Consai
Consai is my first SaaS application, made to try and earn money, and this changed all our decisions. I built it with my friend Leo. We found an opportunity with AI and decided to create this SaaS to try selling it to other businesses. We needed to ship fast to get our space in the market. I built the whole application (backend and frontend), and he worked on the AI API. We had many challenges and had to stop thinking like developers and start thinking like CEOs.
Next.js
Node.js
Typescript
Stripe
Postgres
Drizzle
Tailwind
Sentry
PostHog
CDN
Project Purpose and Goal
- Our main goal was try get max money as possible, and build a strong alternative for the solutions already existents, we wanted understand more about market, sales, marketing, and how to grow a product
Key Features
- Created a strong SaaS template with authentication, Stripe integration for plan limits, organization and project management, team invites, a basic landing page/app structure , and a fast script to configure a new project structure in literally 2 seconds.
- An embed that can be added to your website, fully customized to match your brand.
- A real-time chat where clients can pause the AI and take over the conversation themselves.
- A playground page to test the agents.
- Beautiful animations to make the experience smoother 🤩.
Problems and Thought Process
- We built the project like it was for a big company with a mature product. At the start, I used best practices and design patterns, but the project took too long to build and ship. Because of that, we couldn't test if the product was useful. The first thing I changed was moving to a simple MVC approach, which made everything faster to build.
- Since we were working in our free time, we hired an intern. I planned their tasks so they could work on things like improving the UI and making it responsive. Meanwhile, I focused on the core logic and main features of the product.
- Another challenge was figuring out how to sell the product. We started by initiating affiliate partnerships to have others sell the product for us, which helped us connect with key market players.
Lessons Learned
- I learned a lot about business because the final user doesn't even know which technology we are using. One big takeaway for me is understanding the timing of a product. If it's an MVP to test an idea, some things are more critical than perfection in coding.
- When you mentor people, their performance doesn't just double it grows exponentially. Over time with your guidance, the people you hire start to understand how to get things done, and they become self-driven leaders who complete tasks and even create their own goals.
- Focus on strategic priorities that can significantly grow the product, rather than just following personal interests or whims.