For a B2B SaaS company, the easiest/most likely[1] algorithm to succeed[2]:<p>1) Be embedded in the industry for a while<p>2) Make lots of connections, build credibility<p>3) Build SaaS app to solve key pain point you experienced in #1<p>4) Sell to the folks you know from #2<p>5) For bonus points/de-risking: find 25 potential customers (from #2) and reach out to them and validate this idea (Jobs-to-be-Done). Get a handful of them to commit, even verbally, to buy this when you've got an MVP built.<p>[1] Clearly this is not the <i>only</i> way to be successful, but "I have a random idea lemme build it" is a great way to be not successful<p>[2] Succeed = your business that makes enough revenue to support you and a reasonable lifestyle, equating (and/or eventually surpassing) what you would typically make at a W2 gig, from a diversity of customers and not trading your personal time for money.
Business models of the companies with over $240k ARR:<p>- outsourcing to humans<p>- asset acquirement leverage<p>- education<p>- outsourcing to ai<p>- event organizing<p>- adding a missing feature to a platform<p>- internet marketing saas<p>- copied a website and added a missing feature<p>- micro feedback as a service<p>Copying a website and adding a feature is great for someone who spends their time becoming a better software craftsperson.<p>Micro feedback as a service is a fascinating market I had never considered. Exceptional creativity there. Could be applied generally to many domains. PullRequest is doing code review as a service which is a great example of applying it to another specific domain.<p>Edit: formatting.
A interesting one Ive come across recently are technical founders that run a solutions company where a retired exec of a large company in a particular industry is an advisor/investor and assisting with leads.<p>Screams of corruption but in practice not really so. The exec knows there industry well, finds out where they struggle to find solutions, passes info down to the company. The company then creates specialised software to deal with it and joins a tender. As they have a trusted person on board it assists in getting in the door. Also the competition will usually not be very technically advanced.<p>Revenue streams are variable from rev-share to cost + maintenance. In a lot of cases the same solutions can be sold to others within the same vertical or outside it. Anecdotal but founders Ive met in this area seem far more successful than those on a more traditional VC / bootstrapping tract. Perhaps because a lot of the hard part of enterprise sales is solved by the advisor.<p>This may be an asia-specific style of business, not sure.
The main issue with going after random ideas, is that suddenly 3 months down the process of building some proof of concept, you lost so much of the initial thrill and focus (build B in order to build A, build C in order to build B, learn D in order to build C...) that you've eaten all the energy, end up burned out, depressed and browsing TC and sites like this one to reflect on what went wrong.
The reality of business is you don't have to be innovative. A lot of successful businesses are not even new ideas. Of course there is the whole concept of the first-mover advantage but in the world of SaaS there is plenty place for competition. Making a 30% improvement on one specific feature of a popular product or service can very well be a business on its own. I think a lot of people get held up on the idea that it's unethical to just steal an idea so they try and start something brand new. Innovative businesses are the riskiest.
Over 10 years I have had about half a dozen side enterprises whilst doing a very demanding full time job.<p>Several of these made money, most didn't. The best one was an ocr app which netted around usd 24k before the market got saturated.<p>It's very difficult to manage work with a side job and a family!<p>However, unexpected to me, the biggest benefit from these side gigs is that I am better at my day job. I have learnt new techniques and skills vs my peers. I am able to manage new situations better than others and make better predictions on outcomes. This has been the biggest benefit.<p>There's a lot to be said for companies that allow employees to officially pursue other (non conflicting) interests.
It is amazing reading these tbh, always wanted to start a non-physical business, but the real world is always in the way.<p>Right now I sell spare parts salvaged from home appliances headed for scrap, it is surprisingly profitable, so much that 2 people can't keep up with it (having full time jobs, though). Selling to small repair shops and directly to end users. Would be a great full time business, but unless an investor is interested, it will take a while.
Another tip for finding business ideas: be good at ms excel and offer people with a non technical background your help with their existing spreadsheets. As far as I see it seven out of ten spreadsheets contain at least one idea for a simple saas product. Those spreadsheets have often been tailored to fulfill exactly the needs of a certain industry but the people who created them know they are far from perfect and are often willing to pay for a more convenient solution.
These filtering options make me tear my hair out. Please don't use radio boxes... almost ever. Users are almost always interested in some but not all or none, and minimums / maximums. There is no way to see "everything that isn't free or advertising based", or "more than $4,000 / mo", which is probably what most people are interested in.
I have pondering of an idea, which encourages local economy. Products, services or goods would be preferred of the local area. This is to allow visibility of local businesses and encourage spending locally. This also would provide jobs for the local people. Its frightening that globalised economy while beneficial takes jobs or sucks out of local economy. What do you think?
So proud to be included in this. A lot of solopreneurs started with WordPress and moved to SaaS. I went the other way and still see so much opportunity in WordPress plugins, plugins-as-apps, and SaaS.
I will add make a product focused on the decision maker, not the needs of the business. Make their life easier, or make them look like a genius, and you will have a successful idea. Don't fall into the trap of making a product that saves the customer money, but makes life more difficult for the decision maker.
I don’t know about this but I have an interesting marketing idea. Pretend you’re making a lot of money and go around talking to a lot of different people who might be interested in your product and saying what a successful business it is.<p>Simple truth is that any successful business person does not go around talking about how much money they make unless they have to because it just encourages other businesses to copy their features.
It's kind of amazing how many ideas are framed in terms of a "problem" as though it is divorced from people. A good place to start for building <i>anything</i> that people will want to pay for is Cindy Alvarez's book "Lean Customer Development".
If you don't have a clue as where to start in finding a profitable idea:<p>Ramit Sethi had an interesting article a while back about finding profitable ideas. TLDR; look for reoccurring themes in the types of tasks/data/processes people are requesting in UpWork's marketplace (UpWork use to be oDesk).<p>Researching there has the built-in advantage that these are obviously things that people care enough about to pay money for, so that can serve as some preliminary validation.<p><a href="https://growthlab.com/how-i-validated-my-business-idea-using-upwork/" rel="nofollow">https://growthlab.com/how-i-validated-my-business-idea-using...</a><p><a href="https://www.upwork.com/i/job-categories/" rel="nofollow">https://www.upwork.com/i/job-categories/</a>
I would strongly recommend watching Jason Cohen's presentation on MicroConf 2013 (<a href="https://vimeo.com/74338272" rel="nofollow">https://vimeo.com/74338272</a>).
TLDR;
The most earnings are generated by software that solve problem for a niche of entrepreneurs/companies who don’t have programming knowledge/programmers in house.
The 'free eth' business is booming cuz twitter is too inept to ban domains that spam its site and ppl are too stupid to know better.<p><a href="https://medium.com/@robertyusert/there-are-free-ethreum-spam-botnets-ravaging-twitter-68b25d12c2a" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@robertyusert/there-are-free-ethreum-spam...</a>
This is awesome! Here’s a list of companies with over $240k/year in revenue:<p><a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/round-table/how-to-come-up-with-profitable-online-business-ideas?revenue=20001%2B" rel="nofollow">https://www.indiehackers.com/round-table/how-to-come-up-with...</a>
I have a bunch of app ideas if anyone wants to build one with me. I am a UX/UI designer, would need a developer (probably iOS or Android, but web would be helpful too). Reply with contact info if interested.
If only the people who need certain functionality knew how to express themselves and to speak up, we wouldn't have to go through the messy and risky process of looking for business ideas all the time.
These are fun/interesting to browse through.<p>Finding pain points is perhaps the easiest way to get business ideas. But as always, ideas are only a starting point, the implementation is what matters.
For startup founder, just master the concept of leverage.<p>The opportunity exists in the business world because when companies become successful is when collective leadership becomes most focused on maintaining success. Usually, leadership tends to see more risk in the downside of the current plan and than upside in taking on new things.<p>Few things companies doing regularly:<p>1. View a temporary trend as a competitive advantage.
2. Focus on building reputational momentum.
3. Believe it’s easy to span across generations.
4. Love being right.
5. Love the new idea, not new way of thinking.<p>Being right and staying right is totally different. Doing well reduces the incentive to explore other ideas, especially when those ideas conflict with your proven business model.<p>The idea is not important as thinking. And knowing how your idea evolving is more important to have a good idea. Because you will realize how to generate your own point of view.<p>Usually, the traditional Business Thinking Process is:<p>Dissect the dominant business model in your industry.
How big is the remaining market?
Find a way to get in.<p>Instead, in order to master and beat the odds, you should just totally ignore “the market things” and think about:<p>What’s the business model other people can’t/hard to clone?
What’s the opportunity cost of building it?
What’s your advantage to build that business?<p>First, why can you ignore the market? Because Which market does not depend on you, it’s on the user. You’re not in the market you think you’re in – you’re in the market your users think you’re in. Most failed companies made the wrong “Awesome product” by choosing the wrong market and following the wrong standard.<p>If your business fits in a market design by someone else, your dead. Pepsi never catches Coke. Bing never catches Google. The real question is can you design a market that you can dominate.<p>Second, market-size is not important at all. Numbers are about the past if you wanna create new things, you need to focus on what’s the one that can’t be copied and people don’t know they need it yet.<p>If you thinking about market-size, the market you are talking about is old and full of competitors. Market means buyers not a customer segment or existing category.<p>So. Igore competition.<p>Create your own category.<p>Original post(<a href="https://github.com/functionalflow/brains/blob/master/_posts/2018-04-12-strategy-to-master-theodds.md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/functionalflow/brains/blob/master/_posts/...</a>)