- Took the full product from zero to launch (brand, auth, billing, onboarding, and docs) in 3 months of nights and weekends.
- Created written docs and a video tutorial, paired with a 3-step onboarding flow, to get users to value fast.
- Iterated with power users over email to ship a WYSIWYG rich text editor, among other features.
First, a bit of history
I helped found a SaaS called Base, whose earliest version was a little internal tool built by some maritime logistics professionals to manage their operations.
At that time, Base was built on a no code development platform called Knack. Knack’s main offering was a visual database and UI builder, but for power users, Knack provided a one-file code editor to load JavaScript to extend your app.
We wrote all sorts of code to extend Base on Knack, until it came time to leave the platform and build a proper fullstack (Next.js) application in an effort to turn Base from an internal tool into the SaaS company it is today.
One thing we (and the rest of the Knack community) always needed, though, was a way to quickly manage bulk data like you would in a spreadsheet.
Years after leaving Knack, with more experience under my belt, I decided to tackle this problem with a plugin called “KnackSheet” that’d I’d offer to the rest of the Knack community on a platform called “Low Code Plugins”.
What did I learn?
- Hypothesize, ship, measure. I stayed intentional about getting something minimum-viable out, kept track of my user-behavior assumptions, and measured the results in production. “Learn through your users.”
- The power of good onboarding + docs. My initial users (who granted, are resourseful Knack developers) were all able to onboard themselves without hand-holding.
- Privacy. Terms. Pricing. Oh my! There’s a lot of businessy details that go into releasing a product into the world. I learned a lot and still have room to grow here.