Takuya Matsuyama leveraged viral content to grow his SaaS to $10k+ MRR and become a YouTube influencer

Takuya Matsuyama has spent the last eight years growing a SaaS and building his following as a YouTube influencer. All it took was a few viral posts, a heavy focus on branding, and time.

Today, he's making $10k+ MRR with Inkdrop and his YouTube channel, devaslife, has over 201k subscribers.

I asked him for the details. Here's what he had to say. 👇

View your business as art

I couldn't become anything else but a founder. I am incompatible with employers because they require me to be an 'engineer.' I am an engineer, but I think of myself as an artist.

I create things to express myself. Being a founder allows me to do anything and express myself however I want.

Because business itself is an art. The end result will always be different, depending on the 'who' and the 'when'. Every product has its own unique story that cannot be reproduced.

And it might feel awkward to view yourself as an artist if you've never thought of it like that. But it will help your business. Because if you view it as art, it will become hard to copy.

From employee to founder and influencer

I've been an indie developer since I was a teenager. I published many free software programs, some of which were very popular here in Japan.

Later, I joined Yahoo! Japan, but I left after 1.5 years. I learned a lot about large-scale service architecture, but it was mostly boring to me. I felt limited there. So, I started freelancing to earn a living while working on my side projects.

One of my side projects became quite successful in the Japanese app market. It was a music recommendation app for iOS called Walknote. It had over 130k registered users, but I failed to monetize it.

I made the most of it by using it as proof of my dev skills, so it allowed me to get some interesting freelance work. And even more importantly, it showed me that monetization was the next big challenge I had to tackle.

A SaaS idea that no one liked

I asked myself, "What kind of apps would I pay for?" And I realized that I was happy to pay for utility tools.

It was 2016, and I was unhappy with Evernote when it came to taking tech notes. I tried several alternative apps, but none were good at what I needed as a developer. So I decided to build Inkdrop.

At first, no one agreed that it was a good idea. But I didn't care. Every time I've built something based on what others thought, that project has failed.

And that has been one of my biggest takeaways: Do not try to please everyone. And do not care about what other people think of you.

Building a $10k+ MRR SaaS

I didn't try to validate the idea before building, either. I make what I want to use. And since I'm a typical person, it means others will want it too.

I finished up my contract jobs and gave myself three months to build the MVP.

I built it with NodeJS, Electron, React Native, and NextJS. But all of my projects have different stacks. I like to casually try new frameworks, libraries, modules, and languages. It's just boring to repeat the same approach.

Inkdrop has been live for eight years now. It's a plain-text Markdown note-taking app with 100+ plugins, cross-platform, and end-to-end encryption data sync support. It is similar to Evernote but focused on developers and their technical note-taking needs.

I haven't disclosed my numbers since I have so many competitors, but MRR has exceeded $10k for over three years.

Refusing the freemium model

It operates as a simple SaaS with a subscription model. But I don't offer freemium.

As a solo developer, I don't want to spend time giving support to free users. They tend to be noisy and consume a lot of server resources. It just isn't worth it.

Instead, Inkdrop simply offers a 14-day trial. It was a 60-day trial in the early days, but I gradually shortened the trial period and it didn't affect the conversion rate at all.

Freemium is a catch-em-all strategy. It's what the big companies do. Keeping my userbase small and manageable lets me give customers a personal touch, which big companies can't do.

Another thing I don't do is offer an Enterprise plan where big customers get a customized edition of your service. That could lead to maintenance hell. I would never do it as a solo founder.

Increasing SaaS pricing

The pricing is $9.98/mo or $99.80/yr, which is over double what it was earlier this year.

I want to make Inkdrop better rather than bigger. And instead of optimizing for numbers, I'd like to keep building features that I want to use and attract users by making content that I want to consume myself.

This approach works best with a smaller number of supporters, not with tens of thousands of paying customers. And $4.90/mo was too cheap to pursue this direction.

Essentially, I wanted to let the wrong customers go, and attract the right customers to make my business more sustainable. And that's what happened.

A lot of users churned when I increased my prices — around 20%. But the conversion rate hasn't changed significantly.

To make the transition, I posted this announcement, mentioned it in my newsletter, tweeted about it, and posted a video on YouTube. I did not grandfather in old users at the same rate, as that would have defeated the purpose of letting go of the wrong customers.

Growing through viral posts

In the early days, I grew Inkdrop via content marketing — primarily posting about how I launched my product and its success. For example:

• How I Built a Markdown Editor Earning $1300/mo Profit

• How I’ve Attracted The First 500 Paid Users For My SaaS That Costs $5/mo

I also cross-promoted on Hacker News and went viral a few times:

• How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS

• I've been building a Markdown note-taking app for 3 years

• I stopped setting a financial goal for my SaaS

This was a great help. In fact, at the time, 90% of my users came from Hacker News.

The key is transparency. Be transparent in your posts on HN. Don't be afraid to show your weakness. And do not just pitch your product. Just tell your story.

Becoming a YouTube influencer

Keeping it running for over eight years has been challenging. Shiny-new-project syndrome often gets in the way.

Instead of fighting it, I decided to channel this energy into my marketing efforts. When I think of a shiny new project, I build it on my YouTube channel, devaslife. This attracts my audience, and I keep mentioning my main project, thereby growing Inkdrop.

Starting my channel was one of the best things that I did. These days, it's responsible for 70-80% of new users. I have 201k+ subscribers and one of my videos has over a million views

During that time where the video was going viral, I posted a video solely about Inkdrop, and that helped me convert the traffic.

As for how I built my following on Youtube, it took time — about three years. During the dark period where no one is discovering you, try everything until YouTube starts to like you.

Focus on emotions. My edutainment content motivates my audience and Inkdrop helps them to take action.

Try to find a ‘Wabi-sabi’ (侘寂) style. Ask yourself: Do I want to watch my videos as a viewer?

But don't just make a video version of your blog post. Ask yourself: Does my content really have to be in video format?

I wrote more about how to build a YouTube channel here.

Focusing on your brand

I want to keep Inkdrop running at a healthy pace. You don't have to work 24/7.

As a solo developer and a niche product owner, it's important to protect the business. Not by a 'catch-em-all' strategy where you try to kill all your competitors, but by focusing on what you can do that others can't.

To accomplish this goal, I'm currently redoubling my efforts to build my brand.

That's what counts — your brand. Features can easily be stolen, but communities and brands are hard to replicate.

Stop competing with your competitors. Don't copy them. Ignore them.

Focus on your brand.

And while you're at it, get outside. Work out. Every day.

You can follow along as I continue to build my brand on my YouTube channel and blog. And check out Inkdrop.