What are best areas to build in now?
Hey Indie Hackers!
What do you think are the most promising / exciting areas to build micro-SaaS in 2022? With all of this buzz around metaverse and Web3, I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
I'm looking for the the next project and I value your opinions.
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I know this thread is about Saas so this is a bit off-topic but I wouldn't sleep on productized services.
If you are really good at this one specific thing and you can wrap it into a product I'd say go for it.
The project in this space that I look up the most is Design Joy (https://www.designjoy.co/) Brett, the guy from the project is currently at 2 mil ARR with zero employees. Some might argue that he pretty much created a job for himself but you can apply the idea behind it and scale it with limited resources.
I've launched my productized service three months ago (http://videodeck.co/) and I'm at 8k MRR as of this week.
If you have a Saas already it might make sense to have an agency or productized service paired with it. That's what I plan on building this year.
Designjoy sounds like anomaly to me. I don't get why people still subscribe since there is no chance you get the right value back? It's impossible to serve all these people as one person.
He has multiple posts on how he manages all those clients.
He does agree that it's not a sustainable way of managing it but it doesn't disprove the productized service model.
Basically you get very little for a lot as a client. I mean it's amazing he's able to do it, but I could never be his client or pretend to others I am giving them a good service.
I really don't get that he doesn't hire more designers. He has the budget and it could be a good business. ATM he's doing a disservice to customers in my POV, that's all.
Well as long as expectations are clearly set and you get what you are promised, I don't see why clients won't sign up or stick around. (in their case I believe you get one request per day that's fulfilled in 3 days)
Regarding hiring more designers, yeah, I don't get it either. :)
My first move after getting 5 clients was to hire one more editor so we can streamline the process.
Great point @heleana, and congrats on the milestone. How many hours per week do you have to put in to hit that kind of sales?
Hey @Sssslyz, thanks so much!
Considering that I've also had a newborn two months before launching, I tried not to put too much time into it but I've built a very capable team.
I have two other co-founders and we have hired + 5 freelance actors.
We have done zero sales efforts. All our leads came from our product hunt launch and from existing connections (80-20). Even if we only got 150 likes on ProductHunt (https://www.producthunt.com/posts/videodeck), it has brought us about 20 leads out of which 5 have turned into returning clients.
We just kickstarted our sales efforts this week. I'll write a longer post on the experience with that.
Thanks for sharing. Yes, I think with the headcount it becomes more manageable. I can't imagine doing this as a one-person agency.
@Sssslyz I wrote a larger piece about it here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/we-turned-our-video-production-side-project-into-an-8k-mmr-productized-service-in-just-3-months-021d0b8c83
Maybe it helps :D
In terms of money, productized services may be a way to go.
However, any service is unsuitable if you have the goal of avoiding customer projects which many SaaS enthusiasts have.
Yes, absolutely. We realised that we are leaving a lot of money on the table by having our pricing displayed on the website and by only offering this one type of service.
However, it's what allows us to grow.
Btw @alexanderdavide I wrote more about it here:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/we-turned-our-video-production-side-project-into-an-8k-mmr-productized-service-in-just-3-months-021d0b8c83
How did you get started on building videodeck, Heleana?
Hey @goutham8 I wrote a larger post about it here:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/we-turned-our-video-production-side-project-into-an-8k-mmr-productized-service-in-just-3-months-021d0b8c83
Just read it. Interesting how Product Hunt has been a key driver of growth for your product :)
@heleana thanks for sharing your thoughts! That's good advice, there are a few things I am good at but I am not sure which one to double down on. When you decided to go with Video Deck, what was an indicator that you should go with that one?
Design Joy looks super cool! How's Brett managing all of these design requests if he has no employees? Did he automate the design creation piece?
Congrats on the early success with Video Deck!
I don't have a SaaS at the moment nor that I am tied to building SaaS. I am open to any good idea and productized services sound attractive too. I am starting fresh hopefully within the next couple of weeks and I need to make a decision on what to focus on building.
Hey @odai
Well, I started with video production as a freelancer. Since I'm an American living in Europe, a german Saas company approached me to create a few explainer videos for their product.
I realized there is a market for a service that similarly approaches video production as large productized services like ContentFly or Scribbly approach content production.
I started with the premise that my market is European Saas companies that want to kickstart their video presence, but so far, our clients are from US and Australia, which came as a surprise. The relatively low price point might've been the reason for that. (a traditional production company charges 10k+ for a video; we charge $750)
The biggest validators were the reviews from our clients. We tend to overdeliver on top of being much cheaper than our competitors, so that's a good recipe for happy clients.
That's awesome; let me know what you end up building. I'd love to help you with a demo video if needed, haha.
@heleana super cool. Thank you for sharing your story! It is amazing that you're able to make your early adopters super happy. It'll pay off in the long run.
I will definitely be posting about whatever I end up building! I will keep you and Video Deck in mind for my demo video needs. Cheers!
Awesome @odai!
Btw I wrote a longer post about Videodeck and the success we've had here:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/we-turned-our-video-production-side-project-into-an-8k-mmr-productized-service-in-just-3-months-021d0b8c83
An upvote would be very much appreciated :)
When someone asks this question, there are usually 2 categories of answers:
a) People that suggest to build based on the latest trending thing (web3/metaverse)
b) People that suggest to build around goals/problems that have existed for a looong time.
I'm more on the side of b). Sure, growth will be slower than if you build the next sexy NFT project, but things will be much more stable as well.
@zerotousers I tend to be on camp b) as well. I would rather address a need (regardless of what tech to use). What do you think are good use cases to address in category b?
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did you seriously just copy paste one of my comments and spam your link at the end? gtfo
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I've been subscribed to this newsletter for quite some time and it's awesome! Very good job Upen :)
Hi Thankyou. More power coming in the form of community and interviews.
Stay tuned.
@upenv that's awesome! Just signed up and I'll be on the lookout for the email on Thursday. Thanks for sharing!
I'd put it this way:
I built a crypto research app that tracks market, social and developer activity for most of CoinGecko's list (13k+ cryptocurrencies), and expanded to track tokens on decentralised exchanges.
One of the major issues I have with building any software in crypto is how the looming regulations will play out. You might live in a fairly crypto-lax country, I don't know. I think it's an unnecessary and difficult obstacle for an indie dev to be distracted by. I can't even build certain, innovative features into my app legally without being properly assessed or registered with a financial authority.. because it will become a "financial service". This is one of the reasons I haven't bothered to release my own cryptocurrency tokens or NFTs or expand with smart contracts.
Someone mentioned DAOs and the same legal uncertainty holds back innovation there, too: https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/fin-tech/1140040/legal-issues-confronting-formation-and-operation-of-a-decentralized-autonomous-organization-dao
I have to be honest I kinda regret investing so much time into building software for crypto. I still think there are tremendous opportunities there and the wider web3 movement (blockchain integration). Be sure you understand all the implications.
Thanks for sharing this. A lot of your insights align with my unvalidated thoughts.
Web3 development is related to so many regulations, it's not really enabling indie hackers to grow small businesses.
@BitGonzo thank you for sharing all of that. It is frustrating to have all of these regulations. I live in Canada so it is similar regulations to what you described. I spent 2 years building Blockchain solutions using Hyperledger which was interesting yet showed me how far we are from a decentralized financial system.
If you were to start fresh today, what would you build (doesn't need to be in crypto necessarily)?
Before I built this crypto app I was working on an edu platform for full-stack web development. Before that an uptime monitor.
If I were to start fresh I would probably build marketing, social media and community building software. If I do move on from crypto that's very likely what I'll work on next. I have too many ideas, though :/ hard to decide what to work on.
Knowing what I know now I doubt very much I'd get into crypto due to the reasons I outlined. Having said that, it's fairly easy to build a product without the complications. I can tell you one major pain point in crypto is extracting, parsing and loading (ETL) blockchain data into a more usable format such as a relational data model, then augmenting with aggregated insights and making it developer friendly. BitQuery do this and their lowest paid plan for the API is $250/m.
@BitGonzo what happened to the Edu platform?
I find marketing to be such an interesting area. Why these 3 areas specifically? Do you feel like there are some unmet needs there? Well, if you're comfortable with it, post your ideas and stress test them!
That's a very interesting use case and I feel like it is niche enough for a 1-person business. Thank you for sharing, I am digging a bit more into it.
The first few years of my journey were a business failure. I spent a year building a complicated geo-distributed uptime monitor that could do all kinds of other automated tests (API contract testing, for eg). Never shipped it! I made the stupid mistake of losing myself in the technology and learning new tools (Elixir, Kubernetes, RabbitMQ).
I find marketing interesting, too. One of the reasons I moved on from my uptime monitor was because I didn't think I could build enough quality content for my marketing strategy as I wasn't that passionate about the world of uptime monitors...
This is why I started building out my real passion (self-education and software dev). I started to build a dev buddy matchmaking system. Still have it mostly built out (uses Elastic Search for facet based matchmaking). The vision is huge, though. It would take me probably 5-10 years to build out the entire platform. Never shipped anything!
Then while I was building that I noticed the hype around crypto and realised how uncharted it was, many kinds of web applications hadn't even been built. I seized what I saw as an opportunity. Hacked together a simple dashboard to shortlist some cryptocurrencies, shared it with a small community and started to iterate. It's the only product I've built and own, and that I've deployed to production and continued to support and expand over time (going on 15 months now).
Primarily because throughout all of this I've found those 3 areas to be the most painful. I'd be able to build software that scratches my own itch. There are some all-in-one social media managers, and community management apps. I don't see (m)any that integrate the two. My strategy would be to combine features from multiple services (I forget the name of this strategy! :/).
Ah, man! I hope you came out of it with lots of learning and relationships!
That's a cool idea. Is it mostly for pair programming? Why not get some help from others who may share a similar interest?
That's awesome! Congrats. It is always important to chip and ship! Glad you have that rolled out in prod now. Best of luck growing that and hopefully making it a mega success.
Ah I see. Something like Hootsuite meets Discord? Or did you have a more specific use case?
For sure learned a lot! I never expected it to be easy.
The dev matchmaker could be used for all kinds of purposes. It has a "looking for" preference and a couple of options are "to mentor" and "to be mentored". Others include to work on side projects, work through self paced courses together. You can specify particular technologies/languages/frameworks and your experience and preferred experience of your match. I would love to get it out one day, I've had decent interest. The only problem is I wouldn't see it as a commercial thing.. it would more be as a flagship feature to bring people into the platform.
Thanks! Good luck with your journey, too!
Not too sure on it. I filed it under "power tools for social media and community management".. at the minute I'm leaving it open to all kinds of possibilities. I would niche down in some way, but the idea would always be to bring tools together under a single service. Communities commonly grow through different social media channels so I wanted to connect that in some way.
#fintech
There is definitely a future with crypto or the metaverse but at the end of the day it all depends on what is interesting to you. TBH crypto and metaverse are far from being what they are being sold as. Crypto is basically fullstack development with some new cryptography features. Metaverse is basically 3D game development. I think taking these buzz words and boiling them down to something simple and tangible is key. When you boiled it down to the bone you need to decide if that bone is the one you want to chew on.
Personally the startup I am working on is more of a process innovation for knowledge transfer, you can check it out here: https://docit.dev/
I am working to solve this problem because I faced this issue at work and could not find the solution I needed. Then I reached out to some friends and they also had the same problem. Knowing that there is a problem that I can help solve is motivating
.
Best of luck :)
@AK_99 thank you for the suggestions! Do you have more specific use cases in these areas that could make it into a niche area? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
NFT ticketing industry are emerging around 18% if Im not mistaken, would love to work on this if I find a good partners. Imagine EO & Artist can govern their resale ticket on secondary market, would be nice right?
@erwinyoi that'd be hella nice. It'd be satisfying to stick it to Ticketmaster too :D
Who are the top players in the NFT ticketing? Do you know of any micro-SaaS in this area?
Idk wether if it micro saas or not, but here is my reff for u https://nftinvestorjournal.com/nft-ticketing-companies/ . Hope this can help find inspiration.
Thanks, @erwinyoi ! Good article and it addresses some of what I have heard is an issue in the ticketing industry (my knowledge of it is very limited and I mostly got to learn about its issues from a segment that John Oliver had on Ticketmaster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Y7uqqEFnY ). I will look deeper into it. I appreciate your thoughts on this.
We are building on tools for modern data stack.
I feel like autonomous organizations are going to be really big projects. Developing and building out tools for DAOs will be a big space, I'm not sure what pain points need to be fixed but there are a lot of new functionality and features that could use improvement.
"what is a DAO? A decentralized autonomous organization is exactly what the name says; a group of people who come together without a central leader or company dictating any of the decisions. They are built on a blockchain using smart contracts (digital one-of-one agreements)."
@Ochoa interesting. I can imagine that this would be an area that would need some innovation. Do you know anyone in a DAO? Curious to hear if they have problems that would be fun / interesting to solve.
I think it’s just a tad early for metaverse. But I do think VR apps are going to be a really good platform to build subscription based businesses in the near future.
If you look at smartphones, and the AppStore. It started in 2008 with everyone writing stupid little games, and flash light apps. A lucky few went viral and made some money, but it was all so gimmicky. By 2012 almost everyone had a smart phone, and this ushered in a golden era of niche software and apps.
I think we’re in 2008 era of VR. Eventually everyone will have a headset, and a whole new world will open up. Lots of opportunities will arise writing VR apps for specialized businesses and use cases.
@shanefromfargo thank you for sharing your thoughts! Good analogy. I agree that it feels like mobile dev in 2008. VR applications definitely feel gimmicky right now and I am sure there will be solutions addressing real needs so I'd love to be a part of that.
What do you think are the top 3 use cases for XR/VR/AR?
If I was starting a business in VR right now, I’d make a company that specializes in VR trade shows.
I’d attend a few trade shows and really get a feel for how they work. Figure out a way attendees can “walk the floor” and chat with vendors in their booth. Also have breakout rooms, calendar of events, classes, etc..
I’d handle all the ticketing and take a cut. I know this is a massive under taking. But it’s where I’d be spending all of my time if I didn’t already run 3 companies.
@shanefromfargo that's a good idea! Thanks for sharing. There is a trade show next weekend where I live so I'll go check it out.
Dumb question, wouldn't "VR walking the floor" be prohibitive given that you'd need a VR headset to do that? In your opinion, what would be the best type of trade shows that may have ideal early adopters?
I'll check out your bio, curious to learn more about what you're working on.
It’s a big bet, but I’d say you’d assume all attendees have a headset. They’ll get more popular as time goes on. Otherwise you’re right, it’d be just another boring Zoom conference.
Not sure if you’ve ever tried an Oculus, but I’d check it out and play some games.
@shanefromfargo that's my worry. I have worked remotely for so long that I am so zoom'ed out. I miss that human interaction (which is why I love flying in to meet and spend time with my coworkers). I find it hard to create the same in-person experience with any of the tech tools (Zoom or metaverse).
I tried it recently after a few years. Things have gotten WAY better. I am contemplating buying one.
Payment infrastructure with cryptocurrencies. I've been thinking about this for a while. There is no quick and simple solution yet, and I think it will bring good profit if this problem is solved in a really simple way. If anyone can build it I can join your team 😄
Not to be a downer, but Stripe just re-entered this space -- and they just enabled payouts via Stripe as well IIRC.
@vados I saw that and that's why I wanted to learn more from @eneskutlay in case he had a specific use case that's too niche for Stripe to pay attention to.
@eneskutlay tell me more! Are you thinking POS that accepts cryptocurrencies for example? Or did you have a specific use case?
It seems that Stripe and others are dipping their toes in this.
@odai @vados I think it won't change much if Stripe enters this market. Crypto users attach great importance to two different issues. The first is decentralization, and the second is too little control. For these reasons, what I actually want to say is not pos accept. Quickly transfer and payment infrastructure between addresses in crypto (I'm excited to create a post about this topic).
I disagree -- I think that as crypto reaches mainstream people will value decentralization as much as the modern user values privacy, which is to say they value it -- but value convenience more.
That said, I'm excited to be proven wrong -- looking forward to your post on the topic.
if pos accepts crypto, it will be a tax filing nightmare. also on low margin businesses, daily swing will kill (or accelerate) the business...
Not necessarily. A stable coin should help with that. If you price your product/service in USD (or your local currency) and convert instantly each crypto payment to a stable coin pegged to USD (or your local currency), you do not hold a coin that fluctuates in value. No capital gain/loss, no tax implications. Similar to a traditional payment in fiat.
@Alienroid that's true. For the first one, it seems that crypto profit is taxes like capital gains. For the second issue, would using a "stable" coin solve that?
Curious to hear your thoughts on how you'd solve the 2 issues you mentioned.
disclaimer, I believe in blockchain technology has some applications. But it's actually not suitable for most applications. I also believe in btc but I can't think of any other applications that REQUIRES blockchain technology (I mean I can think of better solutions without using it).
Capital gain is not an issue, it's just a law that should be followed. Without it, most people would be poor and only people know financial games would be wealthy. So that will always happen when objects of value are exchanged.
On stable coin, why do we need this? just use visa and payment service. They can track fraud better. They use less energy. We live in a world of credits and don't need a coin to replace physical money.
Just my opinions, and things for informed people to think about.
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