Building Trust and Transparency with TraceRMM: Lessons for SaaS Founders

The idea for TraceRMM came from working in IT and seeing how many RMM platforms had become expensive, overly complex, and packed with features that were either gatekept or hidden behind different packages, add-ons, and licensing tiers. I wanted a tool that focused on the things technicians actually use every day, monitoring, scripting, patching, remote access, alerting, and automation, without forcing businesses into high per-endpoint costs or complicated licensing. A big part of the frustration was how difficult it could be to understand exactly what you were paying for. Important features were often split between plans, locked behind additional purchases, or only available after talking to sales. Even basic pricing could be difficult to find without requesting a quote. TraceRMM was built around the opposite idea. Pricing should be predictable, the core feature set should be included, and customers should know exactly what they are getting. I also wanted the option to self-host, giving businesses more control over their own environment and data. The goal was never to build the largest RMM platform. It was to build one that is practical, transparent, affordable, and designed around the real work technicians do every day.

Most of the growth tactics I tried brought in some traffic, but not enough qualified users to actually start a trial. Paid ads, social media posts, and videos helped with awareness, but conversion was very limited. I learned pretty quickly that getting views or clicks is not the same as reaching someone who is actively looking for an RMM and willing to install software from a company they have never heard of. The biggest thing that worked was getting TraceRMM listed on SaaSBrowser. Before that, I was seeing roughly one download at a time. After being listed, that increased to around five downloads per week, which was a noticeable change for a completely unknown company. For a new company competing in the RMM space, even getting someone to download and evaluate the software is difficult. SaaSBrowser worked because the people finding TraceRMM there were already looking for software in this category. That taught me that targeted discovery channels are far more valuable than broad advertising. Getting in front of the right audience matters much more than simply getting in front of a large one.

Given how small our current user base is, we have not received many complaints yet, which makes this question a little difficult to answer honestly. Most of the feedback so far has been around usability rather than the functionality of the platform itself. There was one case where a user could not find the button to add a new device to their environment. The feature was there, but the placement was not obvious enough for someone using TraceRMM for the first time. Our support team was able to help the user quickly and get them pointed in the right direction. That experience reinforced something important for me, if a feature exists but a user cannot easily find it, then from their perspective it may as well not exist. As TraceRMM continues to grow, I am paying more attention to onboarding, navigation, and making common actions easier to discover without requiring support. With a small user base, even a single usability issue is useful feedback because it exposes friction that can be fixed before more customers encounter it.

Trust plays a much larger role in the RMM market than most people realize. A product can have the right features, competitive pricing, and even offer capabilities that established vendors do not, but that does not automatically mean companies will be willing to switch. RMM software has deep access to a company's infrastructure. It can run scripts, install software, remotely control devices, manage updates, and interact with sensitive systems. Because of that level of access, reputation and familiarity matter heavily during the buying process. For a newer company, the challenge is not only proving that the software works. You also have to prove that the company behind it is reliable, secure, and likely to still be there when customers need support. Companies often prefer the familiarity of an established vendor over the uncertainty of switching to an unknown one. That means building trust, demonstrating reliability, and developing a reputation can be just as important as building the product itself.

Over the next 6–12 months, the focus is on making TraceRMM more mature without losing the simplicity that made me build it in the first place. I want to continue improving the core areas technicians use every day, including monitoring, alerting, automation, reporting, remote management, network discovery, and overall usability. I also want to keep improving the experience for MSPs managing multiple clients while maintaining predictable pricing and avoiding the complicated packaging and licensing structures that are common in the RMM market. One of the larger long-term goals is to introduce cloud-hosted TraceRMM instances. Today, customers can self-host the platform, which gives them control over their environment, but it also means they are responsible for providing and maintaining the underlying hardware or virtual infrastructure. A hosted option would give customers another choice, keep self-hosting if they want full control, or use a managed TraceRMM instance if they want the platform without having to maintain the server themselves.

Currently, 14 trail users, which is small, yes, but it's amazing that some people are willing to try something new.

Before building TraceRMM, I had already spent several years working in IT, moving through support, systems administration, automation, security, and platform-focused roles. That gave me direct experience with the kinds of problems RMM tools are supposed to solve, monitoring endpoints, automating repetitive work, deploying software, troubleshooting remotely, managing updates, and supporting multiple environments. I had also built smaller technical projects and automation tools before, but TraceRMM was my first attempt at building a complete commercial software product. So I was not starting from scratch on the IT side. I understood the workflows and pain points firsthand. The bigger learning curve was everything around turning that experience into a real product, software architecture, licensing, billing, security, deployment, documentation, marketing, and actually convincing people to try it.

The biggest mistake I made was assuming that if I built a good product at a better price, people would naturally be willing to try it. I underestimated how much trust, visibility, and reputation matter in the RMM market. Early on, I focused heavily on development and believed that a strong feature set and straightforward pricing would be enough to get people interested. In reality, an RMM is not a product that companies casually install. It has significant access to their systems, so customers want to know who is behind it, whether the company is reliable, and whether they can trust the software long-term. What I learned is that building the product and building credibility have to happen at the same time. More features do not automatically create more customers. Distribution, reputation, support, documentation, and giving people confidence in the company behind the software are just as important as the software itself.