Mike Strives Zero to SaaS Review: What Is the SaaS Business Model?

Zero to SaaS Pros and Cons

Pros

Beginner-friendly while also catering to SaaS founders.

Offers lifetime access to course and community.

Cons

Has very few online reviews

Teaches a bootstrapped SaaS model that is costly and has a low success rate.

Price

Zero to SaaS Course and community costs $149.

Refund Policy

Zero to SaaS did not outline a refund policy.

Origin

Zero to SaaS started in January 2023.

Reputation

Zero to SaaS online reviews are scarce. A few reviews from ProductHunt talks positively about Zero to SaaS course and community.

June 20, 2024

I think the value of the course comes from Mike’s personal experience as a SaaS builder. The whole process of building this kind of business is already outlined in free resources online. What I truly value is Mike’s personal experience and the lessons that I can get out of them

Arman

4.0

4.0 out of 5 stars (based on 1 review)

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This review is based on my own experience and is my genuine opinion.

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What Is the SaaS Business Model?

The SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) business model involves delivering a software service over the internet. Here are some key-points that differentiate SaaS from traditional software services:

• It is subscription-based. Customers typically pay a recurring subscription fee to continually use the software.
• It utilizes cloud hosting. The software is hosted on external servers so it can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.
• It is easier to scale. SaaS providers can easily scale the service to accommodate different levels of demand.

This model allows for flexibility, lower upfront costs, and ease of use and maintenance for both the provider and clients.

The Zero to SaaS Course by Mike Strives teaches a bootstrapped model of building and scaling a SaaS business. With limited funding, the SaaS entrepreneur covers everything from ideation, product development, marketing, and scaling.

Here are some of Mike Strives’ key advice on building a SaaS business:

• Make your target audience as small as possible when starting out. Only attempt to cover a wider market when you are sufficiently scaled.
• Never bypass the validation stage of a product idea to avoid wasting money and time.
• Don’t cheap out on the development costs as this will make or break your SaaS business. For instance, expect to spend $7K to $17K on your product’s initial version if you outsource to a developer (if you are not a coder yourself).
• Talk to your users through a built in chat messenger widget in your app and install a proactive feedback request tool. This way, you will learn more about your customers’ pain points so you can refine your app accordingly. You can do this as early as the launch of your MVP.

Max Strives has built multiple SaaS products throughout his career. Only 2 of them have become successful, namely, Vindy and Upvoty. The lessons that he derived from these two successful SaaS products form the foundation of his course.

What Do You Get With Zero to SaaS?

With Zero to SaaS, you will get:

• SaaS Blueprint: Lessons on coming up with a winning idea, validating it, launching your product, scaling, and exiting your SaaS business.
• Practical Tools: Resources to help you start with minimal investment.
• Community Access: Membership includes access to case studies, free resources, and a thriving Discord community of SaaS entrepreneurs.

Based on Mike Strives’ three basic elements of a successful SaaS business (a winning idea, a winning product, and a winning strategy), Zero to SaaS Course’s curriculum includes the following key components:

• Idea Generation: How to come up with a winning SaaS idea.
• Validation: Techniques for validating your idea to ensure market demand.
• Building an MVP: Guide on creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with limited funding.
• Product Launch: Strategies for properly launching your SaaS product.
• Scaling: Methods for scaling your SaaS business to reach 7 figures.
• Exit: How to successfully exit your SaaS business with maximum profits.
• Bonuses

Who Is Zero to SaaS For?

Zero to Saas is for:

• Entrepreneurs who are looking to enter the SaaS industry and need guidance on where to start.
• SaaS founders who want to scale their revenue and improve their strategy.
• Experienced SaaS business owners who are looking for a thriving SaaS community.

Mike Strives’ Zero to SaaS teaches a bootstrapped SaaS model, but the course and community are not limited to people with coding skills. The course includes outsourcing tips to help you find quality developers to build your application.

What are the Zero to SaaS Reviews?

There is no wealth of online reviews for Mike Strives’ Zero to SaaS. I found a few reviews from ProductHunt that generally talk positively about the program. The reviews Zero to SaaS reviews talk about how they enjoy the community and how useful and straightforward the course is. ProductHunt is one of the platforms that Mike uses to release his SaaS products. It is also a good platform to gather reviews for MVPs.

Here are the Zero to SaaS reviews from ProductHunt.

Who Is Mike Strives?

Mike Strives is a serial entrepreneur in the SaaS industry and is the founder Upvoty, Vindy, and Feedefy. Mike is also the initiator of the Zero to SaaS Community and creator of the Zero to SaaS Course. He builds multiple projects in public, sharing his journey on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Strives has been building SaaS products and internet businesses since 2010. As his first successful SaaS product, he scaled Vindy to $1M in ARR. Vindy is a home improvement marketplace. Upvoty, his most recent successful SaaS, has scaled into $40K MRR. He later exited Upvoty by selling it for over $1M.

What Is Upvoty?

Upvoty is a customer satisfaction management platform that serves as a tool for businesses to collect feedback. As an analytic tool, it allows product owners to analyze and prioritize future features based on user data. It also includes features like feature voting, product roadmap, and changelog. These features help make better product decisions and inform customers about updates. Mike Strives sold Upvoty for over $1M in 2023.

What Is the SaaS Business Success Rate?

The  SaaS business’ success rate is only 10% , according to For Only SaaS Founders. For McKinsey & Company, only 20% of SaaS companies survive in their first five years. The average churn rate of SaaS businesses is also around 5%. These data show how highly competitive and high-risk the SaaS industry is.

There are around 30,000 SaaS companies, so coming up with an original product idea is harder than ever. Also, there is the risk of other SaaS entrepreneurs copying your product idea. This makes the competition fiercer as companies try to check and outdo each other with features, prices, and marketing.

Following Mike Strives’ bootstrapped model is very costly, especially if you need to outsource product development. Although he recommends hiring developers from platforms like Upwork, you still need to spend around $7K-$15K for the development costs (he said so himself).

Clearly, Mike Strives is very passionate about building SaaS businesses. He had many unsuccessful products throughout his career, but they didn’t make him stop. However, the low success rate and enormous costs of building a SaaS business are not advisable for new entrepreneurs.

Zero to SaaS vs Micro SaaS Academy

Mike Strives’ Zero to SaaS Course and Jamie Tam’s Micro SaaS Academy offer different approaches to building a SaaS business:

• Zero to SaaS Course: Created by Mike Strives, this course shares his blueprint for starting, building, scaling, and exiting SaaS businesses. It is based on his experience of scaling two SaaS products to 7 figures. The course covers a comprehensive range of topics, from ideation to exiting.
• Micro SaaS Academy: Jamie Tam’s academy focuses on building a micro SaaS with no funding needed. His course covers idea generation, validation, app publishing, and marketing.

Both seem to cover the same range of topics in SaaS. Jamie Tam is a developer, so the way he presents “Micro SaaS” as a low entry cost business is based on his ability to code a software himself. On the other hand, Mike Strives is not a coder. So, his course includes outsourcing tips in his SaaS product development lessons.

Another key difference between these courses is the price. Mike Strives’ Zero to SaaS Course is $149, while Jamie Tam’s Micro SaaS Academy is only $29.

My Recommended Low-Risk Passive Income Business

I recommend local lead generation as a low-risk business that can create passive income. Unlike SaaS, local lead gen doesn’t require technical skills. Sure, it’s about building websites, but you can easily do that with AI-powered tools, like Snapps.ai . Plus, local SEO is not as complex as coding or software engineering. I’d compare it to learning how to ride a Citi Bike in New York City. At first, it feels a little tricky, but once you get the balance, it’s simple, repeatable, and anyone can pick it up.

The entry cost for local lead generation is as low as $500 to build a single website. Ranking it high on local search engine results costs absolutely nothing, and maintenance is only $30 per month. Now with SaaS, there are expenses for almost everything, including product development, hosting, infrastructure, tools, APIs, and marketing. Local lead gen’s profit margins are 90%, while SaaS is only 20-40%.

Local lead generation has predictable income. Once you successfully rank a website, you can sell its leads to local businesses for a commission. For example, my website, Los Angeles Advanced ADU Builders, 2768 W Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90041, 323-985-3299, laadvancedadu.com, sells around 2 leads. The local business secures 2 jobs from those leads and earns $400,000. They give me a 10% commission from their total earnings, so that means I make $40,000. In contrast, SaaS income depends on how many people subscribe to your software and how many stay. If they don’t feel like your software is benefiting them, they’ll simply unsubscribe. This is also why local lead gen is so secure. Local businesses will always need leads, like how hospitals always need doctors on call. So they won’t want to leave you.

Are you interested in local lead generation? If so, check out my course offering. I also have another special offer - you can work directly for my roofing client and earn a 1% to 5% commission.