Idea Validation: Single API to send any type of notification
Hey all,
Recently I sold my startup Bookis (appointments management platform), and one of the ideas for tooling I had at the time was a single API to send emails and SMS with logging dashboard, etc instead of going to individual provider website.
And now, that I sold my startup, I felt like this is still a good idea and just finished a POC.
However, like any founder, I have second thoughts on whether I should go any further.
The idea is this:
A single API to send any type of notification. Be it, email, SMS, chat, push notifications, and so on.
So this startup idea is directed to developers mostly.
So far I was able to uncover two competitors however, what worries me is the market size in general.
Would it worth investing in this idea any further?
I'm a developer, I work on a SaaS that supports notifications to 20+ services. In my experience, writing code to make a correct API call is the relatively easy part. A bunch of time goes into building an user-friendly onboarding flow for each service – some services use OAuth2, for some you copy-paste API keys, for Telegram you need to set up a bot, etc.
... and once you have your integrations set up there's ongoing maintenance. For example, HipChat shut down – must remove that integration. Slack rebranded – must update the logo. Discord migrated from discordapp.com to discord.com – must account for that on my side.
I would think about your target developer – would they be building SaaS that must support various notification methods? For them to pick your product, your product must make some aspect of their work super-easy. If you're planning to focus on just notification delivery, they might as well pick e.g. https://github.com/caronc/apprise
Hey, thanks for your insight. Didn't know about apprise but I hear you.
Yes, I am planning to make the Core open source, build an audience and from there I will have a cloud solution that includes the onboarding, various features like priority list, scheduling, visual message/notification builder, ability to have an email subscribing feature, etc.