLING KIT
Dan Harmon's Story Circle
Ultimate Plot Structure Library
10-Viral-Hooks-Guide
Long Video Scripting Templates
Viral Hook Templates (30) and more...
PRODUCT HUNT KIT
Product Hunt Launch Checklist
Product Hunt Launch Workbook
Launching on Product Hunt: A Practical Guide
50+ Best Taglines on Product Hunt
REDDIT MARKETING KIT
100+ Reddit Self-Promo Posts (Airtable database)
37 Subreddits for Startups (with links)
Proven Post Examples that work
Avoid Bans with smart strategies and more...
Social Media Content Planner Templates
400+ Places to Submit Your Product to gain Traffic
700+ Hand Curated Marketing Resources and Tools
I’ve collected a list of websites that receive good traffic, where you can promote your product and get strong visibility and backlinks to help your site rank better.
It’s not free because it takes a lot of time to research and compile.
As a student and part-time founder, this helps me a lot.
www.marketingpack.store
Man, it must have been so tough, months of hard work becoming useless overnight.
If you want help with copy for your landing page for Lift then make sure to reach out to me.
I'd be happy to write a free high converting landing page for you, I just wanna help you because I think you should be rewarded for persisting rather than giving up after your initial failure.
Thank you very much, this should be very helpful to me.
I am currently in the validation stage, and I would be happy to connect with you.
Appreciate that and I’m glad it resonates.
Validation first makes total sense. Happy to connect.
What I can do is put together a quick landing page draft for your idea so you can test messaging + waitlist conversion without spending weeks on it.
No rush or strings attached, just something practical you can use during validation. Let me know 👍