Is it a good idea to combine two products into one? MultiSAAS?
In the past few years, we have seen a lot of successful MicroSAAS, and I assume that the trend of niching down and serving specific communities will continue. What about the other way around?
A small business or an agency uses uptime monitoring for $10 per month and some SEO monitoring tools for $30 per month. And you build a new solution that includes both SEO and uptime monitoring, but for a lower price, let's say for $20 per month. Is not it an operational simplification and cost reduction for the business?
Good points:
- It is cheaper for the end customer.
- It should be simpler to manage multiple solutions in one place if done well.
Bad points:
- It is hard to build such a product for the solo indie dev.
- There is always a better MicroSAAS that beats every feature of your MultiSAAS.
It is hard to compete.
Does combining Product A and Product B give you the intersection or the sum of A and B customers? What do you think?
No it's a bad strategy. You will end up with a crappy version of two products stuck together rather than one product that solves a single problem well.
I tend to agree with you. What do you think about building such MultiSAAS gradually by adding one polished feature after another? Do you think it still can become a crappy product? Or is it a matter of execution for you?
I think the best way is to actually ask your users. How many of them would actually need A & B solutions. What % is overlapping?
Yes, 💯, in case you have product A or B and customers.
It like the tide... it comes and goes in waves. There's always a bundling and unbundling and then bundling again.
Hey, Mateo! Do you mean the trend itself? Like the rising trend of super apps (WeChat, Paytm)?
Hey 👋
It could be that you get neither the sum nor the intersection if your messaging is off/weakened by mixing two key value propositions.
It’s not so much that finding a niche is a trend; it’s more of a strategy that helps with determining direction, focus, goals and market.
🙂
Update: OTOH
This approach (link below) seems logical. So rather than SEO + uptime monitoring, SEO + integrated site analytics might be a stronger offer than current products 🤷♂️
https://benn.substack.com/p/the-future-of-operational-analytics
Hey! So, If I understand you accurately, you say that it solely depends on the value proposition. It will work if I can find the right value proposition to sell the two products in one.
So, it is better not to sell the combined product as a set of two separate entities but rather to find the more severe problem that such a product can solve.
For example, instead of just providing bare servers and simple applications to manage them, I can position myself as a cloud provider who closes all the issues related to deploying applications to the servers.
Have I got it correct?
I’m suggesting that a single value proposition makes it easier to target customers with. The message is clearer. Your copy is clearer, your landing page will be easier. The focus is very clear about what your “most important thing” is.
The update and link point to the possibility of tightly integrating two products that compliment each other.
I could sell hotdog buns or I could sell hotdog sausages - each is easily marketed, separately.
Alternatively I could sell you a hotdog 🌭 with cheese, sauce, mustard and even fried onion (which is kind-of what the article linked to was describing, but with data that drives decision making being integrated at the point of use rather than elsewhere as a separate dashboard).
When I sell a hotdog, I’m not talking about/selling the fact there’s lots of protein in the meat or the fluffy softness of the roll - I’d sell the value of a “delicious, quick, meal on the go”.
The type of offer eluded to in the article might be “an exception to the rule worth considering” was my main point of the updated reply. I’d still suggest a single key value prop/niche would be the optimal strategy to start with.
HTH
@Shaunau, thanks for the detailed answer. Now that's more than apparent.
Good idea to think about.