I keep finding the same problem with small businesses taking custom orders through DMs
I’ve been looking at how small sellers manage custom orders coming through Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook.
The same pattern keeps coming up:
- order details stay buried in chats
- reference photos are scattered across messages
- payment is tracked somewhere else
- confirmations are sent manually
- sellers lose track of what is waiting, in progress, or ready
One artist said they manage 15–20 active commissions through memory and scrolling back through Instagram DMs. Another seller was looking for a way to collect order details, send confirmations, generate invoices, and keep everything in one place.
My first thought was to build a simple tool for this workflow:
custom order form → confirmation → payment tracking → order status → customer updates
But I’m not sure whether this is a real SaaS opportunity or just a problem that Google Forms + Trello/Airtable already solves well enough.
Has anyone here built for commission-based creators or small businesses that sell through DMs?
I’m especially curious about two things:
- Did these businesses actually pay for software?
- What made them switch from spreadsheets, forms, or Trello?
