Morgan's journey building and marketing a SaaS boilerplate

Meet Morgan Feeney.

At 46, Morgan found himself at an interesting crossroads in his career.

Based in Manchester, UK, he was juggling a full-time role as a front-end developer for a scale-up, freelancing for startups, and being a father of two. With over a decade of experience crafting design systems, UI, and building products, he thought he had seen it all in the world of web development.

That was until he stumbled upon the build in public movement on X. This motivated Morgan to start building ZippyStarter.

The story told by Morgan Feeney

Build in public

The discovery of the “build in public” movement on X opened my eyes to new possibilities for alternative income streams.

I realized I already possessed the skills to design and build products but wasn't utilizing them outside of my day job as a way to earn extra cash. As the boilerplate hype blew up and I grew increasingly frustrated with repetitive daily tasks, an idea began to form.

What if I could create a Next.js boilerplate that focused on great design, customization, reusable components, marketing content, blogging with MDX, SEO, and authority?

Having encountered various challenges while creating marketing websites and blogs for clients, I decided to leverage my expertise and strengths. And thus, ZippyStarter (a boilerplate) was born.

Sharing plans and getting feedback

Diving headfirst into the "build in public" ethos, I began sharing my plans and Figma designs on X, using the #buildinpublic hashtag. A few examples below.

To my surprise, people started showing interest. I took the initiative to message them directly, even landing a demo call with a potential customer. That call turned into a pivotal moment. My first sale! Which I had to share on X.

Elated by this initial success, I shared the win publicly, which led to even more sales. Which I also felt like sharing 🙂

It was an exhilarating feeling, especially after following stories of people who made zero from their products after months of hard work.

Launching ZippyStarter

In November 2023, I officially launched ZippyStarter as a "pre-sale".

In hindsight, I realize I was mimicking what I'd seen others do without fully understanding the process of idea validation through early buyer outreach. It wasn't until I read Crossing the Chasm that I grasped the significance of this approach.

Watch a demo of ZippyStarter below.

Marketing ZippyStarter

My marketing efforts expanded beyond X. I launched on DevHunt, which brought some exposure but only resulted in a couple of sales. Interestingly, I had more success from being listed on a GitHub repo somewhere, with much less effort involved.

Seeking new ways to market my product, I created a useful micro-product - a theme generator for shadcn UI. I shared it on Reddit, initially hoping to gain backlinks, but it turned out people were incredibly enthusiastic about it. This led to more ZippyStarter sales and even allowed me to bundle and sell the theme generator separately.

Throughout this journey, I've had numerous conversations with customers via email. Some have been incredibly forthcoming with feedback, while others have been quieter.

It's been rewarding to see people using ZippyStarter to build websites and market their own products and services. A few examples below.

• godoubletime.com

• onetask.me

• paul.at

My results so far

ZippyStarter went live in November 2023 and currently I have 35 sales. In other words it tool me 10 months which admittedly is a very long time.

Below is the traffic development (Google Search Console) from the ZippyStarter website.

Full disclosure: I haven’t been active, I’m busy working and looking after family so have very limited time, so what you see above is pretty much all of the marketing effort I’ve invested.

I’m going to increase the marketing effort soon hopefully, as I want to grow the product.

Next steps

Looking ahead, I'm planning to refine my product offering. I'm considering splitting things up into separate templates and making the blog headless to allow integration with various backends like WordPress.

This whole experience has been a learning curve. From understanding the importance of idea validation to the power of sharing wins publicly and creating related micro-products, each step has taught me something valuable.

As I continue on this journey, I'm excited about the future possibilities.

I haven't tried Product Hunt yet, but it's on my radar once I've clarified my proposition. Who knows what other opportunities might arise as I keep building and learning in public?