Two Years Timeline/Runway — 1st Post

I've decided to create a blog to keep track of my overall SaaS small business progress. I'm going to give myself a runway of two years. That means on May 1st, 2025 if I have not created a SaaS small business with a minimum of $3,600 a month recurring revenue then I'm gonna shut it down.

Why $3,600? I think that's about what I would need to sustain a remote contact developer.

So what's my plan?

Currently I'm in a search for a remote contract full-stack dev on UpWork. Here's my current experience and learnings so far.

1. If you are NOT a developer, you're gonna have a really hard time finding a developer.
2. You need to find a developer to help you filter through applicants.
3. You have to be patient and know that it's a numbers game.

Some background.

I have been working on a SaaS business now for over two years now with very little progress. The first two years were spent trying to find a good full-stack developer. I initially tried using an agency and found that experience to be disastrous. The gist being, as a small project the agency can decide who to place on your project, switch out staff whenever they want, and they have very little motivation to ensure your project is a success. Especially when there is high demand for contract developers.

I then switched to an individual contractor, which in itself was painful to find. Once I was able to find one that was okay, I leveraged that contractor to find another. The current contractor whom I've been working with for over a year now has given notice and now I'm leveraging him to find a replacement.

Steps I've taken.

• I've asked my current developer to create a test project with estimates of how long he thinks it should take.
• I then created a project on UpWork with the project description.
• The first section of the description has the following:
• This is a paid test project
• Please read the project description carefully
• Please provide your estimated hours to complete the test project
• If you submit a proposal without an estimate, your proposal will be rejected
• Then I followed this up with a filtering question:
• Did you read the project description carefully?

I received a total of 62 proposals

46 proposals did not provide an estimate. A lot of them were either a cookie cutter response highlighting their abilities, or a short message like "I can do it" or "Let's discuss."

From the 16 remaining, I removed any proposal that was above $20 an hour.

That left me with 12 applicants. From the 12, I choose the first 5 to conduct the test project.

• Applicant 1: Completed the task in 12 hrs @$12/hr - but will not stop messaging me very few hours to hire him.
• Applicant 2: Completed the task in 15 hrs @$15/hr - pretty good
• Applicant 3: Completed the task in 8 hrs @$20/hr - the applicant did not even attempt the test project and made something that "looks" like it does what the test project requested but doesn't actually do anything
• Applicant 4: Completed the task in 8 hrs @$16/hr - pretty good
• Applicant 5: Did not complete task in 10hrs $12/hr - did not finish, and what he did finish was very very broken. It was disappointing as his profile stated he has a Masters in Computer Science.

Cost spent so far: $777.00

• $144 — Applicant 1 — GOOD
• $225 — Applicant 2 — GOOD
• $160 — Applicant 3 — BAD (made something else)
• $128 — Applicant 4 — GOOD
• $120 — Applicant 4 — BAD (did not finish)

What's my next step?

The test project was a pretty simple test project. Now we're thinking of having the three remaining applicants do a harder test project. A project that they would actually be working on IF they are hired. This should give us a sense of if they can handle the kinds of work I need them to do.

Wish me luck!