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

Idea threads

alexanderkjones

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Hey All, I've been working on bringing some good educational content to the forum (checkout my threads) and I wanted to tackle evaluating SaaS value propositions and defining minimum viable products by example.

If you've got a Software as a Service idea for B2B, Post the generic idea here without naming the industry and list your feature set and I will give you a free evaluation on the profitability of the idea here on the thread. I want people to see what a good SaaS product looks like and what a bad SaaS product looks like for startup entrepreneurs breaking out into their first product.

NO ONE IS TRYING TO STEAL YOUR IDEA GET OVER IT. Don't get into details but give me enough so I can provide you value and point you in the right direction while helping others here on the forum.

THERE"S ALSO A PRIZE: I WILL WRITE A PITCHDECK FOR THE BEST IDEA SO YOU CAN GO PRESELL YOU SAAS PRODUCT.

For the person offering the best value to their clients I'll create a 10 slide pitch deck honing your value proposition and set you up with everything you need to walk up to your client and pitch them to buy 6 months of the service before you've even built the product so that you can fund development without any of your own cash.

Caveat: The winning idea must be worth $1,000,000

This is not as hard as it sounds, if you can prove to me that you know your market intimately, that you have a product worth $200/month solving a $2,000/month problem for your customer, and there are more than 10K customers in your market you've got a million dollar idea. Neat right!?

So let's get the party started, this is a great opportunity for fun, learning, and for you to make some serious cash if you've got a killer idea. Looking forward to this!
 
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codo3500

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Hey buddy,

Currently validating this idea: http://www.LaunchVal.com

Basically, it's a landing page builder for startups to validate their ideas, and allows them to check if people will Pay for their idea (by a mock-up billing page). I've already build a lot of the technology as we use it internally, but we're working out if the market is big enough, and if people want it, before I go and build the full system.
 

bernieshawn

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Ha, awesome. Very timely for me, I'm currently trying to get my first pre-sale of a SaaS product (haven't built it yet, only have mockups). I actually already have a pitch deck made, but any input would be helpful (although input from the market helps even more ;) )

I've already asked 5 people for the pre-sale, no Yesses yet, hmmmm.

The basic idea is for an industry specific project management software solution. (doesn't sound original just yet...).

However, after talking to people in this industry, I've identified the following pain points:

1. Current project management solutions in this industry are way too cumbersome for smaller firms. They all seem like they've been built for enterprise-level firms and there isn't anything out there for the smaller guys.

2. People in the target market hate having to learn new software.

3. People in the target market have trouble getting their staff to actually use software solutions.

4. People in the target market don't have time to try new software.

5. Existing software solutions for this market are "dumb" and don't learn as you go.

6. People in this market who aren't even using any project management software at all lose a ton of time relaying client info back and forth, losing notes from meetings with clients, keeping track of tasks, etc.

7. Some people in this target market sometimes have to stretch out a budget (they'll only get budget a couple times a year).

Here's how I'm addressing these pain points:

1. Keeping the software super simple, super easy to use, and beautifully designed. Only focusing on the essentials that the smaller firms need, cutting out the cumbersome, unnecessary stuff that are cluttering up other solutions.

2. Basically the same as #1. Making it super easy to use. Matching their current workflow so it doesn't really change anything they do, it just does it online vs on pen and paper or Excel, etc. They already know how to use it.

3. I'm adding some basic gamification where staff members will get points for completing tasks, updating stuff, etc. I'll be suggesting that they do a monthly reward to the staff member who has the most points or something like that. Also, it should help that it's very easy to use.

4. I'll be offering free set up -- just email me all your current projects, staff, etc and I'll get them set up. This might not scale well, but should help in the beginning.

5. Basic machine learning and task dependencies. Keep track of common tasks and automatically add them for each project, etc.

6. People who aren't even using anything yet will save a ton of time just by using ANY PM software, so this will definitely help these people.

7. Offering an annual pricing option, so they can pay when they have budget and not worry about it the rest of the year. Also, discount for paying annually.

What about pricing?

Most people I've talked to have indicated that they're currently losing around 5-10 hours a week (20-40 a month) by not having a good solution. At an average billable rate of $100, they're losing at least $2,000 a month.

I'm positioning it so that they should recover at least half of that time, so $1,000 a month. Giving them 10x return means I'll price at $99/month.

I've also learned that people in this profession are SUPER busy, so saving time is a huge selling point for them.

Thanks for this thread!
 

bernieshawn

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Hey buddy,

Currently validating this idea: http://www.LaunchVal.com

Basically, it's a landing page builder for startups to validate their ideas, and allows them to check if people will Pay for their idea (by a mock-up billing page). I've already build a lot of the technology as we use it internally, but we're working out if the market is big enough, and if people want it, before I go and build the full system.

Dude, I'm totally your target market here, and I would be interested in something like this. Looking at your landing page:
  1. It is WAY WAY WAY too crowded. Bad spacing around the text, it's all too crammed in.
  2. Do you collect emails from people who partially fill out the form but don't finish? This is a must-have, this way you can reach out to these people and find out why they didn't buy. (I would look on your landing page for this, but it's way too crowded and overwhelming).
  3. Typos
  4. Can you actually charge people and take pre-sales?
  5. What do the landing page templates look like? Please tell me they don't suck ;)
Hint: Partner with thefoundation.com
 
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codo3500

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Dude, I'm totally your target market here, and I would be interested in something like this. Looking at your landing page:
  1. It is WAY WAY WAY too crowded. Bad spacing around the text, it's all too crammed in.
  2. Do you collect emails from people who partially fill out the form but don't finish? This is a must-have, this way you can reach out to these people and find out why they didn't buy. (I would look on your landing page for this, but it's way too crowded and overwhelming).
  3. Typos
  4. Can you actually charge people and take pre-sales?
  5. What do the landing page templates look like? Please tell me they don't suck ;)
Hint: Partner with thefoundation.com
Hey buddy,

1. That's just something we quickly knocked out, the problem is it's a hard concept to convey, but I agree, it's WAY too crowded at the top. We're going to do a video to fix this, and explain everything from that first section.

2. We do, this is a big thing for us, we also allow you to direct them to a survey at the end .etc, make sure you're maximising the traffic you're spending on.

3. Are you sure? I'll go back through it, but I very very rarely make typos.

4. We don't actually charge, we let them start typing in their credit card, the first 4 digits, and we verify this is a legit card (you can do this with the first 4 numbers), then we stop them, and explain that it's just a validation, and we'd love their help in giving us info of what they want in the product.

5. I'm a designer, if this project validates and I build it, they'll be shit-hot (check out my signature)

Definitely got a few guys like that in mind if we develop the product.
 

bernieshawn

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Hey buddy,
3. Are you sure? I'll go back through it, but I very very rarely make typos.

4. We don't actually charge, we let them start typing in their credit card, the first 4 digits, and we verify this is a legit card (you can do this with the first 4 numbers), then we stop them, and explain that it's just a validation, and we'd love their help in giving us info of what they want in the product.

3. "Just as a visitor begins typing their Credit Card number in, LaunchVal stops them & dsiplays a Fully Customizable Popup" 3rd section :)

4. Would be awesome to have an option where you can actually take presales -- the next option after validating your idea is to take presales, so once you validate, you would be SOL here. Some people might want to just skip the "fake" orders and just jump straight to taking presales (which is actually what I would probably do). I can see where this might take away from your initial direction here, might be a v2.0 thing, but you might be able to do it pretty quickly if you just integrate with Stripe or someone.

Anyway, good luck -- I think it's a valid idea, I tried looking for something that I really liked in this space but couldn't really find anything, there are many decent options for collecting emails, but not much for pre-sales or even just the "fake" order type thing.

I just ended up going with Launch Rock and manual follow up emails to people.
 

codo3500

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3. "Just as a visitor begins typing their Credit Card number in, LaunchVal stops them & dsiplays a Fully Customizable Popup" 3rd section :)

4. Would be awesome to have an option where you can actually take presales -- the next option after validating your idea is to take presales, so once you validate, you would be SOL here. Some people might want to just skip the "fake" orders and just jump straight to taking presales (which is actually what I would probably do). I can see where this might take away from your initial direction here, might be a v2.0 thing, but you might be able to do it pretty quickly if you just integrate with Stripe or someone.

Anyway, good luck -- I think it's a valid idea, I tried looking for something that I really liked in this space but couldn't really find anything, there are many decent options for collecting emails, but not much for pre-sales or even just the "fake" order type thing.

I just ended up going with Launch Rock and manual follow up emails to people.
Firstly, well spotted man! I'll get that fixed up! :)

Secondly, if you take their money, you'll have to refund them if you don't go ahead. If this is with PayPal, you're looking at an insta-ban (been there, it sucks). Definitely something to look at though.

Our vision is for a product that people use before committing to a project. Launchrock is great for once you decide to go ahead with a project, but we're the step before that (and will end up doing what launchRock does too).

Any other thoughts on it? You definitely sound like the target market.
 
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bernieshawn

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Firstly, well spotted man! I'll get that fixed up! :)

Secondly, if you take their money, you'll have to refund them if you don't go ahead. If this is with PayPal, you're looking at an insta-ban (been there, it sucks). Definitely something to look at though.

Our vision is for a product that people use before committing to a project. Launchrock is great for once you decide to go ahead with a project, but we're the step before that (and will end up doing what launchRock does too).

Any other thoughts on it? You definitely sound like the target market.

I actually look at it the opposite as you, I think LaunchRock is the step before you. Asking for a CC is further along the validation process than asking for an email, so I would use LR first and then your solution.

Ok, I kinda see what you're saying now -- that's more of a post-validation, lead gen thing. I'm looking at it like LR is the first step -- see if people will at least enter their email to learn more about what you're doing. Then, see if they will actually spend money for your product (this is where your solution would fit in now). Post-validation, LR would be more of a lead gen thing, but I think most people would just take pre-orders now?

About actually taking money -- there has to be a way, tons of sites/people offer preorders online. (maybe just a PayPal thing?) I'm pretty sure most of it comes down to buyer expectations. If they know they're preordering, they shouldn't have a problem. Plus, in this case you should offer a money back guarantee, out at any time option anyway.

Last thoughts:

1. I had one and forgot. Oh yeah. Maybe a follow-on product or something would be where once you validate, you can seamlessly move your successful, validated page into an actual site where you can take real orders. This is getting ahead of where you are now, though, so this probably isn't even helpful. Sorry ;)

2. I do think the guys at The Foundation (thefoundation.com) would be a huge partner and source of feedback for you guys. Not sure if you know anything about them, but they teach hundreds of people how to presell their products in advance, so they would be (1) probably the best source for critiques and (2) a big potential source of your first customers

Hope this helps!
 

tafy

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I have always wanted to build a hotel booking software. The market is huge and there are already 30+ players.

Problems Currently:
Half of them are old as hell
A lot are made for big hotels of 50+ rooms with matching price tag
Some of them are quite expensive (the good ones)
A lot are built wrong and cant be changed to provide things hotels need without rewriting the whole software (obsolete i guess) Some of the new providers have programmed their system like this and have talked with them personally about the shortcommings of their saas solution and they said they cant/wont fix it.

Cost of making a cloud booking system from a company is around 200-300k dollars, it cant be made with freelancers. Each customer would be worth 50-100 dollars a month depending on size and services they need.

To get 1 million turnover I would need 14k customers. $75 avg

What you think?
 

alexanderkjones

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@codo3500 Hey Man! So, LaunchVal definitely shows your talents for graphic design, this is a great landing page for your product. This is a great idea, it's a competitive space but there's room, however there's much lower hanging fruit. Is there a way you can pitch this to businesses vs individuals as a niche testing platform. What about insurance companies or real estate? Just some thoughts here, but I'm curious about how much work it will be to drive traffic here against the competition. There must be industries that don't have a tool like this that need it, entrepreneurs have 10 choices plus for lead page building and while the credit card option is innovative, everyone will copy it if it becomes successful. Dig deeper, who's never heard of landing pages and needs better market testing in their industry. Be more than happy to brainstorm with you on this.

@bernieshawn AWESOME DESCRIPTION. Thank you this is really helpful to dig into. Ok, 1) PM software specific to niches is a fantastic product idea I've helped people design several solutions like this. 2) It's way too complicated, pick your top 2 features and pitch them on that, save learning algorithms, ramifications, and "pretty design" for later versions. You need to focus on the value proposition. What two features are the core of your product? I'm guessing it's task input and task assignment. Focus on those and don't spend any more money than you need to. This is an easy $10K application, find 20 businesses ready to pay 5 months ahead at $99/month and land some presales. You pitch has to walk them through the thought process that will bring them to the same conclusions that you have made that this product actually will save them $1,000 month. Your pitch deck should tell your customer's story as it is now, and how much better that story will be with your product. How many businesses are in your target industry, at least 30K? If you want to keep it private PM me with your feature set I can show you what to keep and what to cut from your list.

@tafy, again very competitive space and the overhead to get started is huge. I don't think it would cost more than $50K to get started but it's so dependent on the relationships you build with the hotels. In addition, look for value propositions that net $100-$200 per sale, $75 per booking is going to be very erratic based on travel frequency, weather, quality of hotels, you name it. A better way to look at this is, who else needs booking that doesn't have a good solution right now? Something smaller like private car dealerships or yoga studios. Go talk to businesses of that scale if you want to pursue this type of product and ask them what their challenges are, is scheduling really an issue? If so, how much money are they losing because of their inefficiencies?

OK, this is a great start! Who else is out there!!
 
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mentalic

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I am building with a SaaS platform for wholesalers & distributors.

The problem:
Companies that want to receive their orders online have to pay for custom software or enterprise solutions
Existing shopping carts are targeted more to retail customers
Existing shopping carts are sometimes very hard to customize
The wholesaler & distributor has to communicate the industry's needs to anyone that has hired for this project

Our solution:
We have packed most of the requirements for wholesalers & distributors in a beautiful SaaS package that is extremely easy to use

Our current status/problems:
Me and my partner had no idea about selling B2B products (except our freelance services, which was quite easy) so we spent 2-3 months 'learning' SaaS sales etc
We already have two customers from our network of contacts and 4 other companies that we have talked to a lot and are waiting for an official reply in the next month
We have faced problems concerning testimonials from a couple of people that had signed up for a trial, because we didn't have customers from their own country

PS If anyone wants the URL of our service send me a pm
 

skekasaurus

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Hey @alexanderkjones, so here's my idea:

I'm immensely into trading, whether its currencies or stocks, and have been involved for a couple years now. At this point in my trading journey I've decided to custom build a semi-automated trading system. But since I'm in the middle development, thought why not try to help other traders be more successful by offering trading signals based on my trading system.

I won't be offering my entire trading system or it's algorithms, I'm simply interested in providing a notification type of service. The way it'll work is my system will analyze market data, based on that analysis if there is strong evidence for a potential trade a notification will be sent out to subscribers via email or text.

I've narrowed down my target audience to a specific niche that I'm confident has a strong need for general investing help and my service can provide them that help. I've also taken my niche into how I plan on branding my business and translated that into my end product. Was also thinking of creating a site blog that helps traders who use the signal service better interpret the signals my system produces.

Once I've finished the development of my automated trading system, my ultimate goal is to trade my own live account using this system (it'd be nice if my signals service could fund my account). As I don't want to ever sell my complete system, I've been toying with the idea creating a fund that trades using the system I create. But that's just a thought, not sure if I'll want to go down that route as being a fund manager sounds stressful.


Anyways that my idea for a SAAS, what do you think?
 

bernieshawn

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@bernieshawn AWESOME DESCRIPTION. Thank you this is really helpful to dig into. Ok, 1) PM software specific to niches is a fantastic product idea I've helped people design several solutions like this. 2) It's way too complicated, pick your top 2 features and pitch them on that, save learning algorithms, ramifications, and "pretty design" for later versions. You need to focus on the value proposition. What two features are the core of your product? I'm guessing it's task input and task assignment. Focus on those and don't spend any more money than you need to. This is an easy $10K application, find 20 businesses ready to pay 5 months ahead at $99/month and land some presales. You pitch has to walk them through the thought process that will bring them to the same conclusions that you have made that this product actually will save them $1,000 month. Your pitch deck should tell your customer's story as it is now, and how much better that story will be with your product. How many businesses are in your target industry, at least 30K? If you want to keep it private PM me with your feature set I can show you what to keep and what to cut from your list.

Awesome, thanks! Couple questions if you don't mind:

1. About cutting stuff out: My worry is that I'll cut too much out and then not be any better than the existing solutions. Or should I only go for people who aren't using anything yet, and worry about taking people away from other solutions later? Or just really hit on the "we're super simple, so that's why we're better" point?

2. I'll PM you the URL to the clickable mockup for this, would love your input. It is pretty simple so far (I haven't even added the learning system/gamification stuff yet, haha).

3. How do you estimate market size and the reasonable size of the opportunity? I'm getting different numbers from different places, but there are somewhere in the range of 20K - 90k businesses in this industry. Ibisworld says 90k total businesses in this industry but the largest professional association in this industry has 20k businesses (I've been checking every prospect site I look at and almost all are members, so they're pretty standard). LinkedIn says around 20k as well.

Of those, about 50% will be in my target firm size (1-20 employees). That's about 10k businesses at a minimum... what market share % do you think is reasonable to expect to capture? I'd be happy with 5%, but I don't know if that's realistic.

4. Any tips of finding my first pre-sale prospects on a budget? The ones that I've gotten so far have come from cold emailing people. I tried running a FB ad to a LaunchRock landing page with not great results (good optin rate, bad lead quality). I think LinkedIn ads might do well, but they're super expensive.

Thanks again!
 
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tafy

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@tafy, again very competitive space and the overhead to get started is huge. I don't think it would cost more than $50K to get started but it's so dependent on the relationships you build with the hotels. In addition, look for value propositions that net $100-$200 per sale, $75 per booking is going to be very erratic based on travel frequency, weather, quality of hotels, you name it. A better way to look at this is, who else needs booking that doesn't have a good solution right now? Something smaller like private car dealerships or yoga studios. Go talk to businesses of that scale if you want to pursue this type of product and ask them what their challenges are, is scheduling really an issue? If so, how much money are they losing because of their inefficiencies?

Ok I think you misunderstand me a little, not $75 per booking but $75 per hotel per month.

Actually my figures were way off for 14k customers, I would only need 1,100 customers (hotels) paying $75 a month.
 

alexanderkjones

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@mentalic I've got similar concerns for you in that you're heading into a very competitive space. I checked out your site and I think I get your sales issue. You've got to present your value proposition clearly which is "We've got the easiest shopping cart for wholesalers. period." I don't see that anywhere in your copy and I'm assuming that's why you're having challenges pitching to clients. That may not be it, but I have some insight if it's useful. Here are some tips:

1) Focus on the one thing you do really well : making ecommerce easy for wholesalers

2) Walk them through the customer story, show them why what they are doing is so complicated, really make it visible to them and show them the problem you are solving and how much it is costing them

3) Now show them your solutions, walk them through it don't just have screen shots. What happens when they first log in, how easy is it to set up a product, how is it going to help them land the sale effortlessly. You'll want all that information on your website.

Golden Rule: It's not about how you do something or your fancy features, clients care about how it changes their personal experience

Golden Rule #2: Don't assume your customer "gets it", walk them through the customer experience step by step by step to prove your point.

4) If you're waiting you're doing something wrong. You should be pitching online, via phone, via Skype, however you can get in front of people. Once you do that you'll feel comfortable enough to offer scarcity pricing which will actually close deals. You may be doing this already, but for those that aren't, scarcity pricing is when you say "Here's my awesome thing, here's how it's going to change your life, my first ten clients get 50% and I've only got 3 spots left. If this isn't right for you that's totally cool but as soon as I walk out this door the price doubles" Sometimes you want to give them a window like a week. Send them reminders throughout the time period. Guaranteed you'll get all your signups at the very last second, that's how humans work. But you've got to apply some pressure and incentive. Remember, abundance is everywhere, you'll never run out of potential clients. Even if you're giving incredible value people need more than that to make a decision, it's just how human psychology works.

Lastly, don't worry so much about testimonials. Make your first sales face to face even via Skype. If you walk them through the experience and it makes intellectual sense that your product is fantastic and you're offering them special pricing they should take it based on your pitch not based on other people.

Caveat: As a startup you'll only attract early adopters which is why I say don't worry about testimonials. Wait for testimonials after you've hit 5-10% market saturation, then you'll be hitting the earl majority which will want to see other people using the product before they buy in.

Sorry guys I've got to run into a meeting but I will answer the rest of you first come first serve tonight! Give me some feedback is this useful?

 

mentalic

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@mentalic I've got similar concerns for you in that you're heading into a very competitive space. I checked out your site and I think I get your sales issue. You've got to present your value proposition clearly which is "We've got the easiest shopping cart for wholesalers. period." I don't see that anywhere in your copy and I'm assuming that's why you're having challenges pitching to clients. That may not be it, but I have some insight if it's useful. Here are some tips:
1) Focus on the one thing you do really well : making ecommerce easy for wholesalers
2) Walk them through the customer story, show them why what they are doing is so complicated, really make it visible to them and show them the problem you are solving and how much it is costing them
Awesome notes...

3) Now show them your solutions, walk them through it don't just have screen shots. What happens when they first log in, how easy is it to set up a product, how is it going to help them land the sale effortlessly. You'll want all that information on your website.
Golden Rule: It's not about how you do something or your fancy features, clients care about how it changes their personal experience
Golden Rule #2: Don't assume your customer "gets it", walk them through the customer experience step by step by step to prove your point.
Right...

4) If you're waiting you're doing something wrong. You should be pitching online, via phone, via Skype, however you can get in front of people. Once you do that you'll feel comfortable enough to offer scarcity pricing which will actually close deals. You may be doing this already, but for those that aren't, scarcity pricing is when you say "Here's my awesome thing, here's how it's going to change your life, my first ten clients get 50% and I've only got 3 spots left. If this isn't right for you that's totally cool but as soon as I walk out this door the price doubles" Sometimes you want to give them a window like a week. Send them reminders throughout the time period. Guaranteed you'll get all your signups at the very last second, that's how humans work. But you've got to apply some pressure and incentive. Remember, abundance is everywhere, you'll never run out of potential clients. Even if you're giving incredible value people need more than that to make a decision, it's just how human psychology works.
Fortunately we are not waiting. I have hired two people to cold call companies and we have some warm leads. However we don't have scarcity pricing, which I think is a very good idea.

Thank you very much for your input! Very valuable. I will discuss every point with my partner and will keep you informed.
 
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codo3500

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@codo3500 Hey Man! So, LaunchVal definitely shows your talents for graphic design, this is a great landing page for your product. This is a great idea, it's a competitive space but there's room, however there's much lower hanging fruit. Is there a way you can pitch this to businesses vs individuals as a niche testing platform. What about insurance companies or real estate? Just some thoughts here, but I'm curious about how much work it will be to drive traffic here against the competition. There must be industries that don't have a tool like this that need it, entrepreneurs have 10 choices plus for lead page building and while the credit card option is innovative, everyone will copy it if it becomes successful. Dig deeper, who's never heard of landing pages and needs better market testing in their industry. Be more than happy to brainstorm with you on this.
I'm actually a Real Estate Agent, so that's awesome you think there may be a need somewhere related to that. We completely realise the Credit Card thing will be ripped off by our competitors, it's just a nice feature to kick off with while we play catch-up with everything else and build an all-encompassing product.
In Real Estate (at least here in Australia) we only need to find sellers, not buyers. The problem is, even awesomely designed landers don't land you appraisals, and the CPC for "Market Appraisal" or "Sell my house" is intensely high. Traffic becomes the issue with most of these kinds of ideas, it's hard to get enough people to the page affordably to make it work.
 

alexanderkjones

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@codo3500 Oh man, you're in Real Estate!? What does your agency need? You're right in the belly of the beast man, start asking the decision makers in your agency what their biggest challenges are, what are their barriers to growth? You've got a front line seat to the action and you can totally dominate. Find an expensive problem they have, validate it across a random sampling of 20 other agencies and go to town. If this is a route you want to go let me know and I'll write a post about customer interviews.

@mentalic Awesome! Glad this was useful! PS Thank you VERY MUCH for the rep points. Much appreciated my friend.

@skekasaurus A good friend of mine runs http://tradershark.com, incredible business, it's tricky but if it's your love I would definitely say go for it. You'll be trading your time for money in most cases but in time when your algorithms come together it can scale. I'm not sure this has $1,000,000 potential but it's definitely a great lifestyle doing what you love. Keep in mind though, the market is traded by computers now a days and now matter how good your algorithm is you'll constantly need to tweak it as the big trader's computers catch up especially as more people follow you. What you're really creating here is a brand around trading, you're building an information product/service and it's consumer based which is going to restrict you unless you can prove that you can make people $2,000/month on average if they follow exactly what you tell them to do. You'll be able to charge $200/month and make out like a king with enough loyal members. They'll be dependent on you so get ready to lead your trading nation.

@bernieshawn OK Now we're getting into tactics! Here we go:

1) Cut everything but the one thing you're doing differently in your chosen market. If you're market has never seen PM software before just give them the basic features. If it's a competitive space only offer the one thing you do differently that sets you apart. I know it sounds scary but we hold much higher expectations that our clients do. Trust me, they'll tell you if it's not enough, but let them tell you don't assume.

2) I'll look for that PM

3) Always go for infinite upside which means taking the low end of your numbers into account. Let's say there's only 20K in your market, 10K of which actually fit your target, if you were to get 1% that's 100 businesses paying you what I hope is a $200/month product, that's $20K/month, $240 a year. Is that inciting? Does that get you to your personal outcomes? How do you expect this business to change your life? If the worst case scenario will get your to your outcome you know it's a buy. There's just too many opportunities out there to go for anything less.

4) Your first presales will be in person. Physically go to these people asking for advice on how to make this the most useful product for them. People will always love to tell you what they think about a product. Get their thoughts and dig deep, how much is the problem you're solving really worth? How many man hours are they wasting? How much do they pay people per hour? Have them walk you through the math to value the size of the problem you are solving. You'll be able to charge 10% of the money you save them, that's about it so make sure it's good. Shoot for landing your first 5 clients locally so you can keep communications fluid. If you're in a real niche expand a bit, but try to work some warm introductions in that case.

Who do you know that can introduce you to your ideal client? Don't know anyone? Go to a trade show or conference. Don't tell anyone what you're working on, simply make friends and build contacts. Have fun! If people ask what you do you say your a software developer. Later, once you've made these connections reach back out to them and ask them for input on your idea. Don't try and sell them, ask them if they know anyone who they think could really value from the service. Remember, it's always about offering value.

Golden Rule: If your product isn't truly valuable...ditch it. You'll spend more money and time selling a bad product than you will a great idea.

@tafy I'm not giving you a hard time here, but if you're only getting $75 per hotel that makes the situation worse. Look, this thing works on paper I'll give you that but it's so dependent on the hotels and the startup costs are high. My gut says don't do it. Plan to get 100 users in the first year, make sure that just getting 5 will get you excited and make a significant change to your personal lifestyle. You want to feel success at every stage of the game right from the beginning so you're pulled towards a compelling future.

BooYah! Who's next? Still looking for that $1M Idea Fellas... PS You can submit more than one :)
 

mikekob

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I'll have a crack at it.

In emergency medicine a heart attack gets treatment starting by the paramedics. They obtain an EKG in the field and initiate an emergent transport to the hospital. Currently the medic interprets the EKG, which may be incorrect due to poor EKG skills and cause the hospital to call a "cardiac alert." Currently very few agencies have the ability to transmit the EKG which is done through a ridiculously expensive program that can only be used if that monitors vendor places the receiving unit in the ER. After a conversation yesterday this is 250k just for the installation and isn't global. Only certain ambulances have the ability to transmit.

The whole idea is to shorten a "door-to balloon" time and prevent further heart damage. These activations can be called inappropriately by the medic which has a massive impact on the hospital.

Per false call the hospital uses approx 9k in supplies to ready the room. The success rate in the Denver area is about 45%. One hospital reported 9 false activations in the last three months of 2013. So a minimum of 81k in 3 months.

Another medic and I have created a notification system to alert the hospital by in-house B2B apps. Hospital has one end, medics have the free app on their phone. Any medic with an iPhone or droid can participate and the hospital pays for the SaaS and device in their ER.

As for numbers I'm still trying to figure out the numbers but were looking at a tiered price structure. A small hospital would be spending just under 100k a year where the larger ones are looking at high 100's. Again the pricing is up in the air so if anyone has input I'm all ears.

We have a meeting Monday with a group that owns 8 hospitals and 4 clinics. This would probably be just over a million a year for all 12 facilities. So there's your million.

As for money saved by the hospitals it's hard to say as there isn't a product that does this yet. We look at the alerts and try to recoop that money. So were saving at least 9k per false call. This doesn't include other areas like shorter hospital stays, less rehab, better statistics for the hospital and the ability to obtain better accreditation and other marketing perks.

So not only does this save a shitload of money but the patients will have a much better quality of life due to shorter times to treatment and better preparation from the hospital.

Currently we need a website built, or at least a landing page to have some presence on the web.

Mike
 
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Fulfilled

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Hey man, thanks for this thread, we all appreciate it.

What I want to do is build a SaaS product to solve problems managing field service businesses. Like this:

http://getjobber.com

The problem is, competition is rough. Google search "field service management software" and you'll get 15-20 different established companies. Do you think it's worth pursuing despite this?

One more question. How would you approach building a SaaS product like Jobber? I was thinking to remove all the unnecessary features out of Jobber's big feature set, build a lean product, then gradually add more features. But other than that, I can't see how I can do it much differently from them. Like I said in my last thread, the pain points I found were addressed sufficiently already. There is no need it seems. Perhaps I should continue to look for more pain points?
---
This idea a definitely worth 1,000,000 by your description. The problem costs more than 2000$ by far and the field services industry is HUGE. The only thing that's preventing me from starting is because I won't have a USP to differentiate from the competition!
 
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throttleforward

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Currently the medic interprets the EKG, which may be incorrect due to poor EKG skills and cause the hospital to call a "cardiac alert."

Does your system still require medic intepretation of the 12 lead?

Also are you looking at stroke alerts as well? Richmond had a stroke alert program so that patients could get priority transport and treament at a stroke center with appropriate emergency CT and antithrombolytic capabilities.
 

mikekob

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We do interpret in the field. I'm a paramedic at Denver Health and were in the high 90's for our accuracy. Other agencies are required to interpret as well but they're not exactly the best at it. That's where the metro area 45% comes from. Mostly from a certain agency and "dual role" fire dept.

Thought is not to micro manage EMS, but to have better preparation instead of calling blindly.

We do use the stroke alert and this will be used for a video conf with the docs prior to arrival to the ER. Same as cardiac alert for the most part.
 
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alexanderkjones

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@mikekob This is brilliant, I love that you already have your system in place in current hospitals because initially I would say that would be your first big hurdle. One paper it looks like you're saving thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars so just charge the hospitals by average volume or cut them a price that's 10% of the total lost revenue in false positives on cardiac preps.

So let me just be clear here, you're eliminating the EMT's interpretation by transmitting the EKG data to someone back at the hospital for analysis correct? How are you transmitting the data? Are you capturing it yourself with a your own EKG monitor attached to an iPhone or are you pulling data from some other capturing device to transmit? I own a wireless sensor networks company so I'm probably making this too complicated.

Over all, let's look at your risks here. 1) Is all the technology ready or do you have to develop some hardware and 2) What's your liability dealing with all this life and death data?

Overall very impressed, would love to hear more about this!

@Fulfilled Great questions. First, Jobber is a generic field service management system. Take the best parts of it an apply it to a niche that has a unique field protocol. There's got to be a niche industry that works in the field that this software is way too complicated for and doesn't fit all their needs. Think pool guys for example, they would need something like this, but they would also find it incredibly useful to have a job history, products the client likes put in their pools, wether it's heated, how to get through the security gate, etc etc etc. Jobber offers custom fields which means they are leaving it up to the client.

GOLDEN RULE: Never Leave Anything Up To The Client

Seriously, you can take the routing and scheduling from jobber and just go to town remaking this application for niche markets that are losing money by not being prepared when they go on site. Lost jobs, extra trips, this stuff has got to be running rampant. Go find the expensive problems! PS check out stripe and moon clerk for payment gateways so your customers can take credit cards.
 

throttleforward

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I'm a paramedic at Denver Health and were in the high 90's for our accuracy
I hear that's a good system. Too bad there is such a dropoff in quality around your area - I assume it was the same at Richmond.

Not to get too off topic, but I always wanted to invent a paramedic assist device that would combine a vent, monitor, AED, autopulse and a computer controlled drug box tied to an IO line. That way all the medic has to do is strap the autopulse, intubate and hook up the vent, place the IO line, and hit "start ALCS protocol". No messing with IV bags, locks, drawing up meds out of a drug box in the back of a moving ambulance, poor compression rates, over ventilating because the poor firefighter you pulled to help out has never had to do it for real, not giving drugs on time, etc. I'm suprised all this technology - which is sitting around the ambluance in pieces - hasn't been put together.
 

mikekob

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We don't have it in any hospitals yet. That's what our meeting Monday is for. There are "similar" systems out there but I've never seen them in place. Very expensive, only agencies with certain monitors are able to participate which is difficult because of the ten+ agencies here there's 5 different monitors in use.

The medics still interpret and treat and transport based off their clinical findings. The only difference is whether or not the hospital activates and therefore wastes the thousands of dollars. The goal us not to eliminate the paramedics ability to interpret in the field but with such poor numbers there's gotta be a solution. Hence me and my product.

Hardware is Apple hardware. As for the software it's still under wraps. I'd love to share more but right now I can't. Takes the mystery out of it. Ha ha

Liability is zero. Well, we need to adhere to HIPAA standards which this does and more.

We've been developing this over the last year or so and to this day I have yet to hear a single shred of a downside.

I got the first draft of our white papers done this morning. I'd love to trade you some knowledge of our product for your input based off those papers if you shoot me your email.

You'd be surprised how simple this whole product is. Our MVP is just about done minus some testing but were looking at almost no overhead.

Mike
 
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mikekob

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I hear that's a good system. Too bad there is such a dropoff in quality around your area - I assume it was the same at Richmond.

Not to get too off topic, but I always wanted to invent a paramedic assist device that would combine a vent, monitor, AED, autopulse and a computer controlled drug box tied to an IO line. That way all the medic has to do is strap the autopulse, intubate and hook up the vent, place the IO line, and hit "start ALCS protocol". No messing with IV bags, locks, drawing up meds out of a drug box in the back of a moving ambulance, poor compression rates, over ventilating because the poor firefighter you pulled to help out has never had to do it for real, not giving drugs on time, etc. I'm suprised all this technology - which is sitting around the ambluance in pieces - hasn't been put together.

Well I will throw this out there. Once this initial system is in place we will be going even harder towards an iPad based ePCR that links directly to the hospital notification side. From there were planning a heart monitor that uses the iPad interface, Bluetooth capnography, Bluetooth stethoscope that then records lung sounds and possibly a bp cuff. That one already exists though.

We figure about ten years and we'll start relaxing a bit. EMS is the red headed step child of tech. Not anymore if we have anything to do with it.

Denver Health is pretty good. Busy, urban, and busy. I'm averaging about 1100 calls a year. You wouldn't happen to be on emtlife would you? The whole shebang with the auto pulse and everything was a thought we had but it's way down the road.
 

alexanderkjones

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@Mike.B I'm not sure who this question was fielded to but almost every piece of equipment in most industries has a serial control port. I'm sure there's ways to bring it all together.
 
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Stephanos83

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Well I will throw this out there. Once this initial system is in place we will be going even harder towards an iPad based ePCR that links directly to the hospital notification side. From there were planning a heart monitor that uses the iPad interface, Bluetooth capnography, Bluetooth stethoscope that then records lung sounds and possibly a bp cuff. That one already exists though.

We figure about ten years and we'll start relaxing a bit. EMS is the red headed step child of tech. Not anymore if we have anything to do with it.

Denver Health is pretty good. Busy, urban, and busy. I'm averaging about 1100 calls a year. You wouldn't happen to be on emtlife would you? The whole shebang with the auto pulse and everything was a thought we had but it's way down the road.

Your idea sounds very good and interesting. I hope you're taking measures to make your process and service proprietary. There are a lot of giants in the medical and bio-medical industries, and they may try to crush you if this idea gains traction.
 

mikekob

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Your idea sounds very good and interesting. I hope you're taking measures to make your process and service proprietary. There are a lot of giants in the medical and bio-medical industries, and they may try to crush you if this idea gains traction.
This is also on the plate. Probably next week after our initial meeting. Were a little busy til then. But yes this is definitely a priority. Should we have the VP's sign an NDA at our meeting Monday?
 

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