Have a SaaS Idea? Is it worth it? I'll tell you...

[-L-]

Currently I am working on something similar to bernieshawn’s solution. Basically it’s a niche specific task manager and small CRM (only client details, no invoicing, etc.) that gives my clients a bird view of all their clients, relationships, tasks, logins and more. The tasks can be defined as recurring and are always related to clients. Functionalities are the following:

• Clients/contacts CRM and possibility to add extra information (client logins, client specials, client services, client questions, etc.)
• Recurring tasks related to clients are automatically created
• Status of task completion
• Option to add on-the-fly tasks and relate/connect them to a client/contact

I am still very much in doubts however. The companies in my niche have a lot of recurring tasks/services that they complete for their clients and the majority (90%) of the companies are still using about 3-4 different Excel sheets for tracking this information. They are using different colors to differentiate in statuses.

My problem is that I am not sure if the pain is big enough. I have talked to about 50-60 business owners and the majority is telling me that they are perfectly fine with their current Excel solution. They mention that their biggest complaint is their clients who are not doing what they tell them. The 2-3 owners who said they are really looking for the task management solution keep me motivated however. I also think that a simple to use SaaS product would really help their business as they will be better able to get a hold on their workflows, statuses and ad hoc customer requests and could spend more time on for example advising their customers.

Your post is exactly what I am looking for at this moment. I am really hoping that you can give me some advice on the following doubts:

1. What do you think of the idea?
2. Do you think the pain is big enough just by the fact that so many companies are still using multiple Excel sheets even though they mention they are perfectly fine?
3. Should I keep focusing on this niche or move on to another niche?

Since I live in a smaller country there are about 17k business in my niche.

Senergia,

If you want to compare your product/features with the competition, you can refer to this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ahw066SJeeSadFFKQkY0cGY5dFFvVWpFWVhoSjRYWWc#gid=1

 

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[JimmyRose]

What a cool thread to come into as soon as I join the forum...

Cool advice you've given in here @alexanderkjones

It's funny, the idea we're working on is really similar to @fuller . Jobber is one of the mobs I'd call a competitor for our solution, among about 10-15 pretty decent size companies. Still, I've talked to a ton of people in all kinds of property industries, and no one is really 100% happy with their solution. It could be that they are developed by engineers and developers without properly listening to feedback from the clients (an EASY trap to call into - I am both an engineer and a developer).

A big problem here is the technological incompetence of many of these businesses. Seriously 95% of them are using archaic desktop accounting systems and maybe Excel as the only software in their business. It feels like it will be a big hurdle to get many of them to change - so 80/20'ing the customers into the 'early adopters' is going to be super important.

 

[alexanderkjones]

What a cool thread to come into as soon as I join the forum...
A big problem here is the technological incompetence of many of these businesses. Seriously 95% of them are using archaic desktop accounting systems and maybe Excel as the only software in their business. It feels like it will be a big hurdle to get many of them to change - so 80/20'ing the customers into the 'early adopters' is going to be super important.

Great Point @JimmyRose but be careful here, don't assume that because you have a "better" way to do something people will actually buy it. Would you pay $200/month for something that's 10% better than your current software solution? How about 30% better? For most business the solution needs to be twice as better before they will start taking it seriously because quite honestly the pain isn't large enough.

Golden Rule: Validate, Validate, Validate

If you're on this thread you are most certainly well versed in User Experience, Great Design, Data Architecture and your clients don't care. Business people want something that affects their bottom line and that is it. Don't feet caught up in comparing "Archaic" solutions with services that we're used to like BaseCamp and Trello. Quite Often "Archaic" works and that's all that matters. You have to dig deeper and see where it's not working, where your client is losing money, and provide stop gaps.

I only mention this because I've made this same mistake myself. I've made beautiful UI's for clients and in the end all they really want is an email alert and an excel export function. Get really clear on your clients needs and don't project your own onto the situation. Get into their shoes and only do what really impacts their day to day.

 

[JimmyRose]

Great Point @JimmyRose but be careful here, don't assume that because you have a "better" way to do something people will actually buy it.

Very true. With many of the smaller businesses the pain is not really there (really obvious when talking to them about it), but once they are managing a few employees they end up wasting a LOT of time managing everything. Some that I've talked to absolutely hate it (words like "nightmate" have been used), which is a good sign. I just don't know if I've talked to enough people yet to consider it 'validated'.

 

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[Bigguns50]

 

[StevenFlecha]

Awesome thread guys I was working on 3 SaaS projects (2 for about a year and 1 since 1.5 month or so), but I finally made the hard decision (which I long knew I had to make) to put one on hold. The latest project is being executed by JV partner (dev) so that leaves me with one to focus on.

So I'd love to hear some feedback on the one I choose to focus on: SEOProject.com with SEOProjectJobs.com (both are part of same project more explanation to follow)

Problem / Pain:
SEO is a very complicated game with many different techniques both good ones and bad ones. On top of that there are many agencies and freelancers offering their services of which you don’t know what they can deliver (or worse even harm your website’s rankings). The time of just randomly selecting some SEO strategies here and there and ranking for your keywords are over. You need a well setup SEO plan and manage and track it while it is being executed.

There are many tools that promise you the the world but none of them actually include proper SEO strategic planning.

After asking around how other SEO-ers keep track right now is by using excel, not at all, only rank tracking, and a few mentioned using smart-sheets and trello as tools. None of these actually provide a good overview and make life easier on managers.

Introducing SEOProject.com:
Your one-stop Tool for all your SEO Strategic planning, outsourcing, budgeting and result tracking for all those people who realize SEO is part of your online strategy from day 1. Your SEO: Don’t just wing it – Plan it!

SEOProject.com is an online Project Management product to make SEO Project plans and keep track of your SEO efforts and results. Each SEO plan is for one project (website / mini site) and contains several SEO Strategies which are divided in SEO Jobs and the SEO Jobs can consist of one or more SEO tasks. The SEOProject PM tool consist of
- the Planning tool with 3 views: Gantt (vertical & horizontal), Task list (simple; nested task view) and a Kanban/Scrum crossover view (modeled after Trello). A user can switch views when-ever he/she likes. The system comes pre-filled with all SEO strategies with their respective jobs & tasks we can think off and offers the possibility to add your own on every level. The interface is all drag&drop where applicable.

- Project Management section where the user can find: Team management overview (outsource management and job assignment overview + edit), project settings, project finances (budget, total expenses, ROI, etc), SEO Rank tracking (visualization of keyword ranking tracker with your seo efforts to better identify what works, what doesn't)

- Premium Template Shop - a market place where 3rd parties can offer SEO plan templates for specific purposes (quick ranking, long term, niche specific, language specific etc) . The SEOProject will also provide some standard free templates (3).

SEOProjectJobs.com
A separate 'site' but fully integrated with SEOProject.com. This will be a type of freelancer site where SEO Jobs / tasks can be listed and SEO expert's can then bid to fulfill the job/task. A user can create his SEO dreamteam, pay SEO workers and rate them on communication & speed and delivery.

One thing I've always disliked when hiring SEO workers on other platforms is that SEO is long term so you can't directly rate quality of work done on SEO, so the idea is that we'll create a work quality rating algorithm that looks at all jobs/tasks fulfilled by a person, the results of that project with the involved keywords, look how many people where involved and then take 0-6month period after the jobs/tasks were fullfilled and so determine the rating. This is not an easy task so we'll start simple and build out the algorithm while testing what works best.

The 'outsource this' function will be prominent inside the planning tool, which will then instantly create a listing on SEOProjectJobs.com and a Job/task description with dates etc on what needs to be done so the SEOproject user needs to do minimal effort.


The idea is NOT to compete with SEO ranking tools (SENuke, Majestic, Moz, RavenTools), this is tool to Manage SEO efforts and keep track. We'll be also looking into integrations with those tools for an even better experience for the user.

What we sell:
- SEO planning tool
- all SEO strategies / subtasks in one place. Select and execute
- easy SEO outsourcing with the important rating system to know who your dealing with (trusting somebody with your SEO is like trusting somebody with the keys of you Ferrari!)
- SEO Premium templates
- Combining SEO effort overview with result tracking to provide better information to determining your SEO ROI (in terms of rankings)

Last note I wanted to make is that I fully realize user interface of the planning tool is super important so a lot of work is put into that to make sure it stays clean and clear.

 

[StevenFlecha]

@alexanderkjones would love to hear your feedback on the above? Thanks.

 

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[eroos2188]

Something I am working on is an app to allow customers to pay and split their bills at restaurants and bars on their phone. There are a few similar apps already out there that have VC funding and are obviously ahead, but it's a huge market that I feel there is opportunity. It seems like its going to take a good amount of capital to get this off the ground and integrate with POS systems. Would love to hear your thoughts!