I like your enthusiasm and I'm similarly interested in build small niche sites and tools. A warning, though: the effort isn't in the product development or coding, or even the idea. The real work is promotion. Suppose you build "Flash Card Maker". Who is going to pay you $25 for it? How will they find you? Will you be able to market to them?
Bingo Card Creator: a ton of SEO work. Patrick himself has admitted that BCC isn't much more than a random number generator, so how is it making him $40K/yr? Long tail SEO, paid content writers to whip up semi-templated pages and non-stop optimizing. If I he handed you the source code and all his product/audience knowledge, you would still be so far behind. It's been years in the making.
Amy Hoy: Her product empire is all about appealing to the right audience. In her case: freelancers. She was a freelance web developer. Her SaaS app is a time tracking tool...for freelancers. Her online course is for people who have the desire to escape their current situation and build profitable products. Who has that burning desire? Freelancers tired of chasing their next client. Freckle isn't making six-figured a year because it was a damn good idea that was the result of brainstorming. She knows her audience, can speak to them and understands good copy writing. Freckle has also been around for quite a few years. Let me ask you this: how do you even know Amy Hoy exists? Hint: it's not because she invented time-tracking tools.
I've been in your shoes. I've thought, for a long time, all I needed is a simple product and a Bootstrap'd landing page and I'd be making a cool $80K/yr. If it was that easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it?
My advice is to build something (anything!) and try to market it. Try to sell something. Try Google Adwords and A/B testing. See how far you get. If, after six months, you haven't sold anything try to understand why and what you could do better.
Final remark about marketing: Amy Hoy is selling a course for potential bootstrappers/single-founders. Patrick McKenzie sells $XX,000/week consulting for small/med-sized SaaS shops. They often post and have their content submitted here. Can you spot the intersection between the HN audience and what they are selling?
Bingo Card Creator: a ton of SEO work. Patrick himself has admitted that BCC isn't much more than a random number generator, so how is it making him $40K/yr? Long tail SEO, paid content writers to whip up semi-templated pages and non-stop optimizing. If I he handed you the source code and all his product/audience knowledge, you would still be so far behind. It's been years in the making.
Amy Hoy: Her product empire is all about appealing to the right audience. In her case: freelancers. She was a freelance web developer. Her SaaS app is a time tracking tool...for freelancers. Her online course is for people who have the desire to escape their current situation and build profitable products. Who has that burning desire? Freelancers tired of chasing their next client. Freckle isn't making six-figured a year because it was a damn good idea that was the result of brainstorming. She knows her audience, can speak to them and understands good copy writing. Freckle has also been around for quite a few years. Let me ask you this: how do you even know Amy Hoy exists? Hint: it's not because she invented time-tracking tools.
I've been in your shoes. I've thought, for a long time, all I needed is a simple product and a Bootstrap'd landing page and I'd be making a cool $80K/yr. If it was that easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it?
My advice is to build something (anything!) and try to market it. Try to sell something. Try Google Adwords and A/B testing. See how far you get. If, after six months, you haven't sold anything try to understand why and what you could do better.
Final remark about marketing: Amy Hoy is selling a course for potential bootstrappers/single-founders. Patrick McKenzie sells $XX,000/week consulting for small/med-sized SaaS shops. They often post and have their content submitted here. Can you spot the intersection between the HN audience and what they are selling?