A SaaS founder's life is never boring, and this summer I've mostly been wearing comfortable clothes, listening to my favourite rock tracks, whilst sitting at my computer coding upgrades and new features for YourPCM ...
I was in Lanzarote again last weekend, so though it would make a nice background!
I've got a ton of stuff done. From little tweaks and changes that subscribers have requested, to some big-ticket items that are only now nearing completion. And at the same time, I've had to keep up with the number of virtual networking groups I visit, the social shares I'm sending, and the blog posts I'm writing.
"It's True! A SaaS founder's life is never boring!"
I'm very good with my diary though. I have a number of fantastic Calendly integrations that book 121s, demos and training directly into my Outlook calendar and, at the same time, add a new contact to my copy of YourPCM. I always know what is happening and when throughout the day, and each morning YourPCM sends me an email about who I need to speak to that day, which was one of the first features I built-in.
The last bit of coding I'm working on for the next few weeks is the new version of my Discovery Tool. I love what I've got right now, but it needs a few enhancements. For example, a TPS checker for new contacts would be very useful, as would a deliverability test for any email addresses it discovered.
And as a step towards a truly international version of YourPCM, I'm going to add an 'anywhere' tab so you just specify which country you want to search in, what you're looking for, enter a location and ... boom ... many new contacts. Oh and adding in a page number for the search because right now, it only looks on the first page of the results.
I've nearly done with the Companies House data too. Although this is public data and the API is very good, I'm still a little confused about a few things, so I've got some tweaks to do around sorting and how my subscribers want to drill into the data. Other companies charge around 15p per record from Companies House, with YourPCM you can have as much as you like, when you want it.
So, what stops people from just exporting the data and taking it elsewhere? Well, I discovered this happening early on with YourPCM free trials so only allow export when someone has a paid subscription. That put a stop to the pirates.
As Companies House data is just names and addresses, I'm going to build a 'print & post' service that integrates with (probably) cardly.net. We should be able to set up anything from enveloped birthday cards to promotional A5 stuff that will be sent out at the click of a, button.
I have Custom Email and Custom SMS templates that can be chosen from a drop-down menu. I want to do the same with printed material too. If you click the standard print button for a contact, it just heads over to your Cardly account. If you choose something from the drop-down list, it will print and post it for you, provided you have a valid address.
However, this costs around £1 per print and post. So, my subscribers will have to register an account on Cardly and put in their own API key or else it won't work. I can see it getting rather expensive when you're posting to all the newly registered businesses in your area. I'm not going to shoulder that cost.
I'm also glad I managed to take a couple of weekends in Lanzarote with my parents. They're heading back to Australia next week, but the time I've spent with them has been priceless and it certainly reminded me that you can't keep your foot on the gas forever.
"Holidays are very important!"
So, just a couple more weeks of coding to go then I'm into sorting out my Go To Market strategy I mentioned recently, ready for a September start.
Then no more coding until next year!
Love, light and logic ...
STEFFI LEWIS
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If anything I've written in this blog post resonates with you and you'd like to discover more about steffi, do give us a call ...
Foodie, sci-fi nut, cat lover, brain aneurysm & cancer survivor, countryside dweller, SaaS entrepreneur, developer and networker.
Published my first website in 1993 for the Open University and am highly experienced with Windows Servers, SQL Server, HTML, Classic ASP, JavaScript, and CSS.
I've also worked as a professional photographer in Los Angeles, USA and been a vision mixer and producer for live television in my time.
I live in a village north of Milton Keynes with my two cats, Baggins and Gimley, and a large planted aquarium full of unruly tropical fish.
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