Why SaaS Ideas Don't Matter
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ค. 2024
- Are you a solo founder struggling to find the right SaaS idea? In my first TH-cam video in 2 years, I share hard-earned lessons to save you 6 months to a year of wasted effort.
In this video, you'll learn:
- Why "SaaS ideas" don't matter as much as you think
- How to identify truly viable opportunities
- Essential resources for solo founders
I draw on my experience as a former Google software engineer who ventured into entrepreneurship, testing multiple niches before finding success with Shopify apps. If you want to avoid common pitfalls and accelerate your SaaS journey, this video is for you.
Please like, subscribe, and share with other founders! - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I guess this is the video Tobe mentioned in 15:49 - th-cam.com/video/RHnKfHA3KHg/w-d-xo.html
Edit - it is in fact this video - th-cam.com/video/syTGYFlVHm4/w-d-xo.html
That's the same speaker, but here's the video I was referring to: th-cam.com/video/syTGYFlVHm4/w-d-xo.html
thanks
You immediately know when somebody is speaking of the reality not storytelling.
I agree with scratching other’s people itches. But the whole point of scratching your own itch isn’t to launch a successful business, it’s to gain the motivation or confidence to start that very first thing. Like you said, perfectionism is fake, it’s okay to be imperfect by starting your first project scratching your own itch and showing yourself you can do something.
For sure. You're talking about a hobby project. Definitely choose something that you love, or that's useful to you. That's the whole point, right?
I built an AI plugin for Obsidian canvas. Open source, I use it all the time, others appreciate it, great on the resume. Will never make a dime of revenue
@@WillMain3 I agree there a whole topic on this. Might cover it in my writings
this hits like a ton of bricks. I've been thinking about this video since I saw it yesterday. It made me rethink my whole SaaS operation and strategy. Thank you so much
I usually don’t comment on vids but man this video packed so much value, as someone who’s majoring in computer science and has the entrepreneurial mindset this really helped me thank you!!
Love your video :) Quit my big tech job as well and am a year in with $0 revenue. Seeing videos like these helps with the loneliness! Looking forward to your next one :)
This is better than most YC content I’ve seen because you give concrete examples. I’ve always thought I should building something unique, but I’ve realized that originality is not a selling point. I agree about scratching other people’s itch. You’re more likely to find real problems to solve that way.
Liked and subscribed!!! You hit all of the points that I learned the hard way in my entrepreneurial ventures during school. Thankfully i moved to a company where many of these things are established knowledge but man was the revelation that i was doing everything so wrong a hard swallow. Still have friends who chase a thousand ideas without spending a minute of their time actually talking to users or discerning their true intent.
Subscribed! Excellent points and great resources. Please keep sharing. Thanks.
This a great video. No hype, no sales, just really good content. Thank you!
brave video and valuable info for new comers. Nice.
16 min went by quickly. Well done for getting the message across quite simply and forward. Lots of content is just clickbait nowadays. Thank you for sharing your insight and experience
Thx mate. Smart and to the point not flashy like other content creators.
Insane value with no bs , subbed
Great points. Especially regarding talking to people and scale 💯
Great video. The examples that you gave, while sound, have the problem that they are already dominated by large players with access to big capital, and may not always be exploitable by a solo entrepreneur.
So, I would add to the attribute of what makes a viable SOLO SaaS business, market fragmentation. You want to look for a highly fragmented market where different users have different needs, and thus, no one single gorilla company has managed to dominate it. Then you can focus on a niche set of users or a niche feature set. Examples would be: project management software, documentation software, defect tracking, quality management, enterprise application integration software, report generation, pretty much any kind of software development tool, that kind of thing. Try to find something people are doing today with spreadsheets, and make an app for it.
I'm talking about self-funded, bootstrap, solo entrepreneur ideas. If you're going to raise venture capital, then it's a different calculus.
thanks for this insightful comment!
Reminds me of a lot of the advice in Millionaire Fastlane! Nice vid!
I will save to come and rewatch it, every month ....thank you
Very informative video, been looking for this insight. Thanks man!
Fantastic video, Tobe! I‘m currently researching about the ideation process of solopreneurs as part of my thesis, and you managed to cover many of the insights I gained in 12+ interviews in just a 17min video - respect!
Tobe, great content! Keep it on.
One thing I will say tho is that historically, consumer products tend to scale the farthest and create more wealth than B2B. In fact many B2B companies will one day need to “cross the chasm” where they must appeal to a wider audience (eg: consumers).
If we look at the comparison between Slack vs Discord, it’s clear that Discord has the legs to go the farthest since it’s fundamentally a consumer app, whereas Slack appeals to businesses.
I’m starting to now see even businesses adopting Discord over Slack, but Slack can’t necessarily adopt the average consumer because they’ve cornered their brand as a business app from the beginning.
This is the one danger of B2B.
Thx,Tobe! I appreciate the content you have put together.
Great video, Tobe 🙏🏿
this is one of the best videos I've ever seen on TH-cam. Cheers man
Amazing talk. This talk was much needed for all first time founders. Subscribed!
Valuable content! Thank you.
thank you my man! excellent advice, honestly
Great video man. Really liked it.
i find that extremly helpful, thank you for sharing
This is extremely useful. I really hope you could make more of these videos.
Loved your talks Tobe. Keep it up,
Thank you, very down to earth information. Following.
AMAZING VIDEO TOBE!
Great video! Way more practical and down to earth than what most startup astronauts are pushing.
Thank you Tobe, this is invaluable set of advices.
Good for putting yourself out there! Glad to see you moving forward after eating biscuits with you at Microconf!
@@zacclifton5479 It was great meeting you!
Nice thanks for sharing
Thank you for your video. Very helpful.
This is a great breakdown, Tobe. Thanks for sharing with the community and congrats on hitting $10k! 🎉🎉
awesome content thanks!
Thank you Tobe! Great and very helpful video for me right in time🤝
Best of luck with your SaaS journey!
This video is really amazing. Thank you for sharing
Great video!!
thanks for sharing, man. subbed.
going back to coding my awesome product :)
Excellent.
Start up a discord my man. Need more black tech inspiration like you in my life
thank you for sharing
amazing content!
Great video bro. keep it up!
Thanks for the watch
Great video
Great video.
Hello from Russia. Thank you for the video! It’s very interesting! I am scanning customer needs on freelance platforms. There are plenty of ideas that clients are willing to pay for.
What's the idea let's collaborate
I have come across many requests for highly specialized but not complex CRM. Now I am developing an engine for developing such systems. Without it, such systems will be very expensive to support. This is my pet project. I managed to make one system on it and implement it at my main job and at one event agency. I am open to cooperation. I develop in php and vue (but now I want to migrate from php to fastapi)
@@Dikodance what's your insta id bro
Very insightful and very timely for me
Amazing
Not in the saas space but still enjoyed the presentation. Keep it up!
Really good insights. Thanks
Thank you for your kind words!
This is straight up preaching. Business idea fantasy thinking is universal. I experience it in myself and my peers weekly.
Opportunities, not ideas. Customer knowledge, not cleverness
Very well laid out learnings and insights. Amazing! Amazing keep sharing! I am also a ex-swe from “that search engine company” trying to start my own thing.
Nice video
This is a great video
Excellent content!
Thank you so much!
Thank you!
Thank you man
I agree with all the comments, actually very valuable content, thanks
Thank you, I like the bit where you say learn by doing. Maybe you come across more problems to solve while actually coding something?
Solid advices
very nice
You won my heart
hey can you link to that YT video?
The most important part is validating the idea. If you don’t have empirical evidence than your idea is valuable to someone, don’t start building.
brother you need to post more, you make pretty good content
Working on it!
Hi @tobebuilds at 4:34 you said that making a LinkedIn profile will get your potential customers to appear in your DMs... Can you elaborate on how to make that happen, please? I'm a SWE too so I only get recruiters in my DMs. Thanks!
If you have "Founder" in your LinkedIn job title, you will get TONS of cold outreach
Subscribed :-)
This was surprisingly VERY enlightening. Qq though, are you saying social media app ideas are tarpit ideas and should generally be avoided ? Please make a follow up video into your experience building your social media app.
Thanks for the suggestion
What is the name of the creator video of the how to get your first 100 saas customers? There are many YT vids with this title, and I have no idea how to spell that name... thanks!
See the pinned comment
thanks
create more value content brother
Will do!
this should be pinned in the front page of product hunt
You are a genius brother
But why are you going solo?
Also, please can you recommend books?
@@jazzman2049I had enough resources + confidence to go solo. Might team up with someone for the next business. Also, I recommended some books at the end of the video.
@@tobebuilds how did you learn how to develop Shopify apps by the way
how much were you spending a month on deploying and storing to the cloud
@@gj4king1 I recommend digital ocean. Instead of using serverless, you can get a virtual private server. It requires administration knowledge from you, but for an MVP, it is fine.
hard great points to swallow
Good content, but a bit too slow 😅 needed to listen to it on 1.5-2x speed, was worth it though. Keep it up :)
Thanks for your feedback
What? It was faster than most videos on youtube! What are you talking about? 😂
I have to disagree on scratching your own itch. That only works if you're building something to compliment your own tasks for a business or task. If you're scratching speculative itch for your own b2c problem its extremely hard.
@11:07 👀 this is a problem even established companies do, my current company does this constantly despite being around for decades
I went from an idealistic SaaS app back to use my SaaS app only to sell software / design services on top
The guru’s will hate you for this 😅
They can bring it on!
Took me six months to find this video
a lot of truth in there b2b is def way better also from a taxation standpoint.
Perfectionism, I can't fucking give up this shit and this makes me procrastinate.
Ngl add model for social media had been a disaster for the human race. I think it's better to have a subscribtion service with ability to selfhost if need be
btw, what did you mean: "you trying to build advertising network"?
th-cam.com/video/HmnyZgbIOyk/w-d-xo.html
Arleady spent that six months searching😔😔😔
Daalu nwanne m
You just don’t have the team behind you to sell it.
SuS ideas
Oof
Are you Ex Google, Ex Facebook etc... are you the Tech Lead? As a millionaire? 😂😅
Hi, Tobe. You inspired a yellow technologist today
Why would anyone think that building a random app that 'is fun to build' has anything to do with 'business'?