Building and launching a no-code SaaS boilerplate

Meet Kieran Ball.

A UK-based solopreneur and no-code maker with an addiction to building small SaaS products.

As a result he recently launched Bullet Launch - a no-code SaaS boilerplate.

Let me first rewind a little.

I spent about 10 years of my life trying to start app side hustles while working in a finance day job. Unfortunately no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get coding to stick, which made building a software startup almost impossible.

In 2019 I discovered the world of no-code and instantly realised it was exactly what I’d been looking for.

I started learning the platform Bubble.io and within three months I’d built my first SaaS product completely from scratch. It was truly mindblowing.

It was a tool to collect video testimonials from customers - called Vidpops. You could text or email them a custom link from the dashboard and they could record a testimonial straight into their browser which would appear in your dashboard.

Of course I had no idea about marketing, so the idea failed. But I continued building more and more SaaS ideas

In 2021 I built a SaaS called Community Copilot. Go here for a video walkthrough. The same year I built another SaaS called Revu. Go here for a video walkthrough.

And then one my projects finally got traction - a super fast landing page builder called Yep.so, which was later acquired.

I realised being able to ship SaaS products quickly was a superpower. But still each build was taking too long. So I built the Bullet Launch boilerplate to speed up the process.

I started building it in December 2023 and launched it in March 2024 on X (see below).

It’s priced at $249 and so far I’ve sold 77 copies, although with discounts and the marketplace cut my average revenue is closer to $150 per template.

Unlike a recurring revenue product, it needs continual marketing. Finding content ideas can be difficult.

Almost all of my marketing has been on X, where I have a decent sized audience who know me for no-code and SaaS related content.

Bullet Launch fits pretty well with my “personal brand” and makes it easy for me to weave it into my narrative.

I try to post at least one thing on X per day about Bullet Launch. I worry people will get sick of hearing about it, but the way the algorithm works only a small number of people see each post. Recently I set up a X account for Bullet Launch so I can tag it rather than including an external URL in each post which reduces reach.

It’s good to understand what motivates your ideal customers. For a boilerplate most will be looking for a visually appealing product, and I noticed posts that get the most likes and comments are the ones with nice visuals.

So I always try to include good screenshots or short video clips that showcase the best parts of the template. A few examples below.

I also added a footer to my newsletter (see below) which I borrowed from Justin Welsh’s newsletter. It goes out to approx. 4k subscribers.

I only just added this so I’m not sure how effective it will be, but my instinct says it’s a good idea.

I haven’t created a consistent marketing process yet, but I’m working on one which looks like this:

I like this plan because I enjoy all of the aspects of it, I would do them even if it wasn’t for marketing. If you can find a similar marketing flywheel for yourself, it makes it easier.

Thanks for reading and I hope you found this helpful.

Where to find Kieran and his projects: