[HN Gopher] Evaluating Modest SaaS Business Ideas
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Evaluating Modest SaaS Business Ideas
Author : DanHulton
Score : 164 points
Date : 2021-04-10 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (greaterdanorequalto.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (greaterdanorequalto.com)
| 1cvmask wrote:
| All seem like reasonable points. But the real test is the ability
| to survive the first couple of years and get paying customers.
| DanHulton wrote:
| Oh absolutely. These are questions to hopefully find an idea
| that lets you do that, or at least exclude ones that don't.
| lpolovets wrote:
| This is an excellent list. FWIW these questions overlap a lot
| with questions VCs will ask if you decide to go the venture-
| backed route. (Source: I'm a VC.)
|
| A product can still find success even if there isn't a great
| answer to "is there a moat?" or "is the person who benefits also
| the one who pays?" -- but the road is a lot harder.
| algo_trader wrote:
| What is your typical "moat perception" of a Uber-for-X SaaS
| pitch.
|
| Yes, brand and reputation and credit card details and scale
| advantages and first mover.
|
| But are these a "moat" or just "stickiness" factors?
| lpolovets wrote:
| I view those more as stickiness than as moats. They help you
| retain existing customers but don't make the product more
| valuable for new customers.
|
| Scale advantages are the exception. If the costs of your
| product or service drop dramatically with scale, then you can
| lower prices to a level where you still make a profit but
| competitors can't compete.
|
| The complicated most is the logistics network. That is
| definitely a moat against new entrants, but not against large
| existing logistics networks like Uber or DoorDash.
| figbert wrote:
| > Alternatively, if you run an Internet Of Things company that
| locks and unlocks doors over an API, if that API goes down,
| people could be locked out of their houses during emergencies!
|
| Alternatively, don't develop an IoT door lock that will lock
| people out of their houses if the intern accidentally fucks up in
| production.
| sokoloff wrote:
| But how else could we make it LaaS (locks as a service) with a
| monthly subscription?
| senko wrote:
| > Is downtime a life-or-death emergency?
|
| This is a big one, after you get your project off the ground.
|
| In my last startup, downtime of a few minutes led to torrents of
| emails and customer complaints, as the service was time
| sensitive.
|
| This was easily the most stressful part of the job.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| Great list, I'm currently trying to better focus my side project
| time one things that can be viable businesses so I can het back
| to running my own thing again and this is getting bookmarked to
| come back to for every idea.
| macando wrote:
| The most important part:
|
| _Finding a customer category that regularly spends money on the
| kind of software you 're intending to build can make it
| signficantly easier to actually sell them software._
|
| Go to Capterra or G2 and read what actual paying customers say
| about your competitors and other SaaS products. It's eye-opening.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Not really. Most of those reviews are paid reviews these days,
| and you can't tell the real ones from the fake ones. I know
| because at my previous job the marketing team was responsible
| for "encouraging" customers to leave positive reviews by
| offering them various incentives and discounts. Resulting
| reviews were often times the total opposite of reality.
| macando wrote:
| Partially true. It takes some time to learn how to spot
| genuine reviews.
|
| However, even in the "encouraged" reviews you can still
| discover what problems people solve with certain class of
| tools and how much money they're ready to pay for them.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Can confirm, I did a few paid reviews (until the reward was
| greater than the time spent).
|
| I wrote genuine thoughts on the product but given it has been
| offered to me and not someone else, there is a clear
| selection bias.
| yoshyosh wrote:
| This is a really good post, how long have you been doing this for
| Dan? Look forward to seeing what you make next
| DanHulton wrote:
| Thanks! I've been building Nodewood in my spare time for the
| past couple years, but I've been keeping my hand in the
| bootstrapping community for about a decade now. I have a pretty
| solid history of _not_ considering these questions before
| launching something that seemed like a fun idea, so I figured I
| may as well share this and see if I can help others learn from
| my mistakes. =)
| searchableguy wrote:
| This is a good list of questions to evaluate. I am currently
| struggling with finding customers for something I hacked together
| to solve my personal problem.
|
| A discord bot which warns users when they share links to pirated
| site and remove it. (I moderate a small discord server).
|
| I extracted the API part and put it on rapid API to see if there
| is any interest because I have little idea where to look for
| customers and how to talk to them.
|
| https://rapidapi.com/searchableland-no-piracy-team/api/pirac...
|
| I have also been looking for alternatives. I searched for them
| before but nothing came up so I had to build a list and
| heuristics myself. Maybe there isn't much of a need otherwise I
| would find a product.
| kayhi wrote:
| How much time, money or reputation does it contribute to a
| channel?
| DanHulton wrote:
| Yeah, if you don't find any competition, that's usually not a
| great thing. The world being as big as it is, you're _probably_
| not the first person to think of this particular idea, and it's
| _usually_ that there's not a market for it.
|
| That said, maybe this is an idea you can niche _up_ with?
| Instead of just one form of moderation, could you take the
| basic tech and use it to moderate a whole bunch of nasties that
| admins don't want to waste time dealing with? You'll want to
| make sure that the a _paying_ market exists for such tools
| first, obviously, but it's a potential option.
| mpoteat wrote:
| Agree. A one off tool that detects pirated links seems odd to
| pay for.
|
| Either a monolithic tool for handling moderation automation
| in general seems good, or better yet a marketplace where I
| can buy automation plugins for Discord in general, both for
| moderation as well as other administrative or entertainment
| tasks.
| fbelzile wrote:
| It's easy nowadays to throw up a quick slash page with some
| SEO friendly pages to gauge market demand. Have an email wait
| list and if it gets large, you'll conveniently have the email
| of your first clients.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Maybe you could get an MPAA grant to develop it further. :)
|
| Most problems with links on Discord are solved with a gradual
| expansion of new user permissions.
| luto wrote:
| Does discord punish servers, which share pirated content?
| cloudking wrote:
| These are good questions to evaluate, as the author points out
| there is no "right" way to do this. Making sure your idea solves
| real customers problems that align with your personal values and
| goals makes sense to me. Another tool I like to use in this phase
| is the Business Model Canvas, it makes you think about the
| business side, giving you a clear overview of your idea and the
| avenues to turn it into a real business
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas
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