
Ask HN: I find all every single idea I come up with is already tried by someone - newsingletoned
I have background in software development.  At job I mostly do ETL and work with Hadoop ecosystem.
I am trying to learn web development starting with a simple framework to become full stack developer.<p>My intent is also to finish a side project and start a side income.  However, every single idea I am coming up is already tried by someone else.<p>How do I differentiate my development work if -<p>1. Someone is already offering same product and has paid customers ?<p>2. If market is thinly spread is it worth developing another product in same niche ?<p>3. Most of the product that I see now-a-days are selling data. Many SaaS companies I see have grabbed data and selling it one form or another with monthly &#x2F; yearly plans and give access to API.<p>What you think of this model of selling data ? Is it worth pursuing given that there are already N players competing for customers.<p>Thanks !
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patio11
You can still finish a project and earn income with an idea that has been
"done before." That describes a super-majority of the entire economy. "Being a
dentist" has been done before. Most of my friends have SaaS products for which
there exist other options; that is in no way a total impediment to getting to,
say, $10k a month in sales. (In fact, if you ran down a list of the fairly
lucrative small software businesses I know, the ones with the highest numbers
are the ones with the most competition -- probably because they're competing
in big markets. Email marketing is a _lot_ bigger than e.g. bingo card
generation -- my buddies doing email marketing do pretty well for themselves
with market shares which are probably not tenths-of-a-percentage-point.)

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newsingletoned
Hi Patrick ! Thanks for the reply. As someone who is starting first time in
SaaS field what is your advice for making product salable. Should I try to
differentiate myself by adding more features or should I go with standard
offering and compete on price ?

Thank you !

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patio11
Don't compete on price, unless it is by raising it.

You do not have to compete on number of features to make your product
saleable. Most customers do not buy most products because they have more
features than competitors. There's some minimum quanta of utility your product
has to have. Almost all SaaS entrepreneurs overshoot on that -- by _lots_ in
many cases.

I'd suggest, broadly, finding a take on the market that your competitors don't
have yet, whether that is a use case, a customer group, a channel, etc that
they haven't utilized, and build that.

Strong recommendations that you a) try soliciting customers for your eventual
software before it exists to see whether you're able to find customers for it,
b) not build any software you cannot find customers for, and c) pick something
with a price point which gets you to at least $50 a month and hopefully as far
above that as you can. This is from ~10 years of experiencing the brutal,
brutal math of trying to count to $10k in increments of $30.

~~~
shubhamjain
> You do not have to compete on number of features to make your product
> saleable. Most customers do not buy most products because they have more
> features than competitors.

Although it seems logical that people would be willing to pay for something
that provides value but won't they (at least try) to see similar alternative
before they start paying? I listened to a podcast by Rob Walling, in which he
speaks how there was considerable churn because people weren't able to
differentiate his product (Drip) from Mailchimp.

Surely, I can't put myself in the shoes of a non-technical buyer, but first
thought seems to suggest me that if you start building a A/B testing software
for a niche segment, first question you will have to answer to potential
customers is how is it different from VWO or Optimizely.

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hacknat
I'm going to offer a different take on your problem than the traditional
response from this community, which is, "It doesn't matter, it's about
execution." This is a perfectly valid answer, but there's another valid answer
as well, and I thought I'd throw it out there in the interest of completeness
and in case you're interested in it as a viable alternative.

Original and good ideas come from becoming an expert in something or by
learning about something that is on the bleeding edge. By definition lots of
people are coming up with SaaS solutions for AWS, etc, because it is
absolutely not bleeding edge anymore. Let me be clear, this doesn't mean you
have to be a technical wizard (though sometimes it does). Uber sounds like an
obvious idea now, requiring little technical wizardry (at least to get the
idea going). However, in 2009 it was probably only obvious to the few people
who were at the intersection of understanding the just-launched App Store and
what technologies were going to be ubiquitous in smart phones (and that smart
phones would become ubiquitous).

Other ideas do require a good deal of technical wizardry to be on the
forefront of. Wrapping containers in an easily understandable cli and making
them mutable through a secure daemon API required a lot of technical acumen to
accomplish. Thus we have Docker.

Notice that the more technically challenging project in my examples (probably)
resulted in less financial reward for its creator(s). However I'd guess the
creators of Docker enjoyed building what they built and are doing fine,
financially speaking.

Go out and play with something that interests you and see what comes of it. If
you stick to it you'll have fun and probably make money along the way. Maybe
you'll become a billionaire (though, it often seems, to me, to be more trouble
than it's worth) or maybe you'll _just_ be able to sustain yourself doing
something that you love.

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manomano
When Starbucks started their idea (to serve coffee) it was not a new or unique
idea. They excelled because of their execution (quality, customer service,
branding, customer experience, etc).

I think a common mistake people make is believing their business idea has to
be super unique. Instead, research businesses which are growing and do what
they do. Are baseball hats popular in your area? Create an online baseball hat
e-commerce website and focus on execution.

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sebg
If you want a side income then your goal is to find people who are already
paying for things you can build. If every single idea you come up with is
already tried by someone else, then it means you are coming up with ideas for
which people are already paying for. That's fantastic! To your question 1) If
someone is already offering same product and paid customers - ask yourself -
do they have 100% market share? If not, whom are they missing? Can you reach
those whom they are missing? To your question 2) If you just came up with the
idea, how do you know the market is thinly spread? To your question 3) Those
are a very tiny tiny tiny tiny slice of all the majority of SaaS products. Is
this something you are well and truly interested in? If not, go back to your
question 1 and figure out who has the most customers.

worth watching ->
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY)

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abalashov
I am not an especially creative "idea man" or any kind of "visionary"; my sole
strength has always been in improved execution or better implementation of
things that already exist. This even applies when I conjure solutions to my
own problems, as one is often advised to do when mining for business ideas.
All I ever want is a better X.

I think that suitably describes the vast majority of the economy, and leads to
no particular poverty of entrepreneurial strategies. Moreover, it seems that
markets are almost always bigger than technical guys think. If everything were
as tired, old, and hackneyed as my pessimistic take suggests, almost
everything my customers offer would be completely unmarketable and I'd have no
business.

So, relax. Almost nothing in life is truly original. Just think of something
genuinely useful and build it. :-)

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neltnerb
Optimistic:

If they already have the same product and paid customers, learn everything you
possibly can tease out of why they do it the way they do it. They are almost
guaranteed to not be dumb, or at least that's the attitude you should take.
Why did they choose the niche and approach they did?

Is there a differentiation that won't be a regression from what they offer for
at least some subset of the customers? Assuming it makes it worse for some and
better for others, are the numbers of "betters" a big enough market to focus
on as a niche? As long as you're not searching for VC funding and okay with
being a small fry, that seems low enough risk to try out at least...

Personal:

I hate companies that sell my data, it's almost always obvious immediately,
and while I still make the tradeoff sometimes, it's rare. Purely from a
personal preference standpoint... can you try just charging for something
worth paying for? More enterprise, less bottom of the bucket deal seekers? Are
your customers businesses are or individuals? Can you target businesses
instead? I think they're way easier to come to a lucrative accommodation with
with minimal sales effort. Maybe try a freemium model instead, or one with
very low entry fees to try it out before normal monthly fees arrive? Sorry,
this might be unrealistic and old school for Web 3.0 startups... I work in
chemicals so obviously my perspective is skewed.

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seanwilson
It's very rare you're going to come up with a never been done before idea and
even if you do it can probably be quickly copied so you'd be back where you
started. Get to know your competition and draw up a table on their pros and
cons, and pricing. You may be able to find a niche that hasn't been explored
e.g. different target audience, easier to use or more advanced, different
platform, alternative pricing, different API, better integrations.

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ignasl
Concentrate on execution of the best idea you have. 1\. Someone is already
offering same product and has paid customers?

Do better product and better marketing and you will succeed :)

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newsingletoned
@All - Thanks everyone. I definitely found new outlook and will give my best
shot.

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k__
I know a bunch of companies who make money with old ideas.

Most of them just appeal to special kind of customers.

Some only target small businesses, some only consumers, some only big corps.
This alone is often enough to differentiate from others.

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sharemywin
put up a landing page with 3 bullets for benefits and features, you may think
customer want. Add a link to a free trial form. figure out your cost per lead.
Now you have a starting point for business. Email them and tell them your
working on new version and when its complete you'll let them try it. try a
couple variations on bullet points until you find the features most import to
your potential users.

