Identifying SaaS Opportunities

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How do you guys identify SaaS opportunities outside of the IM field?

In the IM field it's quite straight forward to see what processes people are selling in info products and build a complimentary tool, but how do you approach other niches? How do you even find a niche where SaaS is applicable?

I am not talking about the large compliance/managent websites that have big teams behind them. I mean the type of projects that can be handled by a small team of a few talented developers.

Does anyone have a process for finding opportunities?
#programming #identifying #opportunities #saas
  • Hi,

    I am a developer myself looking to collaborate with others in creating an SaaS. Let me know if you get something.
    • [1] reply
    • This is such a great article by Paul Graham of Y-combinator:
      How to Get Startup Ideas

      I have read and re-read this so many times. There is so much great info in there.

      I like what he says about "sitcom" start-up ideas. I have spent a lot of time developing SaaS products in the past that weren't necessarily good ideas. They sounded good, but the key is:

      Can you find several customers who want the product and will pay for it before it has even been built?

      I'm not saying this is easy to do, but it is so important to work backwards and try to find how you will reach the customers and how much they are willing to pay and if the problem is enough of a problem for them to pay money for.

      As a programmer I like to just write code and not have to do some of these things but I have found that it is so important and otherwise I am just wasting time.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I also really like what he said about "clash of domains" which is basically when you know a lot about a topic where there are few programmers.

    It kind of annoys me how there are so many startups that solve problems in the urban, techie niche while ignoring markets like seniors, let's say. It makes sense why that is the case, because startup founders are only going to know about problems they themselves have. However, there are going to be opportunities in these other areas, but yes they are harder to find. This is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about and researching.
  • Kent,

    While I respect Paul Graham, I believe everyone should grab a copy of Eric Ries' book The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses and read it at least twice cover to cover. You need this repetition to help overcome some "common beliefs" held by many aspiring Entrepreneurs.

    The highest hurdle is the "big idea" mentality.... People incorrectly believe you need a "big idea." That is simply a myth...

    Steve Jobs at Apple.... Had no "big ideas." Everything at Apple was a "twist" on something that existed already.

    Bill Gates..... No "big ideas" either......

    I could go on and on....

    The most important thing is to find an existing Market that is profitable...

    You could attempt to be the "Innovator" and create "disruptive" Technology.... The chances of success are slim...

    All The Best,

    Rich Beck BCIP, MCSD, MCIS
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • This I think is the hardest thing of all. Pretty much all of my successful ideas I have stumbled onto by accident.

      For instance when salesforce crm was released I gave it a go and found there was lots of code we had to bolt onto it to get the correct behaviour. Turns out there were a lot of companies with same issue and that was a great niche to be in for a while.

      My personal philosophy is very similar to yours. I like to see someone doing something and think to myself "I can do that better!".

      The problem comes with how to identify the opportunity. I read the daily developer news every day. This keeps me up to date with toolkits, API's and frameworks etc.. that I should be using but doesn't really help me identify profitable niches.

      I asked the same question as in my original post in a few technical forums I visit. For some reason I was met with extreme hostility!

      I was told if I need to ask for help then I should get another profession as it was "easy". I challenged these people to iterate their process but was just met with more insults.

      I am not sure why this attitude was prevalent. All I can think of is that they don't want competition or are in fact not in a position of entrepreneurship and are in fact on a wage and far removed from the actual creative process.

      I talked to a developer the other day who told me about a software he built that bolted onto a popular software for carehomes. It made it easier to manage multiple homes. He was doing very well out of it. He got the idea as someone asked him to build them the system and then he expanded it to offer it to other companies. This is a clear example of a reactive opportunity. I'd like to develop a proactive process for finding opportunities.

      When you look at the internet marketing fields processes for identifying niches, I feel there should be an equivalently well thought out and defined process in the SaaS field.

      I'll be honest I haven't read any books for "startups". I always thought it would be about management processes etc.. but now I am thinking there may be some answers for me there.

      Thanks for your comments and positive attitude guys
  • Maybe rather then looking for a profitable niche look for the problem that needs solving. There are still lots of business's running on spreadsheets and bits of paper or re-keying information from one system to another.

    Talk to them about what they do and why they do it that way. I think once you understand their business you will have a good idea about the whole sector / vertical market that they operate in. From there you can investigate what offerings are already out there (and inevitably there will be in my experience).

    The problem I find is that the offerings that are already out there are feature rich and for me to develop (I'm a developer / designer) and market something of equal scope and usability would take too long ... the mortgage still needs paying after all. But I'm still looking!

    I've almost stopped using other forums!
  • I don't see what SaaS (software as a service) has to do with IM (internet marketing).
    Honestly, there's zero relation here.

    Unless you're selling SaaS, of course.
    • [2] replies
    • Check out Dane Maxwell's approach. His philosophy is very simple. Choose a niche/market then find the biggest pain within that space. Build software to solve the problem.
      • [1] reply
    • I'm not sure what you mean but to clarify my original statement: in IM there are many detailed processes for identifying a niche for an info product, just look in the wso section. Some of these methods are very clever and unearth topics I would never have considered of the top of my head.

      I am working on trying to develop a process for identifying as many niches as possible that I could develop and market a SaaS site to. I would indeed have the end goal of selling access to the SaaS.
  • This is a great post. I am a PHP/Laravel developer; for the past year, the desire to develop a SaaS has been nagging me, too. I just can't seem to identify a promising market/service.
  • Found this book in my search, tempted to give it a read Identifying Hidden Needs: Creating Breakthrough Products: Keith Goffin, Fred Lemke: 9780230219762: Amazon.com: Books
  • I just had a SaaS-gasm. Check out: Discover and get early access to tomorrow's startups - Beta List

    Lots of new SaaS to give you ideas to branch out from
  • Have you tried looking for opportunities where you can build an app that leverages existing technology to make it better?

    Check out some of the addons for basecamp for example. A lot of these are just a simple service that marries two APIs together and charges a membership fee.

    Hope that helps
    TC
    • [1] reply
    • Yeah I built some code for the ACT sdk and then Salesforce in the early days before it was saturated.

      I am only recently realised that basecamp was popular. I think my main problem has been getting my information from a stagnant pool.

      I am now dedicating 2 hours every day to scan reading a wide variety of business and tech blogs. I knew a guy who did very well creating a service that read all of the banking news and condensed it for bankers who were to busy (lazy) to read it themselves. I'd be willing to pay to join a newsletter that digested all the news and gave me stuff relevant to building apps. Maybe that is the real opportunity here? What do people say about selling shovels? The app market is definitely a gold rush type environment right now
      • [1] reply
  • SaaS is a very interested business models for developer.
    I am a developer with experience in PHP, Javascript (JQuery and AngularJS) and a little about Python.
    Ive been researching about good API applications, personally I got one in building process and its logistics related (I studied that on college).
    The other apps its related to social media and many nice reports, marrying all of them like you said.

    There are bunch of ideas for a nice product on the IM niche. You just need to focus on doing polls to many IM.
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    Identifying SaaS Opportunities

    How do you guys identify SaaS opportunities outside of the IM field? In the IM field it's quite straight forward to see what processes people are selling in info products and build a complimentary tool, but how do you approach other niches? How do you even find a niche where SaaS is applicable?