Down two 2 ideas after 13.5 days of research. Which to pick?

[oneac]

Hey guys.

I've spend the last week and a half validating and narrowing down some ideas for my next SasS product.

From 8k > 532 > 55 > 50 > 20 > 10 > 5 and now finally 2 ideas.

I've decided to make a pro/con list and these are the relevant pieces of information I've come up with.



I'm leaning towards IDEA ONE.

What's your opinion?

IDEA TWO has the advantage of having a smaller niche, lower competition, easier to build and market, but significantly less revenue potential.

Below are some relevant estimations that may help you give me some advice.



Curious to see what you have to say

EDIT - IDEA ONE is a horizontal market, IDEA TWO is a vertical market

 

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[WillHurtDontCare]

gut instinct says go after the higher revenue one so that you have more money to market with

 

[oneac]

gut instinct says go after the higher revenue one so that you have more money to market with

this was my first instinct as well. I see only two relevant players for the first idea...

 

[ZCP]

is there a way to test / prototype / presale both and see which one hits?

 

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[oneac]

is there a way to test / prototype / presale both and see which one hits?

Good question. I find that the product I'm working on (marketplace extension) doesn't do well with presales. However there are ways to talk with users before I pick ideas.

 

[oneac]

@WillHurtDontCare and @ZCP I should mention that IDEA ONE is more of a horizontal market (with few players), while IDEA TWO is a vertical market

on a scale of
(horizontal) 1 - 10 (vertical)

IDEA ONE is 5.5
while
IDEA TWO is 9

 

[ZCP]

i'm thinking like an investor ..... how many have you sold?
do whichever keeps you moving and gets you fast results.
your situation needs fast wins.

 

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[oneac]

i'm thinking like an investor ..... how many have you sold?
do whichever keeps you moving and gets you fast results.
your situation needs fast wins.

Man, that really conflicts me. Based on that, IDEA TWO would be the way to go.

This would be aligned with Rob Walling's advice to pursue a vertical not a horizontal.

And you'd be right, IDEA TWO is a faster win.

I look at the money making potential and want to pursue IDEA ONE.

The competition on IDEA ONE increased their MRR last month by an estimated $800-$700.
They have two players and it's a harder idea to make.

The competition on IDEA TWO increased their MRR last month by an estimated $150.
They have 4-5 players and it's an easier idea to make.

I know money isn't the goal, providing value is...
I may be getting lost in the numbers.
Maybe I should hold off making a decision until tomorrow so that I can have a clear head

 

[ZCP]

in your spot, security is a good initial step. getting some wins and cashflow going will help you be able to focus on the big one.

is it really either / or?? could you get the win in TWO while working on the big thing of ONE? maybe within the same company?

 

[Jrjohnny]

Just to drop in here.

Easier to start is NOT a pro. Its a con.

If its easier to jump in, more people who are looking for money will hop in.

 

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[Trismigistus]

Did you really have 8000 ideas?

 

[biophase]

Go with the one with the higher revenue potential.

 

[BizyDad]

Hey guys.

I've spend the last week and a half validating and narrowing down some ideas for my next SasS product.

From 8k > 532 > 55 > 50 > 20 > 10 > 5 and now finally 2 ideas.

I've decided to make a pro/con list and these are the relevant pieces of information I've come up with.

View attachment 52724

I'm leaning towards IDEA ONE.

What's your opinion?

IDEA TWO has the advantage of having a smaller niche, lower competition, easier to build and market, but significantly less revenue potential.

Below are some relevant estimations that may help you give me some advice.

View attachment 52726

Curious to see what you have to say

EDIT - IDEA ONE is a horizontal market, IDEA TWO is a vertical market

Both.

Build idea one for all the reasons said. Then build idea 2.

 

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[oneac]

Hello all. I've thought a lot this morning after a good night's rest. After removing my emotions and desire for money from the mix, I've decided to pursue IDEA TWO.

Yesterday, @ZCP 's concept of a "fast win" was not appealing for me. I wanted to make money fast and money was on my mind. IDEA ONE would make more money... but at what cost?

MY REASONING:
- In order to build either one, I have to learn many new technologies, this process alone can take .5-2 months. Why would I bite off more than I can chew by taking on a harder idea on top of that?

- In order to make my product tailored in every way to the target audience, I'd have to have conversations with them. This is WAY easier with IDEA TWO as it's niche is easily reachable to me

- True, IDEA TWO would make less money than IDEA ONE, but it's more likely that IDEA TWO even comes to fruition with my skill set right now. Not to mention, making IDEA TWO would better prepare me for IDEA ONE in every way possible (technical skill, marketing, etc.)

- Even if making IDEA TWO pushes my current goal of $800 MRR back by even 6 months (which I think is not likely, as I can make $800 MRR with IDEA TWO), how much does that really matter? What is 6 months? I'm not going to be an entrepreneur for just 6 months and then give up. I'm in this game until I make it or die. I can sustain myself no matter what with a job. These hypothetical 6 months would not be lost either. I would learn so much and understand how to make money and provide value.

- Choosing IDEA TWO aligns with the values of many of the people I look up to in the entrepreneur space. (Rob Walling says stair step, not stair skip. @MJ DeMarco says before you can make even 500 dollars, you have to figure out how to make 1 dollar, @ZCP understands that easy wins are the way to build momentum and scale your future, etc etc )

is it really either / or?? could you get the win in TWO while working on the big thing of ONE? maybe within the same company?

> You're right. I can leverage building IDEA TWO to eventually be able to build IDEA ONE

Just to drop in here.

Easier to start is NOT a pro. Its a con.

If its easier to jump in, more people who are looking for money will hop in.

> True, but it's not like this brain dead easy to start. Someone would have to learn for about 1 month before they can even start the process to building this app.

It's easier to make, but not easy.

I should've made that distinction before so that's on me.

Did you really have 8000 ideas?

> It was more like 8000 possibilities I could've pursued

Go with the one with the higher revenue potential.

> Eventually I will, but I have to respect the process first.

Both.

Build idea one for all the reasons said. Then build idea 2.

> Agreed.

 

[BizyDad]

Hey guys.

I've spend the last week and a half validating and narrowing down some ideas for my next SasS product.

From 8k > 532 > 55 > 50 > 20 > 10 > 5 and now finally 2 ideas.

I've decided to make a pro/con list and these are the relevant pieces of information I've come up with.

View attachment 52724

I'm leaning towards IDEA ONE.

What's your opinion?

IDEA TWO has the advantage of having a smaller niche, lower competition, easier to build and market, but significantly less revenue potential.

Below are some relevant estimations that may help you give me some advice.

View attachment 52726

Curious to see what you have to say

EDIT - IDEA ONE is a horizontal market, IDEA TWO is a vertical market

- In order to build either one, I have to learn many new technologies, this process alone can take .5-2 months. Why would I bite off more than I can chew by taking on a harder idea on top of that?

Wow, the time frames definitely shifted. You have to be honest with yourself upfront so you can be honest with us so you can get better feedback.

Other than that, you've made your choice. You've thought it thru. Congrats. Awesome. Don't waver, time to move forward.

When will you have "learned the technologies needed"? Report back your progress. Looking forward to it.

 

[oneac]

Wow, the time frames definitely shifted. You have to be honest with yourself upfront so you can be honest with us so you can get better feedback.

Other than that, you've made your choice. You've thought it thru. Congrats. Awesome. Don't waver, time to move forward.

When will you have "learned the technologies needed"? Report back your progress. Looking forward to it.

> Yeah, good point. The time I thought I'd take to build was based off inclination. After doing some research, I'd definitely say the .5 to 2 months is closer to the mark, maybe even 1 to 4 who knows.

When will you have "learned the technologies needed"?

The learning involves this:
1. Learning JavaScript, Node.js, React
2. Learning Shopify technologies (their apis)
3. Then building a test application

Other than that, you've made your choice. You've thought it thru. Congrats. Awesome. Don't waver, time to move forward.

> Thank you. A mistake I made before was over analyzing things. Nowadays I try to make decisions and take action, so moving forward is good advice.

Report back your progress. Looking forward to it.

> Will do. I'll plot my progress on this thread

 

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[ZCP]

Chop chop. What are the first three major things that need to be done? What is the one action for each that will move the needle? Schedule that and GET IT DONE this week!!
LFG!!

 

[alexXx9]

Unpopular opinion but we're humans, i'd also pay attention to which one of these two ideas left are more resonating with you... Which of the two ideas is more exciting to you? Which one would you be willing to work for months or possibly years without giving up even if you wouldn't see any returns? Persistence is key...

Yeah sure following MJ commendments is nice but do not underestimate the human component

 

[ZackerySprague]

Idea #1, would be my choice. The harder the problem, the better.

 

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[Dean Irwin]

Hey guys.

I've spend the last week and a half validating and narrowing down some ideas for my next SasS product.

From 8k > 532 > 55 > 50 > 20 > 10 > 5 and now finally 2 ideas.

I've decided to make a pro/con list and these are the relevant pieces of information I've come up with.

View attachment 52724

I'm leaning towards IDEA ONE.

What's your opinion?

IDEA TWO has the advantage of having a smaller niche, lower competition, easier to build and market, but significantly less revenue potential.

Below are some relevant estimations that may help you give me some advice.

View attachment 52726

Curious to see what you have to say

EDIT - IDEA ONE is a horizontal market, IDEA TWO is a vertical market

I think I can chime in with some expertise here... At least, on the web side of things.

Without knowing specific details about the two ideas, I would say that it's going to take a lot longer than 8 weeks to establish and find a good value proposition, so you should be aware of that and expect it. We thought we would launch the first GoalSumo.com beta in 6 months when we started, it took us just under a year.

If you are starting from scratch, I am going to say something a bit controversial.... React/Node are NOT fantastic starter ecosystems, because they still are somewhat wild-west environments in the tech world. I would NOT recommend these for a startup, after working in them for 3+ years exclusively.

While these specific technologies (React/Node) sound like the easiest path to a product, I would recommend you go with an Angular front-end and a Java Spring backend. You want to remove the guess work, and work with the technologies that already have things figured out. React will require you to implement everything from scratch, because that's how the ecosystem is designed. NodeJS is the same story. You don't want to do this until you've been around the block a few times.

Java Spring or .NET have a specific solution for doing just about everything. NestJS (Node.js equivalent in the Javascript hemisphere) does NOT, and you have to spend a lot of time piecing things together.

The JS ecosystem requires you to make many technical decisions, and it is often hard to find the "right" fit. If you are new to the tech landscape, you will not know how to make those technical decisions yet, and you should take as many solutions off-the-shelf as possible.

If you are already very proficient at these technologies, this is a different story. You should use what you're comfortable with. The main benefits of Javascript come out when you are able to design stuff around first-class functions, which is not something you learn until you have been programming in a language that supports it for multiple years.

Otherwise, go as enterprise (and open-sourced) as possible until you get there. Do not listen to the people that tell you it's a big speed boost to use the same language on the client and server. When it comes down to it, the code will look nothing alike anyway.

Craig Dennis' Java course on TeamTreehouse.com is the best intro-to-programming fundamentals course you can get with Java. It will teach you object-oriented programming. It is fantastic and I recommend it to everyone that wants to start.

Once you have this course mastered (You can skip the JavaFX section for what you're doing), go to Udemy and get John Thompson's Java Spring Boot course, which will teach you how to write enterprise-ready software in Java. Favorite this website to refer back to later: https://www.baeldung.com/

At the same time, get the Academind (Maximilian Schwarzmüller) course on Angular. This will be your absolute fastest path to revenue with a software business if you are implementing custom code (but avoid that if you can).

 

[oneac]

Chop chop. What are the first three major things that need to be done? What is the one action for each that will move the needle? Schedule that and GET IT DONE this week!!
LFG!!

Sir yes sir! (1) Learn the technologies that I need in order to make the app (2) Learn the development tools (git, etc) I'd need (3) build my community/ market early on.

 

[oneac]

I think I can chime in with some expertise here... At least, on the web side of things.

Without knowing specific details about the two ideas, I would say that it's going to take a lot longer than 8 weeks to establish and find a good value proposition, so you should be aware of that and expect it. We thought we would launch the first GoalSumo.com beta in 6 months when we started, it took us just under a year.

If you are starting from scratch, I am going to say something a bit controversial.... React/Node are NOT fantastic starter ecosystems, because they still are somewhat wild-west environments in the tech world. I would NOT recommend these for a startup, after working in them for 3+ years exclusively.

While these specific technologies (React/Node) sound like the easiest path to a product, I would recommend you go with an Angular front-end and a Java Spring backend. You want to remove the guess work, and work with the technologies that already have things figured out. React will require you to implement everything from scratch, because that's how the ecosystem is designed. NodeJS is the same story. You don't want to do this until you've been around the block a few times.

Java Spring or .NET have a specific solution for doing just about everything. NestJS (Node.js equivalent in the Javascript hemisphere) does NOT, and you have to spend a lot of time piecing things together.

The JS ecosystem requires you to make many technical decisions, and it is often hard to find the "right" fit. If you are new to the tech landscape, you will not know how to make those technical decisions yet, and you should take as many solutions off-the-shelf as possible.

If you are already very proficient at these technologies, this is a different story. You should use what you're comfortable with. The main benefits of Javascript come out when you are able to design stuff around first-class functions, which is not something you learn until you have been programming in a language that supports it for multiple years.

Otherwise, go as enterprise (and open-sourced) as possible until you get there. Do not listen to the people that tell you it's a big speed boost to use the same language on the client and server. When it comes down to it, the code will look nothing alike anyway.

Craig Dennis' Java course on TeamTreehouse.com is the best intro-to-programming fundamentals course you can get with Java. It will teach you object-oriented programming. It is fantastic and I recommend it to everyone that wants to start.

Once you have this course mastered (You can skip the JavaFX section for what you're doing), go to Udemy and get John Thompson's Java Spring Boot course, which will teach you how to write enterprise-ready software in Java. Favorite this website to refer back to later: https://www.baeldung.com/

At the same time, get the Academind (Maximilian Schwarzmüller) course on Angular. This will be your absolute fastest path to revenue with a software business if you are implementing custom code (but avoid that if you can).

I think I can chime in with some expertise here... At least, on the web side of things.

Without knowing specific details about the two ideas, I would say that it's going to take a lot longer than 8 weeks to establish and find a good value proposition, so you should be aware of that and expect it. We thought we would launch the first GoalSumo.com beta in 6 months when we started, it took us just under a year.

If you are starting from scratch, I am going to say something a bit controversial.... React/Node are NOT fantastic starter ecosystems, because they still are somewhat wild-west environments in the tech world. I would NOT recommend these for a startup, after working in them for 3+ years exclusively.

While these specific technologies (React/Node) sound like the easiest path to a product, I would recommend you go with an Angular front-end and a Java Spring backend. You want to remove the guess work, and work with the technologies that already have things figured out. React will require you to implement everything from scratch, because that's how the ecosystem is designed. NodeJS is the same story. You don't want to do this until you've been around the block a few times.

Java Spring or .NET have a specific solution for doing just about everything. NestJS (Node.js equivalent in the Javascript hemisphere) does NOT, and you have to spend a lot of time piecing things together.

The JS ecosystem requires you to make many technical decisions, and it is often hard to find the "right" fit. If you are new to the tech landscape, you will not know how to make those technical decisions yet, and you should take as many solutions off-the-shelf as possible.

If you are already very proficient at these technologies, this is a different story. You should use what you're comfortable with. The main benefits of Javascript come out when you are able to design stuff around first-class functions, which is not something you learn until you have been programming in a language that supports it for multiple years.

Otherwise, go as enterprise (and open-sourced) as possible until you get there. Do not listen to the people that tell you it's a big speed boost to use the same language on the client and server. When it comes down to it, the code will look nothing alike anyway.

Craig Dennis' Java course on TeamTreehouse.com is the best intro-to-programming fundamentals course you can get with Java. It will teach you object-oriented programming. It is fantastic and I recommend it to everyone that wants to start.

Once you have this course mastered (You can skip the JavaFX section for what you're doing), go to Udemy and get John Thompson's Java Spring Boot course, which will teach you how to write enterprise-ready software in Java. Favorite this website to refer back to later: Baeldung

At the same time, get the Academind (Maximilian Schwarzmüller) course on Angular. This will be your absolute fastest path to revenue with a software business if you are implementing custom code (but avoid that if you can).

Wow, thank you for the detailed reply. This is super informative, especially coming from a SaaS entrepreneur such as yourself.

After really taking a good look at the working in front of me, I especially agree with your point of this taking more than 8 weeks.

The thing is that the platform I'm developing the application for (the Shopify app store) uses JavaScript, more specifically Node.js, React, and some annoying framework also based off of react. So I kinda have to learn these technologies. There are other languages I could learn instead (for example I could learn PHP instead of JS) but it seems the greatest support is in the JavaScript side.

In 1-2 years when I've made my first success developing Micro-Saas for ecosystems like Shopify, I'm definitely going to take this advice to use a more "timeless" tech stack like Angular and Java Spring. Thank you for the knowledge!

 

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[ZCP]

who could you work for right now to get paid to learn these skills?

 

[Dean Irwin]

Wow, thank you for the detailed reply. This is super informative, especially coming from a SaaS entrepreneur such as yourself.

Whenever I see a similar journey to mine ahead of someone here, I try to ease the pain a little bit, lol. Glad to provide any form of value

After really taking a good look at the working in front of me, I especially agree with your point of this taking more than 8 weeks.

In general, I find that any estimate I have for how long something should take, I have to multiply it by 2.7x or more. Maybe this is just me, but I went to university for software with a focus on project management, and I still have no idea how to correctly estimate code projects.

The thing is that the platform I'm developing the application for (the Shopify app store) uses JavaScript, more specifically Node.js, React, and some annoying framework also based off of react.

I have zero experience with Shopify specifically (so please do not use this as a source of truth, I am making assumptions!).

If I were to take a guess, they probably provide fantastic APIs and SDKs that work in just about any language. Knowing this information, I would probably still build any back-end functionality using Java Spring. The great part about Java SDKs (if they provide one, they probably do), is that it MUST have proper type definitions, which will make it a breeze to autocomplete different features and parts of the service with a good IDE (I recommend IntelliJ). Typescript/Javascript SDKs still end up being a wild west of sorts.

I would do some research, and if it seems viable after looking up the specifics, at that point I would probably start with a simple goal that can be accomplished using that API, and if it goes well, continue.


Front end, it sounds like you are stuck with React, so I would recommend this React course, also by Maximilian Schwarzmüller (Seriously, this dude is awesome!): https://www.udemy.com/course/react-the-complete-guide-incl-redux/

I'm not affiliated with him, I learned React from this course and I loved it.


Also, a bit of self promotion... (Not sure if this allowed, feel free to remove it): I started this mostly for some friends from college to keep up with me and learn about my work, but now with over 10 subscribers, it's really taking off. I have a small email newsletter I send out with tips and tricks of the trade. Feel free to join (It's free!) : Bridge the Gap From Idea to Impact.

 

[Dean Irwin]

In 1-2 years when I've made my first success developing Micro-Saas for ecosystems like Shopify, I'm definitely going to take this advice to use a more "timeless" tech stack like Angular and Java Spring. Thank you for the knowledge!

Also, I think there is still a ton of $$$ left on the table building integrations/plugins for Wordpress and Shopify. I think you're on the right track with this idea

 

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[Absar]

Hey, Good luck with your SAAS.

I have got a question, How did you come up with 8000 Ideas in the beginning?

Thanks.