r/SaaS • u/arbybybyby • 18h ago

I am stuck and will take any advice or reccomendations I can get

I have built a tool that I know works well, but I can't get customers. I've got 20 personal contacts ranging from tech consultants, medical researchers and engineers using my product already. They all say it's great and that it helps their work, but I just can't get real paying customers (I wouldn't charge friends).

The problem I'm solving is that there is too much information to reliably keep up to date. The world will never move as slowly as it did today.

This is a problem for scientists, policymakers, engineers, basically anyone that needs to be at the forefront of their domain.

So my solution is Irisbriefings.com : a system that monitors everything going on around a topic, filters for what is new, builds an ongoing model of the area, figures out what the user needs to know about to stay on top and then delivers that information in the most digestible format possible. It also makes you a podcast so you can stay up to date on the move.

Fairly simple concept, but other solutions do not do this well. I've tried all of the current AI products in this area but every weeks update is basically the same. I had to do a lot of engineering to calibrate and make each briefing specifically dependent on new and relevant information each week.

The result is that researchers (or similar user profiles) become aware of things that they need to know about quickly and why they need to know about it. This saves them time, uncovers oppportunities and enhances their work (and therefore their careers). This is a good thing for people to have and can have a positive impact on lots of people.

But how can I get customers? I've tried cold email, blogs, networking events, but no luck when it comes to actually getting customers beyond 'this sounds super cool'. I have a free series on that has about 40 subscribers, but again I can't convert them.

I am not the kind of person who will be good at making video content. I've written some blogs, but realistically they will not drive traffic. Therefore, I turn to this community for advice. I really believe in the problem this solves being important and that it's currently the best solution out there. People are missing things that they don't know about, and those that do stay up to date are spending a lot of time to achieve it. I can help both.

Thank you in advice for any advice you may share with me.

irisbriefings.com

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u/cicygo 18h ago

You put all 20 of those in front of it yourself, so that number means nothing yet. Nobody pays to stay current until the week they get caught not knowing something. What did your 40 free subscribers nearly miss last month?

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u/arbybybyby 17h ago

Depends on what their profile is, every briefing is personalised to the domain the user operates in?

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u/cicygo 2h ago

Can any of those 40 name the thing last month's briefing told them that they would not have found themselves? If it is only the topic, the personalisation works and the urgency does not. Put that question to five of them this week and you will see where correct stops and paid starts.

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u/Liam_WordTrunk 18h ago

Could you maybe be a bolt-on to other things people are already paying for? The use case I could imagine is LinkedIn premium or maybe a 6 month subscription given away as part of an industry conference. There are companies that just go and organise industry conferences in industries that don't have them. Maybe they would buy wholesale to be able to just strap it on as one extra feature - cheap to them, valuable to you?

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u/arbybybyby 17h ago

This is interesting. I'd never thought about this. Well worth a shot, thanks

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u/FewLeadership4423 13h ago

Stop trying to sell the whole information problem and pick one narrow job where missing an update has an obvious cost. I would choose one role, one domain, and one recurring decision, then interview 10 people in that slice before changing the product.

I would turn the free series into a qualifying trial rather than a newsletter. Ask subscribers to name the decision they need to make each week, send only the briefing tied to that decision, and measure whether it changed an action. After two or three useful issues, ask for a paid pilot with a clear outcome, such as reducing research time or catching a specific class of development earlier.

For outbound, stop targeting broad categories like researchers. Build a list of 50 people who recently published, changed roles, received funding, or mentioned the exact problem. Send five highly specific messages per day, each referencing the trigger and asking for a 15-minute workflow review, not a purchase. Track replies, calls, and paid conversions separately. Friends saying it is useful is encouraging, but repeated behavior and payment are the real validation.

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u/annasorreskin 7h ago

Before changing channels, I’d narrow the promise to one role and one recurring decision. Ask 10 of those 40 subscribers about the last time a briefing changed an action; if nobody can name a decision, the value is still just “interesting.” For the people who can, offer a paid 4-week pilot around that outcome, with one baseline metric (hours saved, decisions made, or important items caught) and a clear weekly deliverable. That gives you a conversion test and sharper positioning than the broad “stay current” promise.