
How to Find a SaaS Idea - elliotbnvl
https://elliotbonneville.com/blog/how-to-find-a-saas-idea/
======
chowes
> Call around, talk to your network. I don’t just mean those ~300 people
> you’ve never met on LinkedIn, but your actual family, Facebook friends, etc.
> ... Figure out what the problems that they’re having are. Solve exactly the
> problems they express

This is, imo, the biggest hurdle for engineers who want to become
entrepreneurs. I've seen so many HN posts about people trying to crowd source
startup problems, trying to automate away this piece and just get down to
coding. I too struggled with this for the longest time. I felt like a solution
looking for a problem. Just give me a problem, any problem, and I'll build the
best damn app and be on my way!

But that's not how it works. If you want to stop being an engineer, you need
to stop acting like one. Engineers have their problems roughly scoped and
entered in a JIRA board. Entrepreneurs have to go find problems to solve. You
want to go be an entrepreneur? Go learn to talk to people. Go learn to listen
to others, empathize, and to convince people to believe in you. You will be a
company of one - so go build out your personal sales & marketing departments.

~~~
brtkdotse
A key thing most developers wanting the become entrepreneurs miss (I certainly
did) is that more often then not coding something is the slowest and/or most
expensive way to solve someone’s problem. Many, many business ideas could
probably just be a Wordpress site with a small plugin which you can farm off
to Upwork for a pittance that doesn’t make for a very good “Show HN”.

~~~
cercatrova
But that's not fun to build. And I suspect this is where the dichotomy comes
in. Engineers want to have something that's fun to build while also making
money, which can be the problem.

~~~
coffee
As an engineer, what is fun about it? From your statement it would be
"something fun to build." I wonder why building a business and building a
piece of software are so different, and why one is fun while the other is not.

~~~
cercatrova
Fun about what exactly? If you mean farming to Upwork, not building is not fun
for engineers. Building a business can be, but again, only if the product
itself is fun to build. Who wants to work in a business where the core product
is boring? I mean boring as in the fundamental product, not the industries,
such as healthcare, construction, and so on, basically all but consumer tech.

~~~
coffee
> Fun about what exactly? If you mean farming to Upwork, not building is not
> fun for engineers.

Nope. Never said anything about "not building." Only you have stated that.

This circles back to my original question/statement; "I wonder why building a
business and building a piece of software are so different"

> Building a business can be [fun]

Absolutely! Remove the words "a business" and restate that as:

"Building can be [fun]"

Now you can insert almost anything...

"Building a bike can be fun" "Building a business can be fun" "Building a
product can be fun" "Building software can be fun" "Building a computer can be
fun" ... ... ...

> Who wants to work in a business where the core product is boring

Remove the words "wants to" in that sentence and you could apply that
statement to most of the Software Engineers who work for others. SE's
typically work around this limitation by justifying it with the technology
they are working on instead.

"I'm learning React!" "I get to use Ruby on Rails everyday!" "I get to learn
more about using all the AWS services!" ... ... ...

None of that matters.

The only thing that matters is "building." Building is fun!

Why can't building a business be just as fun as building software? ...and
we're right back to my original question :-)

~~~
cercatrova
Because business is mostly about sales and marketing and not so much about the
product. Exceptions occur, of course, but generally a better marketed product
is more successful than a better built product.

Engineers don't like sales and marketing generally. That's why they're
engineers. And unlike as you state, building in general is not necessarily
fun, only specific things being built are fun, those that align with the
interests of the builder. If you told me to build a house, I wouldn't
necessarily consider that fun, so your initial premise is flawed. A business
in this case also falls into the "not fun" category, again, in general to
engineers.

~~~
coffee
> Because business is mostly about sales and marketing and not so much about
> the product.

That's not been my direct experience.

Actually, very much the opposite for myself and many others I know who are
software engineers building their own businesses.

> And unlike as you state, building in general is not necessarily fun

No. I said building in general IS fun. That's my premise ;-)

> If you told me to build a house, I wouldn't necessarily consider that fun,
> so your initial premise is flawed.

No, that's for you as an individual. Not everyone. Yes, there are many people
who find building a house fun. Those statements of mine, they were examples.
The point is being missed. Engineers like to build.

There is no flawed premise, only an individual looking for flaws.

> A business in this case also falls into the "not fun" category, again, in
> general to engineers

Again, that's not been my direct experience nor the experience of other
Software Engineers that I know who are building businesses.

Most likely you think it's not fun for you. That doesn't mean it's not fun in
general, to engineers. Maybe you've chatted about this, anecdotally, with
other Software Engineers, maybe you've read some online threads and it's
formed a cognitive bias. That's very typical. I can clearly see it in these
very generic statements.

\---

There is whole world out there for people who like to build (e.g. software
engineers) and they can do it on their own terms, by better understanding what
it is about building they like. Not what they "think" they like, but what
actually drives them. That's harder to figure out. The biggest hurdle that
I've experienced / seen is not the thousand and one reasons for why software
engineers would hate building a business, but rather the biggest hurdle is
their own cognitive bias towards it (force fed via generic, and widely
accepted statements such as "business is mostly about sales and marketing and
not so much about the product").

I'm sure you'll snap back with why I'm wrong. Maybe even sprinkle in some
snark. Making sure to get the last word in. Please indulge yourself.

It's now time for me to get back to having fun building my business as a
software engineer :-)

~~~
cercatrova
What was your actual point in this conversation? I took it as, "building is
fun":

> No. I said building in general IS fun. That's my premise ;-)

Then I disagreed with that saying that building in itself is not necessarily
fun, only building certain things is fun for certain people, which you seem to
take issue with. I posed a counterfactual statement to your general rule,
which means that your general rule cannot be true, as in propositional logic.

> Again, that's not been my direct experience nor the experience of other
> Software Engineers that I know who are building businesses.

> Most likely you think it's not fun for you. That doesn't mean it's not fun
> in general, to engineers. Maybe you've chatted about this, anecdotally, with
> other Software Engineers, maybe you've read some online threads and it's
> formed a cognitive bias. That's very typical. I can clearly see it in these
> very generic statements.

I said that in general, regardless of one's anecdotal experience, engineers
tend towards building technology rather than business aspects like sales and
marketing. Much as you disagree with me on anecdotal evidence, I also disagree
with you. Whatever, seems to be a disagreement on principles, we can't
convince each other.

But, regardless of our disagreements, please don't make statements like these:

> I'm sure you'll snap back with why I'm wrong. Maybe even sprinkle in some
> snark. Making sure to get the last word in. Please indulge yourself.

> It's now time for me to get back to having fun building my business as a
> software engineer :-)

When you engage in discourse, you are not above criticism or disagreement.
Don't act holier than thou when someone disagrees with you. It harms the
nature of argumentation, especially on fora like HN where it's expected more
than other fora.

------
MuffinFlavored
SaaS ideas are a dime a dozen. Being in the right market at the right time
against the right competition with the right access to the right resources to
do the right advertising to perform the right acquiring without the wrong
churn is where the magic is at.

Things you need (in my opinion) for an even semi-successful SaaS platform:
Good UI with an easy to understand idea that provides an immediately obvious
value, all while being easy to monetize sustainably. Coupled that with being
able to actually find + reach customers.

~~~
mrfusion
If they’re really a dime a dozen I’ll take twelve please. I’ve been trying to
find a good one for 20 years now.

~~~
benburleson
Currently on the front page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22652141](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22652141)

------
ken
Has our industry just given up on any software which isn't "SaaS"? I have a
lot of problems with software today, and none of them can be solved by a web
app.

~~~
TAForObvReasons
SaaS / "web app" represents a shift in business model. There's arguably a lot
more money to be made by renting access than by selling software

------
jmstfv
> So, expand your horizons: look at the construction industry, the dentist
> industry, the fishing industry, the graveyard management industry, the gym
> pool management industry (these are not made up, by the way).

> But let’s reiterate the big advantage you get from considering building a
> product in an industry outside of yours (software development): It’s just
> now you’re going to be operating in an industry which has software problems
> and isn’t particularly optimized to solve them.

Be careful about this. _There is_ money to be made in those industries, and
they might not have as much competition as software for software companies do.

But do you really want to be in those industries? Would you enjoy going to
industry-specific conferences and mingling with those folks? If your business
gets even a modicum of success, you will be working on it for several years to
come.

Market/founder fit is something that isn't talked enough: who you choose to
serve matters. What good is your business if you feel trapped inside it?

So the next time you set out to build a business, do yourself a favor and
think about this from the beginning.

Relevant thread: [https://capiche.com/q/looking-back-would-you-have-done-
anyth...](https://capiche.com/q/looking-back-would-you-have-done-anything-
different-with-appointment-reminder)

~~~
alexalx
Im coming to this realization right now, it looks like one of these cliche but
actually profound ideas like you can truly be great at something if its not
simply job or career but something you can not not do, obsession, sickness.

------
afriend4lyfe
The big takeaway from this article for me was this line:

"Create a solution to somebody else’s problem, where that problem sits at the
intersection of being genuinely interesting / meaningful to you and being
something that you are reasonably capable of addressing."

I also want to second his book recommendation [The Mom
Test]([https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-
everyone/...](https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-
everyone/dp/1492180742)). It's really short and will save you a lot of time
building things nobody will pay for.

------
icedchai
Finding a SaaS idea isn't hard. Finding one that _actually makes money_ is.
I'm talking real money, not a couple thousand bucks a month.

You may go down a path of a "big problem" that requires tons and tons of
effort and overhead, only to find the market is too small, companies rather
just do it "the old way", or they simply don't want to pay enough money.

Do your research.

~~~
MathCodeLove
If you'd like to throw me a few of those easy "couple thousand a month" ideas
then I'll happily take those while you catch bigger fish.

~~~
icedchai
They are easy to find. Just check out the sites selling SaaS businesses and
request prospectuses. FEInternational.com is one of the better ones. These
will give you inspiration.

------
zachwill
Good article, Elliot!

------
brudgers
The convention is "Show HN" implies the author has created something for
people to "play with or try out." Showing Hacker News something to read is
just the title or description of the article even if the author is posting.

It's an interesting and well written article. Thanks.

~~~
elliotbnvl
Oh, woops – that makes sense. Thanks!

~~~
dang
Title fixed now.

~~~
elliotbnvl
Thanks. Didn't realize I could just edit the title.

~~~
dang
You can for a couple hours, after which a mod has to do it. But we're happy to
take such requests at hn@ycombinator.com.

------
sillycube
Instead of finding a good SaaS idea, I would rephrase the question to finding
a valuable problem to solve, a problem which people are very willing to solve
in exchange for other resources like money.

In school, we are trained to solve a problem very well. But the problems are
given by teachers. There is no one to train you finding a valuable since
kindergarten. That's why it's so hard to find it as an adult.

