
Ask HN: Idea for SaaS? - altern8
I&#x27;ve been wanting to start a new project for a while, but I&#x27;m totally out of viable ideas.<p>I would like to create a SaaS of some sort, that could eventually allow me to make $1000&#x2F;mo.<p>Is there someone smarter that me that could suggest something cool?
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wayn3
Creating a SaaS that makes a couple grand a month is really easy. Extremely
easy.

The problem here is that you want a "cool" idea. SaaS is inherently uncool.
Its the antithesis to something "cool" like an Oculus. SaaS is soul crushingly
boring.

The easiest lifestyle saas businesses go like "scrape this website, present
the data, sign up people who think software is magic".

Then understand compounding. Google it right now and ponder on it for a couple
hours. Understand that no matter how abysmal your growth may be, it will
always end up at a pretty neat number that you can comfortably live on, after
a couple months.

1k/month is 10 clients. Its impossible to not find 10 clients if write some
software that is not complete ass. You don't need something cool. Just write
anything that remotely adds value to someones business and tell them its 100
bucks. Then when they're signed up, ask them how to make it actually useful.

~~~
aosaigh
While I really like the attitude of it being easy to do, I have personally
found that the difficulty lies in finding those actual business problems.

~~~
wayn3
Find a dad, or some uncle, or some person that is 50+ and always whines about
this one thing at his job that has always been done this one way that is
really annoying.

Make that go away.

Business problems are easy. You live in a bubble of software awareness that
most people don't have access to. Normal people are not aware of how easy to
fix these things are.

The other day I made hundreds of internet marketers drool over displaying a
"(1)" in the title like Facebook does when you have new messages. Literally 2
lines of javascript and we all know how to do these things. I could easily
sell a $20/month subscription to this and just pretend it was difficult.

A major part of my girlfriends masters thesis right now is sifting through
data - manually. We solved that problem by invoking the dark arts:

"

import pandas

data = pandas.read()

data.sort()

"

4 months of work done in a single instant.

What we do might as well be called magic. Normal people very much don't get
how easy their problems are.

------
saluki
SaaS Inspiration

@DHH Startup School Talk (2008)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY)

This is the most inspiring SaaS talk, I still listen to it once a month or so
for inspiration.

You'll have to find the right idea, one that is interesting to you and still
solves a B2B pain point that you'll enjoy solving.

Do you have any experience working with businesses where you can build a SaaS
to make something easier for them?

Basically you're looking to build something for a business that provides them
value that they would sign up for and willing to pay you money to use.

You can see what others are having success with here:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses](https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses)
[https://baremetrics.com/open](https://baremetrics.com/open)

I always recommend listening to StartupsForTheRestOfUs.com.

You don't need to aim for $1k/mo, almost any niche can grow to $10k/mo or even
$100k/mo. So don't limit your dream.

There is also [https://nugget.one/](https://nugget.one/) that will send you an
idea per day and has a community support/discussion to help you execute on the
one you choose to pursue.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

------
danieltillett
Why such small thinking? Why not work on a new project that might make you
$100,000 a month? Sure $1000 is more likely (zero the most likely), but why
aim small.

~~~
borplk
I'm probably not the only one but aiming for something that is small enough
that I ca run on my own and it makes little enough that only pays for me is
more attractive to me than to make more money but then have to deal with
hiring people and so on.

~~~
danieltillett
You can run a $100,000 a month business on your own if you choose the right
area. Even if you think this is beyond you, then aim for $10,000 a month.

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lovelearning
What HN users wish for may throw up something you find worth doing.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=I%20wish%20there%20was%20a%20s...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=I%20wish%20there%20was%20a%20service&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=all)

------
collyw
Github equivalent for non-techies? Too many excels of varying version getting
passed around via email still.

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elbgdev
It's the idea that is hard to come up with, not the implementation. I'd be
surprised if anyoune would give you the answer you expect.

------
max_
Just look for things people are complaining about, and build solutions for
them.

