35 unspoken rules to win in SaaS

Grab a coffee and let's talk SaaS in under 2 minutes.

Author

Mike Strives
October 02, 2025

Hey, hey - it’s Mike! 😁

Yesterday, it was raining, and I poured myself a nice espresso macchiato.

I sat down with my pen and notebook.

And I started jotting down the lessons I learned building my SaaS.

Today, I decided to share this list with you.

In 2 minutes, these 35 lessons will teach you what I’ve learned in 10+ years.

Here we go:

  1. Pricing is a growth lever, not an afterthought

  2. Free trials should create wins in under 5 minutes

  3. Onboarding is your most important feature

  4. Users don’t read. Design flows that teach by doing

  5. Your biggest churn risk is confusion

  6. Build for habits, not just use cases

  7. Charge from day one, even if it's $1

  8. Ship features that sell, not just impress

  9. Support is marketing. Treat it like it matters

  10. Activation before acquisition

  11. Collect emails early, not just users

  12. Your UI is your brand

  13. SaaS products should feel like magic and muscle

  14. Build internal dashboards. They often become features

  15. Kill unused features fast

  16. Niche hard. Expand later

  17. Focus on power users, not average users

  18. Features are not value. Outcomes are

  19. Use product data to guide your roadmap

  20. Build for small teams. They convert faster

  21. Use email as a feature, not just a channel

  22. Add automation that makes users feel powerful

  23. SaaS is a system, not just software

  24. Upsells work best when tied to usage

  25. Use integrations as distribution

  26. Your best acquisition channel is your product

  27. Self-serve beats sales calls

  28. Reduce steps to value, not just clicks

  29. Don’t sell features. Sell transformations

  30. Focus on one core loop first

  31. Make your trial feel like a win, not a test

  32. Turn every UI element into a conversion point

  33. The real product is retention

  34. Build in usage-based rewards

  35. Treat churned users like future customers

Hope this was helpful.

Talk soon.

Mike 🙌

PS: Here are 3 ways I can help you WIN: