How I started a No-Code Powerup SAAS Business - Story of Jetboost

Hello ! Who are you and what are you working on?

Hello, my name is Chris Spags, I'm the founder of Jetboost.io. Jetboost provides power-ups for Webflow sites — real-time search, dynamic filtering, and more. All of which can be added to your site without writing any code.

What motivated you to get started with? How did you come up with the idea?

I first discovered Webflow when my friend Corey launched a job board, heymarketers.com, that he build using Webflow and other no-code tools. The site looked great and immediately started generating revenue from day 1, but I found myself wishing that there was a way to search through all of the jobs listed. It turned out Webflow didn't support this natively, so being a developer, I went and wrote a small script to add search to his job listings.

At the time, I didn't think much of it. But Corey kept referring more and more people to me who wanted the same thing. Eventually, I decided to build out this search feature as a product that anyone could add to their Webflow site, without having to mess with or edit a bunch of code. And that's how Jetboost was born :)

Can you tell us the story of your business from idea to where you are now?

Even though it seemed like there was some demand, I still didn't have much faith in the idea. So my first goal was to launch as quickly as possible and find out whether or not people would actually pay for this. After 4 weeks of building out an embarrassing MVP, I started contacting people who had expressed interest in the product. I acquired my first few customers from that direct outreach and then worked hard to build features or improvements that they requested.

Now, the customer base has grown quite a bit, but the strategy has remained the same. Continue to improve the product by building what customers need. So far that has worked out pretty well.

What has been your biggest failure or struggle?

My biggest failure so far has been adequately showcasing all of the amazing sites and products that customers are building using Jetboost. I do share customer sites on Twitter occasionally (with their permission of course), but I really need a dedicated customer showcase page on the Jetboost website. There are so many different ways to use Jetboost with Webflow, and sharing all these different creative usages will benefit all Jetboost users.

And what has been your biggest achievement or success?

The best feeling for me is when customers say that Jetboost has allowed them to build sites in Webflow for themselves or for clients that they didn't think were possible. I love both the Webflow product and company, so any small part that Jetboost can play in driving Webflow adoption feels incredibly satisfying.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

I believe customer support has played a big part. I will personally help anyone set up Jetboost on their Webflow site if they get stuck anywhere. And I think when people receive great customer support it makes them more likely to tell others about your product.

Describe the process of launching the business.

Pre-launch I had an early access page up and collected about 120 emails. Not a ton, but more than zero. Once the MVP was ready, I began emailing these people in batches and doing video calls with anyone interested in a demo. This basically was the launch and how I acquired early customers. To this day, I still haven't done a Product Hunt or Betalist launch.

Did you use Betalist or PH or other Startup Launching Platform for Launching ? How was that experience ?

I deliberately did not launch on any of these platforms for a couple of reasons. First, the MVP was so limited that I couldn't have handled onboarding more than just a few customers at a time. Second, I think the exposure from these platforms is great, but ultimately what matters more is getting your product in front of your customers, wherever it is that they congregate.

What’s your business model, and how have you grown your revenue?

Jetboost is an a la carte subscription business. Each plugin (or Booster as we call them!) is sold as a separate subscription so that customers only have to pay for the plugins that they are using. It's still early, but so far revenue has grown primarily via word of mouth.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced and obstacles you’ve overcome? What are your goals for the future?

There have been some pretty large technical challenges that I've had to overcome. Building plugins for a platform like Webflow that doesn't actually have a plugin API or app store is not easy. It's fun though! I love the challenge of figuring out how to do things that I might not think are even possible at first.

The main goal for Jetboost is to continue growing both the brand and the product. I want to get Jetboost to the point where it's so essential that anyone who's building with Webflow is also using Jetboost as well.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

I'm excited! I feel so lucky to have such amazingly supportive customers and to get to build on top of an awesome platform like Webflow! I have incredible respect for everyone who works at Webflow because I can't even imagine the challenges of working on a product of that size.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

Wow, I've learned so much since starting the business, it's crazy. The one main lesson I think I keep coming back to is listen to your customers. Solve their problems and build what they want, not necessarily what you want. The customer isn't always right, but when you start seeing the same requests or pain points over and over, that's something you need to pay attention to.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Webflow of course! Crisp.chat has been an incredible product for customer support. Postmark for transactional email, ActiveCampaign for marketing emails, and of course Stripe for payments. All product development is done with Node + React.

Who’s your most inspirational CEO or founder?

Right now it's Ben Tossell of Makerpad. It's insane how quickly he moves. Whether that's shipping new features, trying different business models, or other experiments, his experiment-learn feedback loop is so tight. It's inspiring to watch and it inspires me to move faster with Jetboost and continually ship new updates and try new things.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

Definitely the Indie Hackers podcast. I learn at least one thing from almost every episode that I listen to.

Inventing on Principle by Bret Victor, , completely changed how I design and build products.

Lastly, this video by Michael Seibel of YC, , has had the most impact on how I think about accountability and being a founder.

What’s your advice for fellow aspiring entrepreneur who are just starting out?

My favorite quote is, "To increase your success rate, double your failure rate." When you're first starting out you need to fail as fast as possible, because you are going to fail. Get comfortable with that. Don't spend 2 years in secret building your one idea that you think is going to be a home run. Get it out there! The quicker you fail, the quicker you learn, and can move on and try something new. If you keep doing that, eventually you'll find something that sticks.