I read this question on Twitter:
QUESTION: when you’re considering paying for a service from an indie/bootstrapped SaaS - what do you consider in regards to the company behind it, before opening that digital wallet of yours? or, do you even think about the company behind it as a factor in your decision?
Turning the question around, how do you assure would be customers that they should open the wallet and pay you money?
Having a good web site is the most important thing: detailed information about the product, professional web site look - no typos, no grammar errors, nice design, recent news showing that the product/company is alive and in active development, money back guarantee etc. Offering a demo/trial and a product that is good and does what is promised also help a lot.
I would say the vast majority of people don’t even consider that the product might be coming from an indie/bootstrapped company. They don’t even know what that means. The only people who consider it are other bootstrappers or big companies (never get fired for buying IBM/Microsoft/AWS).
In all seriousness I tell would be customers that there is nothing even close to what we provide for what we ask to pay (and we are not exactly cheap).
In answering the original question: having a complete website is a strong signal as @Dmitry mentioned (home, features, pricing, about, & docs).
I’m also inclined to overlook website completeness if the pricing is clear and a free trial is immediately available to explore the product.
To that end, I’m working on a frictionless signup/onboarding flow so users can receive tangible value quickly. My hypothesis is that doing that well will make it simple to fork over a little cash.