
Ask HN: Need help narrowing down micro-SaaS idea - boeing767
I&#x27;ve narrowed down my micro-SaaS idea to the following:<p>-B2B for non-technical customers
-Something customers already pay for
-Preferably something I have some domain knowledge in
-Simplified&#x2F;dumbed-down app for a niche within a lucrative market
-Something I can code part-time and get off the ground on my own<p>I&#x27;m considering 2 ideas:<p>1) Scheduling app for business with shift workers, specifically restaurants<p>2) Online rent collection without the bloat for small property owners&#x2F;accidental landlords<p>Only reason I chose 1 is that I work at a restaurant. We use HotSchedules. It&#x27;s actually pretty good, space is kind of crowded, but I guess I&#x27;ll try to differentiate on UI&#x2F;UX.<p>2 is something I might use personally too, as now I&#x27;m living in a property that uses the &quot;mail a check each month&quot; system for rent. There are tons of solutions out there, but I suspect there&#x27;s an under-served market of non-technical landlords that find the full-suite solutions overwhelming and just want a &quot;set up once, forget about it&quot; online system. Just a theory.<p>When I browse the forums, seems like landlords really only care about online rent collection and applicant screening, while the rest are &quot;good to haves&quot; (e.g. maintenance requests, property listing, bookkeeping, etc.). I&#x27;m planning to build an MVP with just the online rent collection feature first, charge per transaction, try to differentiate on UI&#x2F;UX.<p>Am I crazy to just basically dedicate months to creating stripped-down clones of existing solutions and think that it&#x27;s possible to get traction regardless? Am I wrong to think that, you don&#x27;t need to be significantly better (or even better) than existing competitors to get some market share? I&#x27;m not trying to &quot;win&quot; here, just trying to build up a good number of customers to live off of.<p>I guess the essential question is, can I do fewer features with simpler UI and still get <i>some</i> customers for me as a solo founder who wants location-independent income?
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cloogshicer
I'd go on Craigslist or something and talk to landlords first, preferably in
person. Try to figure out if they're actually interested in buying, and don't
write a single line of code before you have an actual sale (have them pay you
cash if necessary). If you're not sure what to ask I'd recommend the book "The
Mom Test" (not affiliated to it). The basic gist is that you need to be
careful which questions to ask so you don't bias the person you're
questioning. For an obvious example think of going to your mom and telling her
in an excited tone of voice "Hey mom I have this great idea, what do you
think?", it'll probably be really hard for her to tell you that she'd never
pay for that idea. Same applies to potential customers.

Anyways, I'm in the same boat as you (I'm looking for the exact same kind of
problem as you), so if you wanna bounce some ideas, shoot me an email: a (dot)
v (dot) f (at-sign) gmx (dot) at

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quickthrower2
I'd do more market research before building anything. 2 sounds more promising
as you have identified a problem. There is no problem in 1.

So I suggest go talk to some landlords and rental agents to get more
information on that market.

