The Story
Abhishek built EUform, a Typeform alternative that now makes $11,000 MRR. He discovered the opportunity while working on a previous project and used a simple "find the gap" strategy that anyone can replicate.
As Abhishek explains: "I think anyone can build a business like mine."
The Origin Story
"I was working on my previous SaaS which was a no code chatbot builder. It was called Bflow and it had 200 users or so. Majority of them were using it because they wanted a conversational form. And when I talked to them and found that they were using it as an alternative to Typeform, I found that Typeform recently raised their pricing."
"So then I found there was like a gap in the market. But pricing is something that I found like that can't be the only reason. So I then searched Twitter, Reddit, Typeform's own forum and all. I found there are like some other features as well that users want and Typeform is not providing."
The "Find the Gap" Strategy
"In my opinion, the best approach to build a SaaS is you should not invent things. As an indie hacker, as a bootstrap, you can't create the next Uber. You can't create the next Facebook. You need a lot of money for that and VC funding."
"In fact, you should approach the market which is already validated like there are already big players there. So, people are actually using it and then just find the gap."
The 4-Step Framework
Step 1: "Look for a popular tool and search social platforms like Twitter and Reddit with keywords like 'X alternative' where X is basically the product with lots of users."
Step 2: "Find the pain points or gaps which they are not solving. It is fine if the pain point is pricing but only if pricing is too high."
Step 3: "Reach out to those users with your solution with just a basic landing page explaining your solution. Messaging is the key here."
Step 4 (Bonus): "Have a tool to simply easily migrate your competitor's user to your platform with a one click. In EUform we have a landing page where you can paste your Typeform URL and it will generate a EUform within few seconds."
Building the MVP
"My approach was simple. I didn't actually make all the features that Typeform was providing. We initially didn't do anything which might be like a fancy landing page or a logo or anything like that."
"The first version of EUform had just you can collect some data using fields like name, email, star rating and all. And apart from that you can just download your data as a CSV. There was no integrations with Google Sheet API etc. Nothing was available there."
"This was an MVP that I think I built in 2 weeks and the landing page was a basic landing page that time which just had a 'start using EUform' which used to take you to the EUform builder."
Business Numbers
- •$11,000 MRR
- •35,000+ registered users
- •~500 paying customers
- •35,000 unique visitors per month
- •4 million+ form submissions
- •1.5-2% conversion rate (freemium model)
- •90%+ features are free
Tech Stack & Costs
- •Laravel (backend framework)
- •AWS (hosting)
- •Cloudflare (security and storage)
- •Stripe (payments)
- •OpenAI (fraud detection)
- •Slite (help docs)
- •Gmail (bug tracking)
- •Simple Analytics (web analytics)
- •Canny (feedback management)
- •Mailgun (email)
- •Total monthly expenses: ~$1,200
Ideas Worth Building (From Abhishek)
- •Canny Alternative: "This is my personal pain point I have faced because we are a small startup and Canny has recently been trying to go up market. I searched for a lot of Canny alternatives in the market but none as simple as Canny."
- •Forest App Alternative: "This is an app where you can build your forest, the digital forest, by doing some habits. And why you should build an alternative right now is if you search with the latest reviews, most of them are one star."
Key Lessons
"First of all the messaging is important with your app. The message about what your product does should resonate with basically your ideal customer."
"After that it is all about how good your product is and your customer support which will not only keep your existing customers but they will also refer others to your product."
Advice for Beginners
"If you are young, take risk early because you have less responsibilities and don't neglect marketing. That is important thing."
"Don't build things because you can. If you really want a SaaS business to support your lifestyle, then I think you should first search for what people are looking for and then build it."
Resources
- •EUform: https://euform.com/
- •Follow Abhishek on Twitter