How I Made My First $1,300 from a SaaS While Finishing High School

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

I’m 17 and made $1,300 from my SaaS in the first 30 days while juggling AP exams and college applications. It’s not life‑changing money, but it proves you don’t need:

• A tech accelerator
• Months of planning
• A perfect product
• Even to be out of high school

All you need is to move fast.

Common Misconceptions

I see this pattern repeatedly:

• “I’ve been building my SaaS for 8 months.”
• “Just need a few more features before launch.”
• “Building in stealth mode.”

These founders are building the wrong thing—they simply haven’t talked to a customer yet.

Outreach Before Coding

I DM’d 50+ people before writing a single line of code.

The script

Hey [name],

Saw you're working on [their project].

I built [tool name] – basically [one‑sentence value prop].

It solves [specific pain point].

Interested in trying it when ready? Takes 2 min to set up.

Results

Key ingredients: personal, specific, clear value, low commitment.

My SaaS v1

• YES – Docs (existed)
• Rule: If you can fake it or do it manually for the first 10 customers, fake it.

Pre‑launch (3 days before)

• Posted a tease on Twitter
• DM’d 15 interested people
• Prepared Product Hunt assets

Launch day

• Posted on Product Hunt at 12:01 am PT
• Shared everywhere (Twitter, Indie Hackers, relevant communities)
• Responded to every comment in < 15 min

Launch Results

• 120 sign‑ups in the first 3 days
• 15 converted to paid in the first week

Lessons Learned

1. Building features users didn’t ask for
2. Underpricing
3. Trying to please everyone

Resources

I documented everything—including the validation framework, DM scripts, MVP breakdown, pricing strategy, launch playbook, tools I use (≈ $100/mo total), and what to avoid—in a free download:

1K Founder Playbook

Current Work

I’m using the same playbook to launch repo20, a dependency‑monitoring tool that catches breaking changes before they affect production. Launch is scheduled for next week; we’ll see if the process works twice.

Questions

Drop your questions below—happy to share more about any part of this process.