Hitting €40k MRR with SaaS: Lessons From the Trenches

Last month, my SaaS business crossed €40,000 in monthly recurring revenue. That is almost double what I was making in the same period last year.

For context, I run Swifteq, a small software company focused on building apps for customer support teams that use Zendesk. Our apps extend Zendesk with features like advanced search, help center management, translation, and automation. Some are free, others are paid, and they are all designed to help support teams work faster and deliver better service.

I bootstrapped the company, and today our apps are used by hundreds of teams around the world, from startups to large enterprises.

This post is about sharing what I have learned along the way, the mistakes, the tradeoffs, and the things I wish I had done sooner. Hopefully some of these lessons help you if you are building or thinking about building your own SaaS product.

1. Marketing is always fighting with product

I am a developer at heart. Writing code, fixing bugs, reviewing PRs, that is where I feel comfortable. Even now, with a full-time developer and part-time help, I find myself pulled back into technical work instead of spending the time I know I should on marketing and sales.

It is rarely about building big features anymore. The time sink is often in smaller but constant tasks: troubleshooting technical issues when customers email me, reviewing code from my team, testing new features, or recording walkthroughs for developers so they understand what needs to be refined. I know these are important, but the problem is that they eat away at the hours I should be spending finding new customers or optimizing existing marketing channels.

I have realized it is not just about delegation, it is about discipline. Customers are usually patient when issues arise. I need to train myself to step back, trust the team, and resist the urge to jump into every technical ticket. Otherwise, the urgent will always crowd out the important.

2. Free products open doors

One of the smartest decisions I made early on was to create free apps. I have three free Zendesk apps that are installed and actively used by thousands of customer support folks. These apps do not bring in direct revenue, but they have been one of my most effective marketing channels.

Why? Because they put me in front of teams in a way that feels helpful, not pushy. A support team installs a free app, they use it daily, and they build familiarity with my brand. Later, when they hit a limitation Zendesk does not solve and see one of my paid apps, I am already a known quantity. Trust is established before I ever ask for money.

For other founders: if you can build a genuinely useful free product, it can become one of your best distribution levers.

3. SEO is harder than it looks

I have put real time and money into SEO over the past year. Keyword research, optimized pages, blog posts, consultants, the works. And yet, the return so far has been underwhelming.

Part of it is the shifting landscape: Google algorithm updates, the flood of AI-generated content, and the challenge of breaking through in a crowded space. Part of it is technical. My site has been on Wix, and the Core Web Vitals are poor. I have good reason to believe that this has been holding me back, so I am in the process of migrating to WordPress for better speed and performance.

The takeaway: SEO is a long, slow game. Do not expect quick wins, and do not pour your whole strategy into it until you have proof it is moving the needle.

4. Partners are underrated

Another growth driver that does not get enough attention is partnerships. In my case, it is not about formal agreements or affiliate deals. It is about people in the Zendesk ecosystem: customer success managers, solution consultants, and implementation partners.

When a customer asks a Zendesk employee about a problem that Zendesk does not solve, it is in their best interest to suggest a solution that does. If they know my apps fill that gap, they recommend them. The same is true with partners and consultants who help companies implement Zendesk. It is not complicated, it is just about making their jobs easier.

If you are building on an existing platform or ecosystem, invest in those relationships. Educate people about what your product can do. Being top of mind when a customer problem comes up is incredibly powerful.

5. Price increases are scary but worth it

For a long time, I charged legacy customers far less than new ones. When I first launched one of my main apps, Help Center Manager, I priced it at around €30 per month. Over time, as the app matured and usage grew, I raised prices for new customers to €59 and eventually higher. But I left early adopters on the old plans.

That meant I had dozens of heavy users paying a fraction of the value they were getting. It also meant that growth was harder to sustain, because I did not have the margin to reinvest in support, security, or new features.

So in May, I rolled out a price increase for all existing monthly customers. I gave them plenty of notice, a cadence of three emails over two months, so there would not be surprises.

The reaction was mixed. My churn spiked in July and August. Some customers who had been with me for years left, saying they did not use the app enough to justify the new price. That part was painful.

But when the increases took effect in August, the impact was huge. My MRR jumped by more than €3,000. Suddenly I had budget to invest in SOC 2 compliance, better support, and more product improvements. The app felt healthier, the business felt stronger, and I was more motivated to keep improving it.

Lesson: if your prices do not reflect the value you deliver, you are holding yourself back. Raising prices will cause churn. It will sting. But if you have built something people rely on, the net effect is growth.

6. Attribution is messy and maybe overrated

One thing I have not done well is marketing attribution. I do not have a system that tells me exactly where customers came from. Was it the blog? The free app? A partner referral? An ad?

In reality, I do not think customers ever come from just one place. When I make a buying decision myself, it is rarely linear. I might see a talk at a conference, read a post months later, try out a free tool, get a recommendation from a colleague, and only then decide to buy. That was exactly my experience when I recently chose between two compliance automation vendors for SOC 2. I could not have pointed to a single channel that converted me, it was a mix of touchpoints over years.

That is why I am not convinced perfect attribution is worth chasing. It is messy by nature. Instead, I focus on making sure my brand shows up across multiple touchpoints: useful blog posts, free apps, recommendations from Zendesk employees, conference presence when possible. Customers need familiarity and trust before they buy.

7. Platforms give and take

Building on a platform like Zendesk has clear advantages. You get distribution through the marketplace, visibility when customers search for solutions, and the chance to partner with Zendesk employees and consultants. It is like having a built-in channel that puts you in front of people already in buying mode.

But it also comes with risk. If the platform itself struggles, your business struggles. If your relationship with the platform changes, you are exposed. And if the platform decides to build a feature that overlaps with yours, you might lose ground.

I have seen this firsthand. A couple of years ago, I launched a translation app that became popular. More recently, Zendesk released a competing translation feature as part of their AI offering. So far, I have not lost customers to it, but it is a reminder that platform risk is real. You are always somewhat at the mercy of the ecosystem you build on.

Final thought

Crossing €40k MRR, nearly double what I had one year ago, was not the result of one magic channel or a single growth hack. It was the result of compounding small bets: building free apps, nurturing partnerships, raising prices, experimenting with SEO, and making incremental improvements to distribution.

The hardest part now is not technical. It is focus. Spending less time inside the codebase, and more time working on the business itself.

If you are building your own SaaS, I hope some of these reflections help you. The journey is not linear. It is messy, uncomfortable, and full of tradeoffs. But with each decision, you build momentum, and that momentum is what gets you to milestones like this.