Ideas are a dime-a-dozen, but I can't find the right one...

[Bing]

I read TMF when it first came out, and started my SaaS company (with a 50/50 partner) in 2014. We just crossed $100k/month in revenue (projecting $1.5m this year) with 76% profit margins. Needless to say, TMF was a huge success for me.

During that time I've become known as the best software engineer in my industry, and made a bunch of connections in the process. Some of those connections have (strongly) suggested we go into a new space: Short Term Rentals (think: AirBnB, VRBO).

I built a productocracy, always over-servicing our customers, so marketing and sales should be pretty easy thanks to our connections and reputation. The problem I have is: I don't own any rental properties, so I'm not sure what product I can launch that would provide value to my customers.

How do you guys go about finding a value proposition in a market you, yourself, do not have any experience in?

 

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[fastlane_dad]

I read TMF when it first came out, and started my SaaS company (with a 50/50 partner) in 2014. We just crossed $100k/month in revenue (projecting $1.5m this year) with 76% profit margins. Needless to say, TMF was a huge success for me.

During that time I've become known as the best software engineer in my industry, and made a bunch of connections in the process. Some of those connections have (strongly) suggested we go into a new space: Short Term Rentals (think: AirBnB, VRBO).

I built a productocracy, always over-servicing our customers, so marketing and sales should be pretty easy thanks to our connections and reputation. The problem I have is: I don't own any rental properties, so I'm not sure what product I can launch that would provide value to my customers.

How do you guys go about finding a value proposition in a market you, yourself, do not have any experience in?

Congrats on your success so far. Your post is mildly confusing. Are you looking to enter or create a product (software) for a whole new industry? Or are you looking to rent out property? Are you still going to be working on your business (that's growing and successful?) You are set to clear more than 550K profit for yourself this year - don't take your eyes of the prize.

Just because someone 'strongly' suggests something does not mean you need to be pursuing it. Unless you know what you are going to be adding to that space, or what your value add will be and have close to a good clear picture of that - why would you be entering that space? You can always network further, figure out pain points, see what you can improve etc and go from there.

Best of Luck!

 

[Bing]

Great advice, thank you. Yes, I am set to clear those numbers, and I'm certainly not looking for zero-value business (in fact I kind hate day-traders, because you don't add value by trading stocks).

That said, I do feel like being able to notice an opportunity is a skill I'm weak on, but also one which is blatantly obvious for me here. Hence my post. I'm not looking to launch some stupid product in a market I'm not versed in; I want a productocracy or nothing at all. But I don't own any STRs at the moment, which is why I am soliciting advice on how to accelerate learning in an unfamiliar market.

I think I might just attend a large trade show in June, but was hoping to launch before then (I know that sounds short, but I have a 5-year head-start on product dev thanks to my existing business).

 

[fastlane_dad]

Great advice, thank you. Yes, I am set to clear those numbers, and I'm certainly not looking for zero-value business (in fact I kind hate day-traders, because you don't add value by trading stocks).

That said, I do feel like being able to notice an opportunity is a skill I'm weak on, but also one which is blatantly obvious for me here. Hence my post. I'm not looking to launch some stupid product in a market I'm not versed in; I want a productocracy or nothing at all. But I don't own any STRs at the moment, which is why I am soliciting advice on how to accelerate learning in an unfamiliar market.

I think I might just attend a large trade show in June, but was hoping to launch before then (I know that sounds short, but I have a 5-year head-start on product dev thanks to my existing business).

It's confusing. What is it exactly that you are 'launching' and why? A platform for listing STR? You don't need to own any STR to make a platform where people can list theirs.

What's the point of your 'seeking' opportunity - to make more money? Increase your skillset? Leave your current business?

Why are you attending the trade show? What are you hoping to gain from that?

As far as learning, there are TONS of resources online - and I'm sure with a successful business you can find your way around the web for learning ANYTHING you are unfamiliar with.

What is the SPECIFIC industry you are looking to learn more about?

 

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[Bing]

I was hoping to "launch" a product that provides value to the Short Term Rental (I'll call it STR for short) market. Not trying to compete with AirBnB or VRBO as platform for listing STRs, but rather something to help STR owners with their time-sucks.

I'm interested in doing this for three reasons:

1. I think I'm well positioned to add value here given my current technology,
2. my first venture now only takes up 10-20 hours a week (and I'm happy working 60) so I am interested in self-growth (seeing if I can go wide instead of deep). Since my current product is very "customer deep" (small # of customers, deep penetration) instead of having a sales/support team I'd like to see if I can "go wide" (large # customers, low cost) as a personal challenge, and
3. of course I'd love to capitalize on a large market for profit (again, if I can provide value).

The goal from the trade show would be to identify HOW I can leverage my technology to provide value to this market by talking to current STR owners. I have built a suite of tools to enable business automation which (not to brag) can do some pretty powerful stuff with just a few clicks. But as I learned 4 years ago: selling technological solutions to non-tech users doesn't work. I'm better off packing it into a VERY obvious, VERY targeted value proposition and selling that.

You asked for the specific industry, and hopefully I've already made that clear in this post: B2B software to automate the workflows for STR owners to buy-back their time at a discount. For example: imagine you spent 100 hours a month managing your 8 STR properties, and with my software I could drop that to 15 hours a month. Wouldn't you pay $100/month for it, valuing your time at over $1.42/hr? Going conservatively: even if I could only drop it to 80/hr a month (a 20% time saving) it would still be a savings if your time was worth at least $5/hr.

When I built my first product I did so with some generalizations that I could expand it to other markets. But I'm not so naïve to pretend I know any other markets yet. That's why I asked "How do you guys go about finding a value proposition in a market you, yourself, do not have any experience in?" and also why I'm thinking I should attend the trade show, solely as research.

 

[HIGHLIFESIPPER]

I think I might just attend a large trade show in June, but was hoping to launch before then (I know that sounds short, but I have a 5-year head-start on product dev thanks to my existing business).

Just curious Bing. Is the trade show you're talking about in Nashville?

 

[Bing]

Just curious Bing. Is the trade show you're talking about in Nashville?

It is. See you there?

 

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