Taggun is a simple OCR API SaaS making $31k/month.
The biggest lesson from it’s success?
Your startup doesn't need to be fancy.
You just need to build a simple solution to a painful problem.
Taggun is a simple API app that other apps can use to extract accurate information from invoices and receipts.
Taggun has a wide range of features, and you read how it works in the detailed case studies on their website. But a few things stand out -
They automate the menial boring work for big companies.
They offer custom models for their larger custoemers.
The customizations they build for one customer, end up being re-used by other customers.
These are the custom AI models Taggun built for a financial company Ramp.
Pretty sure they can re-use these models for other customers as well, while still offering them a customized experience.
I like to call this Standardized Personalization.
Where on the backend, youre implementation of a solution is standard and repeatable, but on the frontend you’re able to offer a truly personalized experience.
When you offer a personalized experience, you can charge a lot more, because it’s not a cookie-cutter experience anymore.
I’ve written more about standardized personalization here.
My favorite lesson from Taggun’s success is the founder’s hustle -
He didn’t get any traction.
For 1 year…
But he kept going and kept trying different channels before starting to see some traction.
After reading so many of these stories, I’ve come to accept that all of us are going to have that year or 2 of pure struggle and failure. So it’s best to start taking action and dive deep into it instead of trying to avoid it.
Top Lessons
You don’t need a fancy idea, you just need a simple solution to a painful problem
The value in SaaS is to automate the tedious work for businesses
Provide personalization and customizations.Can’t charge a lot more for that
The struggle is part of the game, don’t be turned off by it.
Be prepared for at least a year or 2 of challenges.
You can read the initial Taggun journey in the 6 public posts the founder has written on Indie Hackers.
Hope this inspires you a little. Do tell me what you think of it in this Tweet.
How to build new features
Bhanu (founder of SiteGPT and Feather) shared this nugget of wisdom in the Indie Masterminds Slack last week -
Wait for enterprise customers to request features
Build for them, get them to pay
Test and iterate with them.
And then release it for everyone.
Brilliant!
Now wonder he’s doing so well with both his businesses.
Don’t hate the books hate the reader
Last week I was seeing a lot of criticism of this picture of the best self help books to read.
If all you do is read and don't take action then this is just productivity porn.
But if you are self aware and have the ability to act on what you learn here, then this is Gold.
It's not about the books, it's about YOU.
True for everything in life!
If you want to grow, read good books and take action on them 💪
(*Links in bold are classified ads, to reserve your spot, please send me a DM on Twitter.)
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