Most SaaS founders think they have a distribution problem. Many have a timing problem.
A pattern I've noticed:
Some founders launch too early.
Some launch too late.
Both call it a distribution problem.
The early founder spends months explaining why the problem matters.
The late founder enters after everyone already agrees the problem matters.
Neither situation is ideal.
The best SaaS opportunities often appear when buyers are saying:
"We're starting to feel this pain, but we don't yet have a clear solution."
That's usually the window where markets move.
Examples:
- Teams realized spreadsheets couldn't scale before modern CRMs took off.
- Companies realized cloud costs were becoming unpredictable before FinOps exploded.
- Security teams realized alerts were growing faster than analysts before new security categories emerged.
Most categories don't start because someone builds a product.
They start because enough people independently reach the same frustration at roughly the same time.
A question I ask now:
What problem are buyers just beginning to complain about that doesn't yet have a standard solution?
That's often more interesting than asking:
"What SaaS should I build?"
Curious:
What's a problem you think is entering that phase right now?
