> A good ballpark to get started is creating three plans around $47, $97 and $249 each.
just like that. really? no matter what kind of SaaS you're running?
How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
21–30 of 79 posts
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#22arrrghhh this "find a niche" stuff again. what if I am a regular 9-5 engineer in a big company. where the hell am I finding those? By using random idea generator and getting "note taking add-in for excel for amputee ballerinas"? aw jeez, they dont have enough money, I must pivot to broker ballerinas
I thought this was implicit: you find a problem you deal with on a daily basis. This is probably why there are so many more startups pitching development tools than, for instance, something to make the lives of truckers a little easier. If you work as a regular engineer, you must come across dozens of daily problems any of which are not properly solved by your current tools. Even simple things like following up consi…
Most problems we all face on daily basis are completely trivial and those which aren't are often solved by someone. Which is something people often overlook and end up making products which no one really needs. Here's an example - I broke the remote for my AC earlier this year but I managed to salvage the codes and program a wifi-enabled ESP32 to communicate with the AC over wifi remotely, I made a crazy stupid UI for my phone so I can control it remotely(though I spend 90% of my time at home). Sounds like a brilliant product, doesn't it? Is there a market for it? I haven't bothered to check but my bet is that there might be 3000 people worldwide that would consider getting one, out of which maybe 50 would end up buying it. So no, this probably won't break the front page of Amazon to put it lightly.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#23arrrghhh this "find a niche" stuff again. what if I am a regular 9-5 engineer in a big company. where the hell am I finding those? By using random idea generator and getting "note taking add-in for excel for amputee ballerinas"? aw jeez, they dont have enough money, I must pivot to broker ballerinas
> what if I am a…
Why does advice have to apply to every scenario ?
What if you are a paraguayan field worker and this is not actionable for you ?
Anyways, I’d suggest you talk to others around you and see if you spot the pain points in their day
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#24arrrghhh this "find a niche" stuff again. what if I am a regular 9-5 engineer in a big company. where the hell am I finding those? By using random idea generator and getting "note taking add-in for excel for amputee ballerinas"? aw jeez, they dont have enough money, I must pivot to broker ballerinas
yeah, the "find a niche" advice falls flat without an addendum entitled "how to find a niche". I think fundamentally it comes from talking to people rather than theorising in a bubble, but unless you're already talking to people it's tricky to know how to begin.
pg has an excellent essay on how to fine niches or startup ideas in general.
My thumbrule: 1. Pick a market that already has money-making companies. If you can beat them by price & quality, even after considering the first-mover advantage - go for it.
2. [From pg's essay] Just experiene more in life, with different people facing different kinds of problems from different sectors. That's a sure shot way to eventually run into a market with less competition.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#25Honestly, I think this fails at the first bullet point: "Pick a niche that is already validated". My first bullet would be "Build a product that your existing customer says they need and they can't find." That's how all my SaaS as a solo have come to be.
Before that, how do I find customers and clients?
Start on a job board. Get a freelance gig with your skills. Anything.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#26arrrghhh this "find a niche" stuff again. what if I am a regular 9-5 engineer in a big company. where the hell am I finding those? By using random idea generator and getting "note taking add-in for excel for amputee ballerinas"? aw jeez, they dont have enough money, I must pivot to broker ballerinas
I thought this was implicit: you find a problem you deal with on a daily basis. This is probably why there are so many more startups pitching development tools than, for instance, something to make the lives of truckers a little easier. If you work as a regular engineer, you must come across dozens of daily problems any of which are not properly solved by your current tools. Even simple things like following up consi…
pg has an excellent essay on how to fine niches or startup ideas in general.
My thumbrule: 1. Pick a market that already has money-making companies. If you can beat them by price & quality, even after considering the first-mover advantage - go for it.
2. [From pg's essay] Just experiene more in life, with different people facing different kinds of problems from different sectors. That's a sure shot way to eventually run into a market with less competition.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#27> A good ballpark to get started is creating three plans around $47, $97 and $249 each. just like that. really? no matter what kind of SaaS you're running?
I thought the same thing.
Current major players in the market I'm going after offer their products/services for free, and niche players offer their products for $5/month or $20/year.
Charging $47+/month is a nonstarter as customers are price conscious.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#28arrrghhh this "find a niche" stuff again. what if I am a regular 9-5 engineer in a big company. where the hell am I finding those? By using random idea generator and getting "note taking add-in for excel for amputee ballerinas"? aw jeez, they dont have enough money, I must pivot to broker ballerinas
> what if I am a… Why does advice have to apply to every scenario ? What if you are a paraguayan field worker and this is not actionable for you ? Anyways, I’d suggest you talk to others around you and see if you spot the pain points in their day
>Anyways, I’d suggest you talk to others around you and see if you spot the pain points in their day
This is not a predictable tactic that would yield a viable SaaS idea, this is a gamble "go dive into the ocean, maybe you will find treasure"
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#29So what's the SaaS that you created and managed to compete with big players as a solo founder?
It feels rude to ask, but I wish people asked this more
You see it a lot in the livestreaming/YouTuber circles too, 5 viewer channels advising 10 viewer channels how to grow
Theory is great but it should really be marked as such. At least give examples of other companies doing this or something if you're acting solely in a research and present findings capacity
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought this was implicit: you find a problem you deal with on a daily basis. This is probably why there are so many more startups pitching development tools than, for instance, something to make the lives of truckers a little easier. If you work as a regular engineer, you must come across dozens of daily problems any of which are not properly solved by your current tools. Even simple things like following up consi…
"you find a problem you deal with on a daily basis". Nope, not necessarily. Depends on where you work. If you are a cog in a big company, slaving away your 9-5, then no. You would NEVER get an idea that some finance folk would love to get an excel addin where you can click together in a simple GUI a data fetch from API, or whatever.
not if you never go talk to anyonw but your direct team. when i was at a 500 person consulting team i would wander over and chat woth sales, finance, and hr. sales needed updated resumes and better writing and presentation skills. i pushes the engineers ro all do lunch and learns. finance i plumbed some extra metrics for. hr i got some data into excel for, amd figured out how to get our door badge system to accept building badges which saved money and let people carry one badge. all within 4 years of school.
at a game studio of 300 i would wander amd chat with the various non-coder teams and just watch their workflows. for the tech artists a big blocker was gui access to enums in shaders (custom engine). i just set several of them up to compile the engine and taught tyem how to link enums to the editor gui, saved them many weeks of wait time. saw the lighting bake loop would take 1 year to run fully and a local test loop was 8 hours. asked my boss for time and rigged up a cluster of 64 ps4 dev kits and brought that down to 45 minutes, going from less than one local iteration a day to 9, and less than one a year to 3 a week for full bakes (cluster would bake when it wasnt helping am artist).
at super large mega corp i do similar, constantly meeting people for coffee and understanding more than just my cog. Eventually I got good enough at it and a reputation for improving things that I just get pushed/pulled at problem/opportunities areas, but you have to work up to it.
while none of this is doing a startup, if youre not curious, youll never see the myriad of things that could be improved with software, nor will many non tech folks, or really anyone who doesnt think "outside the box" as the olds say. challenge for devs is understanding where that tech is worth it and how to sell it, and not become that angry dev who is just yelling at everyone and politics for not taking every one of their half baked ideas as words from on high.