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The 5AM Coffee Shop Rule for SaaS Let me tell you a story that I came across recently. There was a coffee shop owner who opened his place at 5 AM every single morning. No customers, no buzz, no awareness. Just him, a quiet street, and the smell of coffee. He did this for weeks. Same routine. Same timing. Same effort. And no one watching. One day, two people stopped by and asked why he bothered opening so early when nobody came. He simply said, “Because when someone does come, I want to already be the person who opens at 5.” That line stayed with me. I feel building SaaS feels exactly like this. You push releases no one comments on. You refine onboarding flows that barely get used. You write documentation that almost no one reads. You clean up edge cases and latency issues that don’t yet matter at scale. From the outside, it looks like nothing is happening. But inside, you’re building reliability, predictability, and rhythm. In short, the things that make trust possible. Then one day, it shifts. A trial user doesn’t churn. Someone invites a teammate. A customer pays for the annual plan. Support tickets arrive faster than you expected. And suddenly...it feels like growth! You became the founder who opens the shop at 5AM. Not to impress anyone. But because that’s the work. Or, that's the rule!