35 Ways to Brainstorm SaaS Ideas
For those #indiehackers and #buildinpublic folks, here are some ways to brainstorm ideas. Either using existing SaaS app ideas or other methods.
For those #indiehackers and #buildinpublic folks, here are some ways to brainstorm ideas:
36 Ways to Brainstorm SaaS ideas based on other popular SaaS ideas
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niche down: apply an idea to a narrow audience.
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go micro: take an app and boil it down to one feature.
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different angle: take a well-mined idea and find an angle no one is thinking of.
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go local: take an app and apply it to one city/region/state.
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do less: could you do the idea as a Google Sheet, PDF, Chrome extension, etc?
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streamline/automate: rewrite the app idea to use 50% fewer steps.
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go service: take the app and provide manual service (eliminating user effort).
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the teacher: popular app? create a YouTube or newsletter or course around using it.
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job board it: extremely popular app? create a job board specifically for it.
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the combo: take an app idea and add other info or SaaS ideas to take it to the next level.
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find weaknesses: look up negative reviews on the SaaS and build yours to address these.
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be funny: provide color commentary on an industry/app; leverage the audience
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marketing hole: is there a way the existing SaaS is not marketing to? exploit that.
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security+: take the SaaS idea and market it as more secure.
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different language: translate a successful app and translate to another language.
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affiliate review site: crowded space? make a review/comparison site with affiliate links.
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go upstream: they are solving X; what's the upstream problem? solve that.
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lifestyle analysis: find your root goals; work backward to find an idea that fits that.
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curiosity: what are you curious about; follow that passion; solve problems around that.
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think outsource: if you didn't build the product yourself, what would you do?
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how would they fix it: think of famous developers or marketers; how would they do X?
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unfair advantages: what problem do you have unique skills or knowledge to fix?
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3-day build: what problem or idea could you build out and launch in 3 days?
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first dollar: what idea could you do that will get your first dollar this week?
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your reach: what audience do you have access to? build something for them.
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no code: how could you daisy-chain some existing services to fix X problem?
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bigger pain: you came up with an idea; okay, what's the even bigger problem?
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new opportunity: is there a new platform or law that change that opens up an audience?
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old world: what are industries that will never die? can you solve something for them?
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think smaller: many big apps started very tiny; start small; build from there.
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1/20 view: pretend 19 ideas fail & 1 succeeds; how would you spend your time?
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5-year view: you can build the idea; but do you want to do it in 5 years?
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"mom test": ask businesses about their problems and how they solve them today.
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consolidate info: take existing info out there; consolidate; charge access.
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leverage trends: find untapped search terms; build an app around it.
My other lessons so far:
My personal way of finding idea is either Twitter or Reddit. The main reason is simple. In these platforms, group of communities love to complain.
Which is a jack pot because you have a problem and the where to sell the solution to.
For example for reddit.
Go to the subreddit that you want to be part of.
For example sports.
Then go through the post and the comment and see the votes and engagement and what people are talking about.
From there you can know what people care about and what people are interested on, sometimes its a problem and sometimes it is an opportunity.
For example the sport sub reddit may have somebody post their outdoor gym equipment and then in the comment you might see somebody commenting "is this waterproof" with huge number of upvotes.
So from there you know waterproof gym equipment have some demand.
Here in case you want more detailed step by step for reddit idea scrapping:
HOW TO SCRAP IDEA FROM REDDIT
Definitely bookmarking your article for later so I can try your technique.
This is good stuff 🔥
Thanks for sharing :)
I'd hope to, someday, build on this and create a playbook to generate micro saas ideas.
I agree with your point on niching down. When a lot of new founders start out, they want to do everything... but it's good to remember to focus and provide value instantly and make it easy to understand for the user you're designing for.
Great! Will definitely be using these tips.