8
52 Comments

Most SaaS products fail for the same boring reason

After reading a lot of SaaS post-mortems across Indie Hackers, Reddit and X, I keep noticing the same pattern.
Founders spend months thinking about distribution, pricing models, launch strategies.
But the real problem usually shows up much earlier.
The cycle is almost always the same.
Someone builds a tool around a “great idea”.
The landing page gets some traffic.
Conversion is close to zero.
And the immediate conclusion is:
we just need more traffic.
But traffic is just a magnifier.
If the foundation is weak, more visitors don’t fix the problem — they just make the failure more visible.
The deeper issue is usually simpler.
The product doesn't actually replace anything.
It exists next to the user’s workflow instead of inside it.
And tools that live next to a workflow almost never become habits.
Most founders think they are building a product.
In reality they are often building a second tool that sits beside the thing people already use.
That’s a very hard position to win from.
Because users already have something that works “well enough”.
Most of the time your real competitors are not other SaaS products.
They are things like:
a bloated spreadsheet
a chaotic Slack thread
a messy Notion page
or a manual process someone repeats every day
These systems are ugly.
They are inefficient.
But they already sit directly inside someone’s workflow.
Replacing them is much harder than most founders expect.
People don’t adopt software because it has a cleaner UI or a new AI feature.
They adopt it when it removes friction from something they are already forced to do.
When a product truly fits the workflow, the moment of adoption feels obvious.
Sometimes users literally delete the old spreadsheet the same day.
That’s usually the real signal.
Not traffic.
Not signups.
But whether the product immediately replaces something messy that already existed.
Another uncomfortable observation.
A surprising number of founders admit they built their first version mostly on assumptions.
Not on repeated friction they observed in real workflows.
It’s easy to design features for imagined scenarios.
It’s much harder to design something that actually removes a mechanical problem for a specific type of user.
That difference shows up very quickly once real people try the product.
Because if a tool doesn’t clearly fit into an existing workflow, users simply go back to what they were already doing.
Even if your product is objectively better.
The hard truth is that workflow replacement is often the real product-market fit.
Everything else — traffic, marketing, distribution — only works after that moment.
So a question I keep asking when I look at new products:
What messy workflow does this actually replace?
If the answer is vague, adoption is usually vague too.
And if you can’t clearly name the messy, manual workflow your product replaces…
you probably don’t have a product yet.

If you're building something, I'd love to hear it:
What messy workflow does your product actually replace?

posted to Icon for group Growth
Growth
on March 10, 2026
  1. 1

    This thread is gold. The "hidden operating logic" point is underrated. We ran into this constantly while scoping our product — companies don't just need a workflow automated, they need the decision logic that lives between the steps captured too. That's what we're trying to build: AI automation that doesn't just execute processes but learns and encodes the operational decisions behind them, for the full business cycle. The products that survive will be the ones that absorb that invisible layer, as you said. Curious if anyone here has found a framework for mapping that hidden logic before building?

  2. 2

    Good framework. To answer the question directly for my own product:

    flompt (github.com/Nyrok/flompt) replaces the messy workflow of writing AI prompts in plain text in the chat interface. That workflow is: open a new chat, type something vague, get mediocre output, tweak it inline, lose the context next session, start over. The "bloated Notion page" equivalent here is a saved text file or Slack thread full of old prompt drafts that nobody can version or share.

    flompt decomposes prompts into 12 typed semantic blocks (role, objective, constraints, output format, etc.) and compiles to Claude-optimized XML. It doesn't sit beside the chat, it generates the exact thing that goes into the chat.

    The adoption signal I'm looking for: users stop tweaking prompts inline and start going back to the structured prompt they already built.

  3. 2

    This nails it. The 'boring reason' is almost always involuntary churn that nobody notices until it's compounding. In my experience, the worst offender: failed Stripe payments. Most founders have no systematic response — card fails, customer gets a generic Stripe email, then goes quiet. How does your product handle the payment failure → churned customer workflow specifically?

    1. 1

      Yeah that’s a really good example of the pattern.
      Failed payments are a great case because the workflow already exists — founders are manually checking Stripe, sending emails, maybe tracking it somewhere.
      So the moment a tool replaces that loop instead of adding another dashboard, adoption usually happens much faster.
      I’ve seen the same thing in a few other SaaS areas where the “boring reason” is basically invisible churn caused by small manual processes nobody formalized.

  4. 1

    The failed payments example in here is a good one, and it maps to the replacement test exactly. Most founders' "workflow" for a failed payment is: see the Stripe notification, look up the invoice, decide whether to email, maybe email, forget about it. That's a spreadsheet-level process that's already happening — it just happens badly. The products that slot into that slot (instead of adding a new dashboard to check) tend to get used.

    The thing that makes payment recovery different from most "invisible churn" problems is it's also quantifiable fast. Pull your Stripe failed invoice list for the last 90 days. The delta between what was owed and what recovered is the real number. Most founders who do that calculation are surprised by it.

    What's the workflow you're replacing with your own product here?

  5. 1

    This is exactly what I landed on with Pastable. Designers already copy-paste between Figma and Webflow all day — that’s the workflow. I just made the clipboard formats compatible so components actually transfer. No new workflow to learn, no browser extension, no plugin. Just Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V with a save step in between. Took me embarrassingly long to realize the tool should live inside the existing habit, not next to it.

  6. 1

    This resonates so much! I am 17 years old from Kerala India building my first SaaS and the boring reason I keep seeing is that founders never deeply understand their competitive landscape before launching. They build something genuinely good but have no clear answer for why customers should choose them over existing alternatives. The founders who succeed seem to know their market and competitors inside out before writing a single line of code. What boring reason do you think kills most SaaS products?

  7. 1

    Unfortunately, founders often DON'T think about distribution, pricing models, and launch strategies. They focus on development too much without thinking about their target audience. You can't come up with launch strategies without understanding your audience and their needs. Everything is connected.

    1. 2

      @seedium first comment I've seen in weeks here on IH that doesn't sound as AI-written and really hits the nail in the head :D Yep...many are working backward. Let's build it firs tthen figure out who is it for and how to reach them. For many builders = development is comfort. It's their home. It's known, safe and doesn't require you to be exposed, so from psychological point of view it makes sense. However, in order to build a real commercial product and successful company it requires different mindset and skillset.

      1. 1

        Exactly. I'm glad that we're on the same page.

  8. 1

    I see this pattern a lot too. Founders assume the problem is traffic, but often the product just isn’t replacing anything people already do.
    The workflow point you make here is spot on.

  9. 1

    Great question to end on. I'll answer it directly.

    DemandRadar replaces: opening 3 tabs every morning (HN, Product Hunt, IndieHackers), scrolling for an hour looking for complaints, copy-pasting the interesting ones into a Notion doc, trying to spot patterns, forgetting most of it by tomorrow.

    That chaotic research process is exactly how people were identifying which problems to build for. It's a workflow most founders are doing but wouldn't call it a workflow. The scan runs daily, scores each signal by pain level and willingness to pay, and delivers a feed. No more mystery about whether demand exists before the first line of code.

  10. 1

    Great framing. To answer your question directly: I'm building DemandRadar, and the messy workflow it replaces is this — opening 3-4 browser tabs every morning, manually scrolling HN, Product Hunt, and IndieHackers looking for posts where people complain about a specific problem.

    That manual scan was my actual "messy Notion page" before building. Now DemandRadar scrapes and scores those signals daily — by pain level and willingness to pay. The workflow it replaces is boring and repetitive. That's exactly why it was worth automating.

  11. 1

    I think the hardest part of workflow replacement is that you’re not really replacing a tool. You’re replacing all the exceptions, shortcuts, and tacit decisions that accumulated around it. A spreadsheet looks primitive, but it often contains the real operating logic of the work. A lot of SaaS products win the happy path and still lose because they never absorb that hidden layer.

  12. 1

    This framework is sharp and I agree with most of it. But I think there's a category of workflow replacement that's invisible because it doesn't involve a tool.

    I'm building Arcanon — an AI where philosophers debate your business decisions. When people ask "what workflow does it replace?" I used to struggle to answer.

    Then a user gave me feedback that cracked it open. He said: "the synthesis landed on something I hadn't fully articulated myself — that my distribution problem was actually a customer-identification problem."

    That's the workflow Arcanon replaces:

    • Staring at the ceiling at 2am running the same options in circles
    • Asking ChatGPT and getting safe "on one hand... on the other hand" answers
    • Texting a friend who says "sounds good" but can't see your blind spots
    • Posting on Reddit and getting generic advice from people with zero context

    Every solo founder does this. Every week. And it's terrible.

    The messy workflow isn't a spreadsheet or a Slack thread. It's the process of deciding alone.

    So to answer your question directly: Arcanon replaces the messy, circular, lonely process of making high-stakes decisions without anyone to challenge your thinking.

    https://arcanon-ai.vercel.app/

  13. 1

    I think AI is making a lot of SaaS products feel unnecessary because many of them were never true workflow products to begin with. They were wrappers around small conveniences. In the old world, even a modest efficiency gain could justify a standalone tool. In the AI world, a lot of those “nice-to-have” features can now be recreated inside ChatGPT, Claude, an internal GPT, or a simple automation layer on top of the tools people already use. So the bar has gone way up.

    That’s why so many SaaS products die even before distribution becomes the issue. If your product does not deeply embed into an existing workflow, AI makes it even easier for users to avoid adopting it. Instead of buying another SaaS, they can just automate the annoying part of the workflow they already have — inside Slack, Notion, Google Sheets, email, or their CRM. In other words, the competition is no longer just “another startup.” It’s the user’s existing stack plus AI. That is a brutal competitor because it requires no behavior change.

    So I think the question is no longer just “what problem does this solve?” It’s “what recurring workflow does this own, and why can’t that workflow be solved by an AI layer on top of existing tools?” If the answer is weak, then the startup is probably building a feature, not a company. The winners now will be products that either 1) replace a painful system of record, 2) sit directly in the path of execution, or 3) compound with proprietary data, trust, or operational depth that generic AI can’t easily replicate. Everything else is at risk of being automated away.

  14. 1

    Distribution being the actual problem is something most technical founders learn the hard way after the build is done.

    The one I'd add: the people who do talk to customers early often ask the wrong questions. Validating that the problem exists is different from validating that someone will pay to fix it today. That gap is where a lot of otherwise good ideas stall out.

  15. 1

    This is a much-needed reality check. We often think our competitor is another SaaS, but in reality, it's usually a chaotic Slack thread or a manual process that someone has grown comfortable with. The verification tax of switching to a new tool is often higher than founders realize. Your point about building on observed friction vs. assumptions is exactly why so many polished products fail to gain traction. Truly insightful.

  16. 1

    I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. One thing I’m experimenting with is running synthetic focus groups for ideas to see likely objections before building. Curious how others here approach validation. But I felt this would be a strong way to draw out any major concerns, risks, barriers to entry etc.

  17. 1

    The "delete the old spreadsheet" test is such a good framing. I think about this constantly.

    I build consumer apps, not SaaS, but the same principle applies. With one of my apps (Healthien, calorie tracking through photos) the whole bet was that people already track food but hate the manual logging part. So the question wasn't "will people want calorie tracking" but "can we make the existing habit less painful." The answer to the first question doesn't matter if you can't nail the second one.

    The assumption trap you mention is brutal. I've definitely shipped features I thought were clever that nobody used because I was solving my imagined version of the problem. The fix for me has been watching actual users interact with the app before building the next thing. Boring but it works.

  18. 1

    The workflow replacement framing is the clearest way I've seen this problem described. There's a version of this I've watched play out dozens of times with brands too, not just SaaS products. Someone builds a beautiful brand identity that sits next to their business instead of running through it, and then wonders why nothing feels consistent six months later. Same root problem, different category.
    The spreadsheet point is underrated. A messy spreadsheet that someone built themselves has one massive advantage over your clean SaaS tool: they understand every cell of it. Replacing that isn't a design problem, it's a trust problem. Your product has to earn the right to be inside someone's workflow and that usually happens through one very specific moment where it saves them from something they genuinely dreaded doing.
    The question you're ending with is the one I'd put at the top of every founder's weekly review. Not "how's growth" but "what did we actually replace this week." If you can't answer that with a specific example from a real user, the growth conversation is probably premature.

    1. 1

      @jseabra the trust point is spot on

      What I’ve been noticing though is that it’s not just about understanding trigger events but about how people interpret those moments. Two people can hit the same “pain point,” but only one actually reconsiders their workflow - the other just adapts around it or even ignores it.

      Feels like the shift only happens when it’s not just painful, but when they stop trusting their current way of operating altogether. And that requires a huge awareness and immense pain

      In your experience what actually tips people over that edge? Is it a specific kind of moment, or more of an accumulation over time ?

    2. 1

      yeah the spreadsheet point is underrated. people trust the ugly systems they built themselves way more than a beautiful new tool, even if it's basically duct tape logic. that’s why your question “what did we replace this week” is so good. if nothing messy actually disappeared from the workflow, the product probably isn’t really inside it yet.

  19. 1

    In home health, agencies already have a messy system holding everything together such as spreadsheets for scheduling, manual billing trackers, phone calls between field staff and office staff, and documentation that has to be re-entered later for claims. When software doesn’t replace that, people just keep the old process running beside it.

    The reason platforms like Alora tend to get real adoption is that they pull those pieces into one workflow instead of adding another tool. Scheduling, clinical documentation, EVV, and billing all live in the same system, so agencies aren’t jumping between spreadsheets, texts, and separate programs just to complete a visit or generate a claim.

    When that happens, the workflow actually changes. Nurses document in the system, the data flows into billing, and the office doesn’t have to rebuild everything later. That’s the kind of replacement you’re talking about.

    1. 1

      this is a really clean example of the pattern. it’s not really about building a better tool than the spreadsheet, it’s about removing the jumps between systems — spreadsheet → documentation → billing → re-entering data again. once that chain disappears and the data flows in one place, adoption usually happens almost by itself.

  20. 1

    Learned this the hard way. Published 130+ blog posts, zero sales. Content sat next to workflows, not inside them. The shift that got engagement was building free tools that replaced manual calculations people were already doing. Nobody deletes a spreadsheet because of a blog post.

    1. 1

      the “130 blog posts, zero sales” story is painful but very real. content usually sits next to the workflow — people read it, maybe nod, and then go back to whatever they were doing. tools that replace a manual step are different. they don’t ask for attention, they give time back. replacing manual calculations is exactly that moment.

  21. 1

    This hits hard — especially the part about tools that live next to a workflow instead of inside it.

    Concipe was built specifically around this problem. PMs have been collecting customer feedback in Notion, Slack, and support tools for years — but the workflow of turning that into something a coding agent can build from still happens manually, in a separate doc, based on gut feel.

    The messy workflow Concipe replaces: copy-pasting feedback into a doc → synthesizing manually → writing specs from memory → handing to engineering hoping it made sense.

    Now it's: feedback connects directly → insights surface automatically → spec generated → coding agent picks it up via MCP.

    The old spreadsheet equivalent here is the PRD Google Doc that every PM has open in another tab. That's what we're replacing.

    1. 1

      this is a really good breakdown of the real competitor. most founders think they’re competing with another SaaS, but often it’s the messy process between tools. notion → copy paste → doc → writing specs from memory → handing it to engineering. once a product replaces that exact chain, it stops being “another tool” and starts becoming the workflow itself.

  22. 1

    Interesting point.

    In my case I built a small tool (a calculator to estimate the real cost per mile of owning a car).
    What surprised me is that the biggest problem wasn't building the tool — it was distribution.

    Even useful tools can stay invisible for a long time if nobody finds them.

    I'm starting to realize that for small tools and micro-SaaS, distribution is often harder than the product itself.

    1. 1

      distribution is brutal for micro-saas, no doubt. but one thing i keep noticing is that tools tied to a recurring messy process spread much easier. a one-time calculator solves a question and disappears, but a tool that saves someone time every week becomes part of the routine. that difference often decides whether distribution feels impossible or starts happening naturally.

  23. 1

    Ours replaced GA4 + Hotjar + a horrific Google Sheet — three tools, three logins, data that never matched. Users weren't missing features, they were missing the answer to one question: which blog post makes me money? That's what Zenovay (zenovay.com) became. The workflow was so messy some users literally deleted their spreadsheets the same day.

  24. 1

    The boring reason is usually distribution, not product. I'm building Chatham (offline meeting AI for iPhone) and the product works well, but the hardest part is getting it in front of the right people without burning trust through spam. Most founders over-invest in features and under-invest in finding 10 people who genuinely need the thing.

  25. 1

    Brilliant point on workflow replacement being the real PMF. But I'd add one more layer: even when a product clearly solves a messy workflow, hesitant users often need that final push - social proof from other teams using it.

    I've noticed teams will still cling to their spreadsheets or manual process until they see customer testimonials or case studies showing teams like theirs getting results. Workflow clarity + social proof from peers = conversion catalyst.

  26. 1

    The “workflow replacement = PMF” point resonates.

    A lot of early tools don’t really replace anything, they just sit next to the spreadsheet, Slack thread, or Notion doc people already use.

    In many cases the real friction isn’t the tool itself but the messy decision process behind it. When that part becomes clearer, adoption usually gets easier.

  27. 1

    Great post. One thing I've noticed: when a product DOES solve the workflow problem, real customer testimonials become crucial for overcoming adoption friction. Founder claims go unverified. But seeing actual users say "this replaced my X workflow" builds immediate trust. Social proof fills the gap between "sounds good" and "I'm deleting the old tool." That's often the real conversion bottleneck.

  28. 1

    Tools that live next to a workflow almost never become habits — this is the most underrated insight in SaaS and almost nobody talks about it this directly.
    The spreadsheet/Slack thread/Notion page point is what makes it real. Those ugly systems have insane retention not because they're good but because they're already load-bearing. You're not competing with other SaaS products, you're competing with something that's woven into someone's Tuesday morning.
    I felt this building n8nShip. The vague version was "easier n8n hosting" — which sits next to someone's workflow. The sharper version is "replaces the 45-minute Railway/Docker setup you do every time you need a fresh n8n instance." Suddenly there's a specific messy thing being deleted, not just a cleaner alternative being added.
    The deletion test you described is real. When someone signs up and immediately stops doing the manual thing — that's the only signal that actually matters in the first two weeks. Everything else is vanity.
    Great post. The workflow replacement framing should probably be the first question every founder asks before writing a single line of code.

    This is one of your stronger IH comments — you share a real founder insight from n8nShip (without pitching), engage with the core idea deeply, and add the "deletion test" framing that extends the original post. That kind of comment gets noticed by other founders and builds your reputation fast. Send the next one! Sonnet 4.6Extended

    1. 1

      The deletion test is such a clean way to look at it. One thing Ive noticed though is even when a product passes that test, adoption still depends a lot on who youre reaching. If youre talking to people already living inside that messy workflow the replacement feels obvious and happens fast. But if the audience isnt already feeling that friction it still comes across like another tool even if its objectively better. Feels like workflow fit and audience targeting have to line up at the same time for it to really click.

  29. 1

    Boring reason but true! Many SaaS products focus on marketing/traction but don't deliver core value. I focused on human control + safety (no false promises) in support AI. Early pilots were successful. What was the biggest boring reason in your post-mortem?

  30. 1

    The pricing point is one that deserves more attention than it gets in these discussions.

    Most early-stage SaaS pricing is anchored to what similar tools charge, not to the value the buyer actually gets or loses. The founder picks a number that feels reasonable relative to competitors and calls it done. The problem is that competitors might also be pricing badly - anchoring to bad benchmarks produces bad prices.

    The more useful anchor: what does the problem cost the buyer in time, money, or lost outcomes if they do not solve it? A tool that saves a 5-person sales team 10 hours per week is worth far more than whatever its closest competitor charges. Pricing to the problem rather than to the category is how you find the number that converts without leaving money on the table.

    The other piece: different buyers have wildly different willingness to pay for the same product. An SDR at a 10-person startup values the same tool differently than a sales ops person at a 200-person company. Most SaaS tools pick one price point and miss half their potential revenue because of it.

    1. 1

      That’s a good point about pricing.
      I’ve also noticed a lot of founders anchor to “what tools in this category charge” instead of what the problem actually costs the buyer.
      And interestingly that often connects back to the workflow thing.
      Messy workflows look cheap because they don’t have a price tag. A spreadsheet someone updates every Friday, manual emails after failed Stripe payments, some Notion page everyone half-uses.
      But those things quietly eat hours every week.
      When a product actually replaces that mess, pricing becomes a lot easier.
      When it just sits next to the workflow, even $10/month can feel expensive.

  31. 1

    The boring reason is usually not the one that gets written about, so I am curious which direction you are taking this.

    If it is the one I have seen most: SaaS products fail because the founder solved a problem they do not have, for a buyer they have never talked to, priced based on a gut feel with no reference to how the buyer thinks about cost vs value. The product works fine. The business does not.

    The talk to customers before building advice is correct but gets applied too superficially. Most founders interpret it as will you use this surveys, which are useless because people say yes to be polite. The version that actually works is: describe the exact situation where someone would pay money to solve this today. Not would you pay but describe the last time this problem cost you real time or money. If they cannot describe a recent, concrete instance, the problem is not active enough to sell to.

    The other boring reason that does not get enough attention: pricing. A lot of early-stage products are priced like a discount version of enterprise software, not like a solution to a specific problem. The buyer is not comparing your product to nothing. They are comparing it to the cost of the problem persisting. If you have not modeled that comparison, you are guessing at a number.

    What is the specific boring reason you are writing about?

  32. 1

    The boring reason is usually not the one that gets written about, so I am curious which direction you are taking this.

    If it is the one I have seen most: SaaS products fail because the founder solved a problem they do not have, for a buyer they have never talked to, priced based on a gut feel with no reference to how the buyer thinks about cost vs value. The product works fine. The business does not.

    The "talk to customers before building" advice is correct but gets applied too superficially. Most founders interpret it as "will you use this?" surveys, which are useless because people say yes to be polite. The version that actually works is: describe the exact situation where someone would pay money to solve this today - not "would you pay" but "describe the last time this problem cost you real time or money." If they cannot describe a recent, concrete instance, the problem is not active enough to sell to.

    I keep running into this with my own tools. The ones that feel most obvious to me are sometimes the ones with least traction, because I built them for my specific context and assumed others shared it. The ones I built after watching people articulate the problem in their own words on Reddit or in community threads tend to get faster initial traction.

    What is the boring reason you found?

  33. 1

    The boring reason is usually not the one that gets written about, so I am curious which direction you are taking this.

    If it is the one I have seen most: SaaS products fail because the founder solved a problem they do not have, for a buyer they have never talked to, priced based on a gut feel with no reference to how the buyer thinks about cost vs value. The product works fine. The business does not.

    The "talk to customers before building" advice is correct but gets applied too superficially. Most founders interpret it as "will you use this?" surveys, which are useless because people say yes to be polite. The version that actually works is: describe the exact situation where someone would pay money to solve this today - not "would you pay" but "describe the last time this problem cost you real time or money." If they cannot describe a recent, concrete instance, the problem is not active enough to sell to.

    I keep running into this with my own tools. The ones that feel most obvious to me are sometimes the ones with least traction, because I built them for my specific context and assumed others shared it. The ones I built after watching people articulate the problem in their own words on Reddit or in community threads tend to get faster initial traction.

    What is the boring reason you found?

  34. 1

    The boring reason is usually not the one that gets written about, so I am curious which direction you are taking this.

    If it is the one I have seen most: SaaS products fail because the founder solved a problem they do not have, for a buyer they have never talked to, priced based on a gut feel with no reference to how the buyer thinks about cost vs value. The product works fine. The business does not.

    The "talk to customers before building" advice is correct but gets applied too superficially. Most founders interpret it as "will you use this?" surveys, which are useless because people say yes to be polite. The version that actually works is: describe the exact situation where someone would pay money to solve this today - not "would you pay" but "describe the last time this problem cost you real time or money." If they cannot describe a recent, concrete instance, the problem is not active enough to sell to.

    I keep running into this with my own tools. The ones that feel most obvious to me are sometimes the ones with least traction, because I built them for my specific context and assumed others shared it. The ones I built after watching people articulate the problem in their own words on Reddit or in community threads tend to get faster initial traction.

    What is the boring reason you found?

  35. 1

    The boring reason is usually not the one that gets written about, so I am curious which direction you are taking this.

    If it is the one I have seen most: SaaS products fail because the founder solved a problem they do not have, for a buyer they have never talked to, priced based on a gut feel with no reference to how the buyer thinks about cost vs value. The product works fine. The business does not.

    The "talk to customers before building" advice is correct but gets applied too superficially. Most founders interpret it as "will you use this?" surveys, which are useless because people say yes to be polite. The version that actually works is: describe the exact situation where someone would pay money to solve this today - not "would you pay" but "describe the last time this problem cost you real time or money." If they cannot describe a recent, concrete instance, the problem is not active enough to sell to.

    I keep running into this with my own tools. The ones that feel most obvious to me are sometimes the ones with least traction, because I built them for my specific context and assumed others shared it. The ones I built after watching people articulate the problem in their own words on Reddit or in community threads tend to get faster initial traction.

    What is the boring reason you found?

  36. 1

    The "replaces a messy workflow" test is the right one. It's also why Stripe-integrated tools often get adoption fast — Stripe is itself a workflow people are already forced to use.

    Concrete example: failed payment recovery. Most SaaS founders at 0-30k MRR handle it the same way — they notice a churned user, look up the invoice in Stripe, send a manual email, hope for the best. It's a spreadsheet-adjacent mess: some founders have a Notion doc, some have nothing.

    The replacement threshold is actually low here. When a tool watches invoice.payment_failed and fires a Day1/Day3/Day7 sequence automatically, founders literally stop logging into Stripe to check. That's the deletion-of-the-old-spreadsheet moment you described.

    Built tryrecoverkit.com/connect for exactly this — one Stripe connect, no new workflow to learn, it just handles the thing that was manual before. The 'messy workflow it replaces' test was the north star the whole way through.

  37. 1

    The pairing of 'runs locally' + 'no API keys' is undervalued positioning. It speaks to the technical buyer who has already been burned by SaaS tools that changed pricing, added rate limits, or went down at the wrong moment.

    The one-time purchase model makes sense when the tool does a defined job well. What's the job this tool does?

  38. 1

    The pairing of 'runs locally' + 'no API keys' is undervalued positioning. It speaks to the technical buyer who has already been burned by SaaS tools that changed pricing, added rate limits, or went down at the wrong moment.

    The one-time purchase model makes sense when the tool does a defined job well. What's the job this tool does?

  39. 0

    We are looking for someone who can lend our holding company 300,000 US dollars.

    We are looking for an investor who can lend our holding company 300,000 US dollars.

    We are looking for an investor who can invest 300,000 US dollars in our holding company.

    With the 300,000 US dollars you will lend to our holding company, we will develop a multi-functional device that can both heat and cool, also has a cooking function, and provides more efficient cooling and heating than an air conditioner.

    With your investment of 300,000 US dollars in our holding company, we will produce a multi-functional device that will attract a great deal of interest from people.

    With the device we're developing, people will be able to heat or cool their rooms more effectively, and thanks to its built-in stove feature, they'll be able to cook whatever they want right where they're sitting.

    People generally prefer multi-functional devices. The device we will produce will have 3 functions, which will encourage people to buy even more.

    The device we will produce will be able to easily heat and cool an area of ​​45 square meters, and its hob will be able to cook at temperatures up to 900 degrees Celsius.

    If you invest in this project, you will also greatly profit.

    Additionally, the device we will be making will also have a remote control feature. Thanks to remote control, customers who purchase the device will be able to turn it on and off remotely via the mobile application.

    Thanks to the wireless feature of our device, people can turn it on and heat or cool their rooms whenever they want, even when they are not at home.

    How will we manufacture the device?

    We will have the device manufactured by electronics companies in India, thus reducing labor costs to zero and producing the device more cheaply.

    Today, India is a technologically advanced country, and since they produce both inexpensive and robust technological products, we will manufacture in India.

    So how will we market our product?

    We will produce 2000 units of our product. The production cost, warehousing costs, and taxes for 2000 units will amount to 240,000 US dollars.

    We will use the remaining 60,000 US dollars for marketing. By marketing, we will reach a larger audience, which means more sales.

    We will sell each of the devices we produce for 3100 US dollars. Because our product is long-lasting and more multifunctional than an air conditioner, people will easily buy it.

    Since 2000 units is a small initial quantity, they will all be sold easily. From these 2000 units, we will have earned a total of 6,200,000 US dollars.

    By selling our product to electronics retailers and advertising on social media platforms in many countries such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, we will increase our audience. An increased audience means more sales.

    Our device will take 2 months to produce, and in those 2 months we will have sold 2000 units. On average, we will have earned 6,200,000 US dollars within 5 months.

    So what will your earnings be?

    You will lend our holding company 300,000 US dollars and you will receive your money back as 950,000 US dollars on November 27, 2026.

    You will invest 300,000 US dollars in our holding company, and on November 27, 2026, I will return your money to you as 950,000 US dollars.

    You will receive your money back as 950,000 US dollars on November 27, 2026.

    You will receive your 300,000 US dollars invested in our holding company back as 950,000 US dollars on November 27, 2026.

    We will refund your money on 27/11/2026.

    To learn how you can lend USD 300,000 to our holding company and to receive detailed information, please contact me by sending a message to my Telegram username or Signal contact number listed below. I will be happy to provide you with full details.

    To learn how you can invest 300,000 US dollars in our holding, and to get detailed information, please send a message to my Telegram username or Signal contact number below. I will provide you with detailed information.

    To get detailed information, please send a message to my Telegram username or Signal username below.

    To learn how you can increase your money by investing 300,000 US dollars in our holding, please send a message to my Telegram username or Signal contact number below.

    Telegram username:
    @adenholding

    Signal contact number:
    +447842572711

    Signal username:
    adenholding.88

  40. 1

    This comment was deleted 2 months ago.

Trending on Indie Hackers
Agencies charge $5,000 for a 60-second product demo video. I make mine for $0. Here's the exact workflow. User Avatar 137 comments I've been building for months and made $0. Here's the honest psychological reason — and it's not what I expected. User Avatar 85 comments I wasted 6 months building a failed startup. Built TrendyRevenue to validate ideas in 10 seconds. User Avatar 59 comments This system tells you what’s working in your startup — every week User Avatar 30 comments Your files aren’t messy. They’re just stuck in the wrong system. User Avatar 30 comments Why Direction Matters More Than Motivation in Exam Preparation User Avatar 14 comments