Show IH: Which Marketplace? Discover new project opportunities in 50+ software marketplaces
A couple of weeks ago I came across this post by @jay where he was looking for help finding interesting, up-and-coming software ecosystems in which to invest his time building and testing new products.
The post caught my attention because I'm also looking for growing marketplaces on which to build an app / plugin / extension.
We met on Skype, discussed our ideas and laid out an MVP (Airtable spreadsheet), which we'd like to share today.
While eveyone knows the crowded Wordpress Plugin / Theme economy, Shopify Apps, Chrome Plugins we were quite surprised to quickly find more than 50 other promising marketplaces and app stores to build your side project on. We hope it will give you some insight into the breadth of options out there, the size of each marketplace and some ideas for where to look for user problems and new opportunities.
See the database here:
If you'd like to stay in touch or add your thoughts and experiences into the database, check out the “More Info” tab in the spreadsheet.
What is missing? We’d love to hear your opinions!
Patric
Super helpful for expanding product line!
Good one. Much helpful
Nice work Patric & Jay.
A feature request : Ability to sort platform by number of developers (competitiveness) and/or number of customers (opportunity). E.g. I remember counting the numbers of developers on the Shopify App Store and it was ~1200 sometime back. Plus they say they have around 500,000 customers.
Seeing these metrics tells me some quality info and the platform.
Nice work guys. Good luck. Will be following.
Thanks Arjun,
we'll add your suggestions - still figuring out how to get the data - and update it too..
Wow, that's super useful! Not only for new projects but also for the ones that look for a new audience to expand. Thank you a lot!
It would be great to add a column with "score" derived from the interest, so users can sort by it.
Thanks Sasha. Just to clarify, do you mean a score of the interest by search term on Google?
Yup. I'm not sure if it's possible to get an accurate number, or if it's necessary should be derived from Google.
Great initiative and thanks for sharing! The popularity of this post shows that there is quite an interest. What would be the next step to building something? I would be interested in a mentor who has experiences building a product for one of the platforms.
This is great! in fact you save some of us time !
Few markets more :
create plugins and 3d content
https://unity3d.com/
photoshop plugins
https://www.adobe.io/apis/creativecloud/photoshop.html
3dsmax plugins
http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/16/ENU/3ds-Max-SDK-Programmer-Guide/index.html
Awesome, just added them! We might need to find a way to search/filter for types of content like "Plugins" vs. "3D Content" or "Themes"
Thanks!
idea for killer feature: list how many app's / plugins currently listed
to get feel of saturation status .
Great idea, we're currently going trough all feedback and eventually will add the missing data points. I am wondering how you would use an extended list like this to find opportunities and what other value we can provide to you.
Are you open to invest time into a short Skypecall or discuss more details via E-Mail? If yes, just add me on Twitter or send an email (see profile). Talk soon!
sure , i will love to exchange ideas and feedback
So which of the marketplaces listed are fastest growing?
Still working on that! Watch this space.
Thanks for the list guys
Hey @washie, thanks! We are currently evaluating how to make the v2 of the list even more useful for you. I'd like to learn more on your ideas and the use cases you find interesting. Are you open to invest a few minutes into a short call? Lets schedule via @patrics on Twitter or schmid.patric@gmail.com
cool spreadsheet
Hi @cosimo - thanks! We're going trough the feedback and I'd love to know how you would use the spreadsheet for your personal use cases. Maybe finding your perfect side business idea trough it?
Are you open to invest a few minutes into a short call? Lets schedule one via @patrics on Twitter or schmid.patric@gmail.com
This is great! Thanks Patric
Brilliant idea !!
Posted on my FB wall! Thanks
Awesome, thank you. Have a great weekend!
Fantastic list, couple of suggestions to add:
https://messenger.fb.com/
https://storebot.me/
Thanks, any other bot platforms you know of?
I think Telegram is a pretty big one.
Will post if I think of more.
Virtual reality might also be an interesting platform to track - https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/
Looks helpful. As a designer I'm wondering if there could be a separate design section. Like plugins / extentions for Photoshop, InVision, Sketch, or even After Effects. Or the stock assets market – images, templates, etc.
I know more about those markets as a consumer then as a creator.
Great point, Jeremy. As a designer it's a bit embarrassing I overlooked those! We might add them in a future iteration.
Hey,
great idea. I can see that this is really helpful. Especially to see the stories of others that have build something for this platform.
I'm already thinking about some arbitrage possibilities of porting existing succesful plugins for e.g. Shopify over to PrestaShop or whatever :)
One thing that might be already mentioned is that I would love to have a rating for the potential of the platform. How many users does it have? How many apps are there already in the app stores/marketplaces? Is there a positive trendline for the platform? This would be tremendously helpful in my opinion.
Good point Marius,
I think there is a lot of opportunity in porting success products to a smaller, but emerging, marketplace. Just think about the beginning of Android where you could just look at the iTunes app charts for inspiration.
We have been thinking about a way to display Users, Apps, Visits, Size and a Trend line... Any idea how to automaticially gather all this?
As someone that is just now starting to try and figure out their "ecosystem" all I can say is WOW. This is already super useful - there's more relevant information about more diverse products in less space than I have ever seen - and the potential for it to grow even better is huge - a BIG thanks for making this available!
You're Welcome!
Feel free to add and collaborate If you happen to stumble upon something new!
Awesome! This is very helpful. I'd like to see a submission option to add a marketplace to an awaiting approval list.
You should be able to suggest marketplaces trough the "more Info" tab on Airtable
Thank you for sharing this valuable resource.
You're welcome Abraham!
Hey Patric, you asked for my feedback :) I'm non-tech, so I'm never going to build anything on any of these :) But, as a user, I'm ALWAYS on the hunt for new chrome plugins, Google docs/drive add-ons, and wordpress plugins. I also use Hubspot and Slack tho don't typically seek out integrated tools. Very minimal, standard use.
Hey there Lindsay,
thank you!
Never say never ;-)
good call!
Great idea! Maybe would be cool to get some more data like:
add-ons
developers
downloads
devs revenue
users
etc.
Good point, how important would be historical data to you? Like the same stats for the last 12 months...
Probably it will be good but I'm not sure how easy to find it. So I will be super happy to get atleast for last month
By the way, we’re also looking to add all of your “creator experiences”. If you're familiar with one of the marketplaces feel invited to add your thoughts and experiences for other IHers to learn!
We already featured the stories of @coreymaass Wordpress Plugin, @rikki Xero addon, @Romain_Vialard making 70k on G-Suite, @gthartley Shopify App, @DanielAlm Mac-App, @BartoszHernas Stamp App and @Hercule Android App.
Thanks for the feature @jay! Let me know if you need any extra information from me.