Evaluating market trends for my next project
I originally posted this on Twitter but I figured it would be useful here as well. I'm currently thinking about what trends I've seen that I can jump on to build my next project. As Justin Jackson puts it, coming up with a great product is like surfing and you have to recognize a good wave to surf.
When analyzing market trends, talk to everyone in your network and listen to their challenges and pain points. Then research what products already exist to solve those problems. This process repeats itself until you find a problem that is a theme that you feel passionate about.
First let's check out some trends that other indiehackers have found success with (most are bootstrapped and building in public), and then I'll post some trends that I've seen myself:
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More powerful tweets - Tweethunter was created to suggest personalized high performing tweets. Chime Social was created to find the best times to tweet. Oneupapp was created to schedule tweets, to over $50k MRR.
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Social proof - Testimonial.to and Shoutout were created to showcase social proof. Shoutout has grown to over $1k MRR. Both are great products to display your professional testimonials across the web. Every successful product or service now shows social proof on their marketing pages.
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Using GPT-3 to generate copy - Copy.ai (over $157k MRR) and Headlime app (over $20k MRR) were built to automate copywriting. Headlime has successfully been acquired. Both apps use powerful AI technology to generate marketing copy in seconds. (makes it much easier)
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Nocode - Wordpress is a thing of the past and now you can build designer quality marketing pages without code using Dorik and UnicornPlatorm. Both of these are top Producthunt apps. Everyone who has a SaaS should be looking into these.
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Analytics - ilo Analytics was built for simple yet powerful analytics to grow your Twitter account (the founder grew his own account to over 21k followers).
Chartbrew was made to create embeddable dashboard charts. Plausible was built for privacy first website data (> $30k MRR)
Now here is a list of some of the trends I've noticed over the past 12 months which I'll use to think about what to build next.
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Creator marketplace is booming - Everyone is building a course or content to sell, as they should be since there is so much value to be offered. Platforms like
Gumroad, FlurlyApp and Podia make it easy. However, what add-on products do these sellers need such as analytics? -
Customer Support builds brands - CS gives your product an edge versus competitors. What products can potentially test and analyze how good it is? A service that continually sends fake support requests and you can post a seal with your score? Sort of like uptime bragging.
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Twitter networking - I see a tweet at least once a week saying it is better than Linkedin for professional networking. What industries does this apply to and what tools can be added to Twitter to make it easier to find professionals you want to work with?
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Nocode content creation - Bubble is amazing for building apps but it struggles to integrate with blogs. Create a plugin that you can add to your Bubble app to build a blog. Then have a separate platform with an editor to manage all of the content just like any other blog.
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Home contractors - It's currently tough to get ahold of a good home contractor. (GCs, plumbers, electricians, etc...) They are all busy. Tough to get a call back or a quote. How can we make this process better for both the contractors and the home owners?
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SEO acquisitions - Find attractive web domains that that are not maintained or updated anymore. (search ProductHunt by vote count) Sell a list of these either by directory or newsletter. These are valuable to build a new business or direct SEO to an already existing product.
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Copywriting critique - Everyone wants landing page feedback but this has already been done. What about simple copy feedback. A marketplace where you can post snippets of your copy and pay for advice. Perhaps 99designs for copywriting.
That's all for now. Follow me on Twitter to find out what I decide to build.
