Dear Indie Hackers,
I'm a total newbie here but I have this thought running through my mind of becoming an Indie Hacker for some reason.
Questions: every time I have an idea I search it up on google to see if it's already done and it almost always is.
Now I have this idea to make a web application personalized for my country. This way, there is less competition and I can meet the (small) companies in person to pitch my idea and improve on it. (Thinking of helping restaurants)
I would love to know your thoughts on this. As I said, I'm a complete newbie here and don't know much about the world I'm entering.
Absolutely. Your initial project should be as focused as possible, it should be focused to the smallest degree that there is a large enough market to make a profitable company. You might want to make an application personalized not only for your country, but a city and maybe an area within a city, or a type of restaurant in a single city. That's because different types of restaurants or restaurants in different locations will have specific needs, and if you set out to solve their specific needs you have a better chance of making something that's really great for them.
This guy talks about it really well here: https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/gmrgh0/a_stepbystep_guide_of_how_i_would_build_a_saas/
Hi @yanuzay,
Welcome to IH, am pretty new as well, just joined 2 weeks back. Seems to be a great community with good positive vibes :)
It would help if you can tell more about the web app, without which people will be unable to help much.
Anyways, in general, I'd suggest you try and figure out whether there will be takers for your app (infact, paid takers). How does your app benefit them? How are they handling the same thing (whatever your webapp does) today? Explore from those lines as a starting point.
Good luck!
I was thinking of a restaurant booking app. It will have an integration on the website where customers can book a table. The restaurant can see everything on a web application. This concept already exists, but I don't see restaurants in my country using this concept, but I will have to do more research on that.
Okay, so this looks like a B2B as well as a B2C app. You should figure out from both parties in that case. As @harlanzw suggests, SEO and keyword planning will be a good starting point. From a B2C point of view, polls and surveys can serve as a starting point.
One piece of advice is, do not start to build anything before understanding whether that concept will sell or not.
It's a great idea!
Making a tool for a market validated elsewhere can totally work, as long as your market is a close equivalent!
I would imagine there is a market opportunity to outrank competitors in organic traffic (SEO), for more localized versions of SaaS products. If that's what you're talking about.
You would need to confirm that by using google trends or keyword planner to see what the search volume is and then check if you're competitors are already targeting these markets using
alternativetags.If they're not then you may have an opportunity to try and outrank them within your country.
You can also dive into the niches of the market that isn't covered by competitors. For example, if you're targeting restaurants, you could niche down to just specialized coffee shops.
It's hard to give any exact advice without knowing what you're planning to build, but hopefully, that gives you something to look into.
Good luck