
Ask HN: How did you figure out your SaaS? - nikentic
I can&#x27;t stop thinking about starting a SaaS, how incredibly giving and good experience it would be.
But I just can&#x27;t figure anything out. I keep thinking &quot;everyone else does that, I probably won&#x27;t bring anything new to the table&quot;. I guess this is not the way I should think about it, as just coding, launching and getting feedback would be really good for me.
How did you go through the pre-coding stage?
======
oz
One good method is when you walk into a business. _pay attention_ to how they
manage their tasks.

Say, for example, you go into a carpenter's shop, and you see that he writes
down what you want built on a scrap of paper. That's your "in". Ask if all
orders are stored on paper. "Oh? I'm nikentic, and I build software for
businesses. Where do you store these papers? How are you tracking receivables?
How are you tracking the progress of each piece? Do you store your customer's
email?"

Ask them these questions, in as much detail as you need, using your knowledge
of what's possible with technology to make suggestions. You will be pleasantly
surprised how much details they are willing to share about their businesses.
Ask them if they would pay XXX/month for a system that covers all the major
pain points they mentioned. If they would, find other carpenters and ask them
if they would be interested. If you get enough interest you might be on to
something. Also, how many devs are out actively looking to create software for
carpenters?*

*Where carpenters = small - medium companies that are not in the technology sector.

------
agibsonccc
A bit unconventional..but I picked the kind of problems I like solving/working
on and then looked at how those interests could align with a business
perspective. Keep in mind my target was doing something with NLP which in
general you can find what industries NLP is good at solving problems for. For
general web development and some kind a CRUD app, this may not be applicable.

It took a bit of market research to align the two, but once I did it was
great. With the idea itself, I just had a few simple metrics:

1\. B2B (I have a raw hate for B2C just due to how much harder they are and
it's harder to get a sustainable business off the ground vs businesses that
just pay money)

2\. Repeatable revenue source: subscription based services are easy to
forecast, and you typically need 3 tiers for a pricing scheme to segment
customers.

3\. Ease of validation: Business problems are easy to predict. You have to ask
the right questions, but your only real criteria has to be: Does this save the
customer money or time? If it does, you only have to survey some different
businesses to ensure the idea is wanted by enough of them. Congrats, you have
something.

For customer development, just do some google searches in your target niche
and start firing off some emails. Better yet: try to find where these
customers gather. Whether it be on support forums, or even freelancing market
places.

That's how zapier took off if I remember right. In my case, I had a lot of
luck with freelancing forums since I'm looking to automate certain tasks that
virtual assistants usually do.

A bit of a simplistic explanation, but easy enough to get started. What might
work for me might not work for others, but there it is.

------
darthdeus
I'm probably going to be one of many who will say that you should pick a pain
you're already having and try to solve it. It's the only way you'll know
exactly what to build and how to build it.

The more you try this the easier it will become, and after a few failed
attempts you'll know how to get from the "new idea" to a finished product. Yes
failed attemps, it'll probably take a while until you learn which things are
worth building and which aren't.

Don't be afraid to be very specific. Pick a niche problem, don't try to build
a solution that fits everyone. Just go after one specific use case and do it
right.

You can try solving someone else's problem, or a problem you see in the
company you work for, or a problem your customers are having. But be sure to
understand the pain you're trying to solve, feel the pain, you need to know
why are you building this thing. Don't just do it because it is cool, do it
for a reason.

~~~
teleclimber
I completely agree with picking a pain that you are experiencing and try to
solve it.

In addition to the pluses mentioned above, solving a pain you experience means
you will be in a position to "dog-food" your own solution. This is obvious but
worth reiterating. If, for example, you solve a problem that people other than
you have, then you will not be using your own solution, and this is likely to
lead you astray.

Having said that, be careful about being too "niche" or too personal with your
solution. After you have come up with a problem you would like to solve for
yourself, and you have ideas on how to solve it, go out and ask others: \- do
you have this pain? \- how bad is it? \- if someone offered solution X for Y
dollars, would you consider it? \- what would be some of the requirements and
hangups that will keep you from adopting solution X?

In other words you don't want to solve your pain and then find out nobody else
perceived the same pain in the same way. That's a one-way ticket to the
deadpool.

------
ioddly
> I keep thinking "everyone else does that, I probably won't

> bring anything new to the table".

Well if you're going to compete with established players (which is not a bad
idea), you have to answer this question.

The good news is that a lot of software is painful to use. When you figure out
what you want to make, look at your competitors. Search for "competitor X
sucks" and things like that; figure out what people really dislike about using
their software. Then make sure your own software doesn't fall into the same
traps.

------
tocomment
How about a groupon but for cruise ships?

~~~
tocomment
Why the downvoted? I think the travel industry would benefit froma groupon
like service.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Isn't Groupon's pitch to the companies that they will get repeat customers? I
don't think that industry would really benefit.

------
pearjuice
There have been numerous topics on "I need an idea" so I suggest you to use
the search bar at the bottom and to others to NOT dog feed him links to essays
et cetera. :-)

~~~
nikentic
This is not a "I need an idea". There are plenty of ideas to use. The question
is: Why did you pick that specific idea?

~~~
pearjuice
Then rephrase the thread title and text...

------
nikentic
So many good answers. Thank you everyone!

------
mindcrime
Disclaimer: Our focus at Fogbeam is on "deploy on premises" apps, not SaaS.
And while we expect to offer our software in SaaS form later, it isn't our
focus, so my perspective may be a bit skewed.

That said... I feel like you just have to start with something that interests
you. In my case, I was just plain fascinated by the _idea_ of "social networks
in the enterprise"... I was also really interested in machine learning /
artificial intelligence, knowledge management and the idea of "collective
intelligence". And over time, different events just led to all the dots
starting to connect, and I started to see the kinds of products I wanted to
build. Of course, the vision was pretty fuzzy at first, and we've iterated on
it, and de-emphasized some aspects, added new aspects, promoted aspects that
were originally less emphasized, etc.

The thing is, there are absolutely people already doing some - if not exactly
all - of what we're doing. There are "enterprise social network" products out
there... hell, there's actually a laundry list of them: Jive Software, Yammer,
Hall.com, Tibco Tibbr, IBM Connect, Salesforce Chatter, etc., etc., etc. But,
to that point, two thoughts:

1\. Despite how many ESNs there are, we still have some aspects to our
approach that are actually different from the other ESN products out there.
Our vision also goes bigger than just the ESN... that'll be our first product,
but we see it as just part of a much larger whole. And it's that "whole" in
sort of the "whole product"[1] sense that we think will _really_ set us apart
when it's in place.

2\. Competition doesn't bother us. I remember reading a blog post from Bob
Parsons (of GoDaddy fame) a few years ago, that said something like
(paraphrased):

 _" Don't be scared of crowded markets, just be better than everybody else"_.

That resonated with me. Call me arrogant, but yeah, we think we can build a
better product than Jive, Yammer, Hall, Tibco, IBM, Salesforce or whoever. And
we think we're operating with a superior big-picture vision. So basically, we
don't care that there's "somebody else doing that", we just intend to beat
them.

So I guess if I had any advice for you, I'd say:

Start with something you're already interested in. Look for places where two
or more of your interests intersect, or can be combined in such a fashion as
to create something novel. Once you have the basic idea in place, do a deep
dive into that world... read the literature (if there is any) on the domain in
question, talk to people who might be potential users of your product (or, at
the earliest phases, anybody who'll talk to you) and solicit their ideas. Look
for the "X sucks" forum posts for your competition and see what people are
complaining about. There's your opportunity to do better.

Another idea I'm big on could be paraphrased by saying "everything old is new
again" or "the only way forwards is backwards". I know I've ranted about this
before, but I think there's a ton of value in going back and reading the works
of early computer industry pioneers - people like Vannevar Bush, Douglas
Engelbart, J.C.R. Licklider, Norbert Wiener, Herbert Simon, Alan Newell, Ted
Nelson, Marvin Minsky, etc. and seek inspiration in their writings.
Surprisingly, there are ideas that were being batted around in the 1960's (or
earlier) that haven't been fully realized yet. Take that inspiration, merge it
with your interest area, and see if you can't come up with some ideas for ways
to differentiate your product.

Also, watch that Brett Victor video[2] that is posted here on HN quite
frequently. It's chock full of amazing insights.

Edit: to add one more thing: I don't know that being passionate about the
thing you're building is sufficient (it almost certainly isn't) but I'd almost
be willing to be that it is necessary. At the very least, I think it's a huge
benefit to you if you're genuinely enthusiastic about the product and would
want to use it yourself. In our case in particular, I definitely _want_ to
grow a large, profitable, kick-ass company... but even if we fail at that, or
even if we weren't even _trying_ to do that, I'd still enjoy the process of
creating this stuff, because working on it is genuinely enjoyable to me. And
when the hours start getting long, and things aren't going your way, and some
doubt creeps in, I believe it's a lot easier to keep moving forward when
that's true. If you do something that's _only_ about the money, I would
question if you'll be motivate enough to power through the inevitable tough
periods.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_product](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_product)

[2]: [http://vimeo.com/36579366](http://vimeo.com/36579366)

