How do you find or validate an app/SaaS idea, to the point where you actually decide to go build it?
I hadn't expected so many people to comment on my previous article, and I also had in-depth discussions with a number of developers.
A very interesting question：
How do you discover or validate an app or SaaS idea before code?
or Where does the idea come from that makes you commit to building a new app or SaaS?
Or: what actually pushes you over the line into starting a project?
And here's the more interesting version of it — SaaS and apps are already fiercely competitive, and it's only getting worse, so how do you find a good idea at all?
A wrong idea is expensive — it burns money, time, energy, and people.
I've shipped a lot of SaaS and apps by now, but there are still stretches where I honestly don't know what to build next. I just sit in front of the screen, staring, scouring the world for an idea.
Some possible approaches:
-
Future profit data. The most direct proof an idea is right — and impossible to get. If you have it, please @ me relentlessly, haha.
-
Having talked to a real slice of the target users for that idea. This is really doing the distribution before the building. The catch: research can't guarantee the idea will succeed either.
-
The developer observes and thinks about the world, and has a flash of insight. These people are frightening. That level of perception isn't ordinary — they'd succeed at anything.
I saw someone make the point that we're all too similar to each other, so our ideas end up heavily overlapping. His point was: if you want a good idea, you have to become a different kind of person in real life — go push yourself to extremes, for instance. I forget who said it, but there's something to it.
-
The developer hits a problem themselves, and goes and solves it.
-
Just ask AI.
And so on.
My own experience: some of my ideas came from daily life, some straight from asking AI — neither worked well. So I started combing through app reviews, reading Reddit, checking search volume. That process drove me crazy, so I built RightIdea to do it for me.
It can't guarantee the ideas it surfaces and validates are right, but that doesn't make it worthless either — call it limited value.
It offers a way to discover and validate ideas, but it's a reference point.
because at the end of the day, it's the people who've actually used these products who really know.
If you've got a tool that tells you with 100% certainty that an idea is right — i.e. future profit data — please @ me like crazy, haha. Thanks again.
New on the RightIdea roadmap: pulling in G2 SaaS reviews too. Stay tuned.
I think a cross-validation approach combining the app and SaaS would be better, allowing both to be utilized. The main thing is that I intend to develop a new SaaS but have no plans to build an app right now; I don't own a Mac, and I have no desire to develop Android apps.
I'm really curious about how you did it—is there a better approach?
The filter that worked for me: would a stranger try this in the first 5 minutes? If not, it's a vitamin, not painkiller. Also — money signals > willingness to pay. Polite feedback is noise. "I'd pay for this" is free; a pre-sale or deposit is signal. Build the deposit page first.
Testing whether a stranger uses the product within five minutes is indeed one way to validate an idea, but that stranger really ought to be—at the very least—part of your target audience. While securing a prepayment or deposit provides excellent data for developers, the challenge lies in the fact that you are approaching users with just a payment page rather than the actual product; why would they pay you? Users might not even pay for a fully finished product, let alone a mere prepayment interface. What’s your take on that? Also, your approach assumes you already have an idea—but where do you find a good idea in the first place?