Andy Black
Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
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1) What problems do people *already* pay to solve that you can produce a little paid tool for?Hi guys,
I've been training my problem-solving muscle a lot lately and I'm getting really good at it. I see problems everywhere and try to solve them with software - if possible.
The result: many satisfied users.
The problem: They are users, not customers.
It's mostly MVPs that I launch into the market. They solve a problem, usually a relatively small one. I then very quickly get into the mode of "It's nice that I'm solving this, but the benefit on a meta level is so small, I can't ask for anything." This means that I get satisfied users who are very happy about my solution, but they don't pay anything for it.
I have already worked with a paywall in the form of freemium as well as usage restrictions. Anything that could annoy users more and is always viewed as very skeptical. Especially if I integrate the paywall into a product that was previously free.
Now to my question:
What opportunities do you see for making money in the future with a SaaS product that already solves a small problem? Have you already had your own experiences here? I would be very happy to receive your feedback.
I'm currently brainstorming in this direction:
Free software with usage restrictions > email sign-up so you can use the software unlimitedly > user feedback for additional features > transition into freemium.
What I also thought about is a pure annual fee, which is very low because the benefit from my software is relatively low. But that means that no one can use my software beforehand - which I generally find to be a bad thing.
It would be very helpful for me to have good/best practices to go from soft validation to hard validation without the users being pissed off because I'm now integrating a paywall.
2) What tools or calculators do people search for that you could create and get in front of people? Can they be some sort of lead generation tool? E.g. mortgage calculators, contractor hourly rate to employer salary calculators, kitchen remodelling cost calculators, solar panel electricity savings calculators, etc. Maybe use the Google Keyword Planner to find these?
3) Can you focus on getting paying customers first, and building out a SaaS product second? Maybe people pay monthly for information sent by email first, and then you build an app or SaaS later that delivers that information and other functionality?