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Building and launching a no-code SaaS boilerplate

Author

Jakob Jelling
July 17, 2024

Meet Kieran Ball.

A UK-based solopreneur and no-code maker with an addiction to building small SaaS products.

As a result he recently launched Bullet Launch - a no-code SaaS boilerplate.

Head shot of young man. He is smiling and looking directly into the camera. He is wearing a cap. The background is yellow.

Kieran Ball - Bullet Launch

The story told by Kieran Ball

Let me first rewind a little.

I spent about 10 years of my life trying to start app side hustles while working in a finance day job. Unfortunately no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get coding to stick, which made building a software startup almost impossible.

The world of no-code

In 2019 I discovered the world of no-code and instantly realised it was exactly what I’d been looking for.

I started learning the platform Bubble.io and within three months I’d built my first SaaS product completely from scratch. It was truly mindblowing.

It was a tool to collect video testimonials from customers - called Vidpops. You could text or email them a custom link from the dashboard and they could record a testimonial straight into their browser which would appear in your dashboard.

Website landingpage with white background - main color is purple. Top left is says "vidpops". The primary text says: "Stand out from the crowd with video testimonials from your most enthusiastic clients. Compared to text, videos are 12x more likely to be shared and 6x more likely to be remembered. They're just hard to get. We've fixed that.

The Vidpops landingpage

Of course I had no idea about marketing, so the idea failed. But I continued building more and more SaaS ideas

In 2021 I built a SaaS called Community Copilot. Go here for a video walkthrough. The same year I built another SaaS called Revu. Go here for a video walkthrough.

And then one my projects finally got traction - a super fast landing page builder called Yep.so, which was later acquired.

Building and launching Bullet Launch

I realised being able to ship SaaS products quickly was a superpower. But still each build was taking too long. So I built the Bullet Launch boilerplate to speed up the process.

"No coding required. Launch your SaaS in a weekend. The ultimate boilerplate Bubble.io app to build your next SaaS in days, not months, without nedding to code."

Homepage of bulletlaunch.com

I started building it in December 2023 and launched it in March 2024 on X (see below).

It’s priced at $249 and so far I’ve sold 77 copies, although with discounts and the marketplace cut my average revenue is closer to $150 per template.

Marketing

Unlike a recurring revenue product, it needs continual marketing. Finding content ideas can be difficult.

Almost all of my marketing has been on X, where I have a decent sized audience who know me for no-code and SaaS related content.

Bullet Launch fits pretty well with my “personal brand” and makes it easy for me to weave it into my narrative.

I try to post at least one thing on X per day about Bullet Launch. I worry people will get sick of hearing about it, but the way the algorithm works only a small number of people see each post. Recently I set up a X account for Bullet Launch so I can tag it rather than including an external URL in each post which reduces reach.

It’s good to understand what motivates your ideal customers. For a boilerplate most will be looking for a visually appealing product, and I noticed posts that get the most likes and comments are the ones with nice visuals.

So I always try to include good screenshots or short video clips that showcase the best parts of the template. A few examples below.

I also added a footer to my newsletter (see below) which I borrowed from Justin Welsh’s newsletter. It goes out to approx. 4k subscribers.

I only just added this so I’m not sure how effective it will be, but my instinct says it’s a good idea.

Mostly text on a yellew background. The primary text says: "If you're ready to jump in and build, the Bullet Launch boilerplate is the fastest way to go from nothing to a fully functional SaaS product. The documentation is so thorough it's basically an entire course in itself. There's also a Slack community to meet other builders."

How I promote Bullet Launch in my own newsletter

I haven’t created a consistent marketing process yet, but I’m working on one which looks like this:

  • Build a load of micro-SaaS products in public over the next few months using the boilerplate.

  • Interview other people who are building with the boilerplate and tell their stories in my newsletter and on socials. I’ve seen some excellent builds so I think these will be good content.

  • Work with a designer to keep adding new components to the boilerplate, and post about these.

  • I’m launching on Product Hunt … have no idea what to expect here but at a minimum it will be good for SEO.

I like this plan because I enjoy all of the aspects of it, I would do them even if it wasn’t for marketing. If you can find a similar marketing flywheel for yourself, it makes it easier.

Thanks for reading and I hope you found this helpful.

Where to find Kieran and his projects:

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