Please vet my startup idea — ContentCal
I'm building ContentCal. I am an artist and I like writing blogs and creating content using my artistic skills but every month I was not able to come up with new ideas about what to post and what to write next.
ContentCal helps you to create a content calendar depending on your selections. For example, if you want a content calender for your Instagram, and you want to post twice a week, it will generate a calender for you with different ideas.
ContentCal video demo: https://www.helinaik.com/contentcal
For that reason, I decided to create ContentCal. For now, it asks for very basic details as you may have seen in the video.
I want to ask you if, should I ask any specific thing or if it is ready to go for its first launch.
Not sure, Heli. I think you can do the same with just these prompts in ChatGPT directly. Why pay for this or use a second tool? You know these "new" startup ideas keep springing up a dozen a minute since ChatGPT go so popular, but there must be something unique and powerful added with a twist, so it is not just using GPT prompts but delivers some extra added value. I do not see this here, sorry.
I somewhat agree with you. We being tech people can utilize AI(chatGPT) very easily but I saw many people just don't know how to use the wonderful thing.
So addition to what I made, I was thinking to integrate google calender with this. If the user is satisfied with the calender generated by the AI, it will automatically pop up in their calender.
I am just thinking out loud right now! Your feedback is very very helpful :)
I like the Google calendar integration idea. Provides value and yields advantage against ChatGPT
I just think that as an Artist you should focus on creating art and leave the tech part to the techies. If you need such a tool, just google the best one and use that. It´s not like there is a gap that needs filling here. I am sure you could come up with more creative ways to combine art with tech. That would be a rare gift :)
It´s just a very oversaturated market and there is no room for a minimalistic solution like this when all others are already battling for the last meat on the bone.
You know there are many professional scheduling tools out there, that already work with AI and actually are connected to your social profiles and push the AI content at the right time. Google Calendar will not do that. Take a look at Ocoya.com for example. It´s a full suite and that is just ONE example.
Is this tool also suggesting what to post?
Yes, it´s connected to Canva, with thousands of ready-made templates you can browse and edit. The AI (when prompted) gives you any ideas and suggestions and then writes your content. Voila.
I think this is exactly what FeedHive is also doing
Oh, I just realized I have 2 different profiles on IH. Good to know, haha...
Just a heads up that a social media management tool called "Contentcal" already sold to Adobe for $100m+. I would try some other name because of legal complications I think
Really! I should have done more research on the name. Thanks a lot!
I really like the page. Both the design and its simplicity. Just some text and a quick video such that I understand what your page does in a few seconds.
However, I am not sure how to defend the product against ChatGPT. I think people could also type that into ChatGPT and get the same result, so there is no real incentive to use it. People not knowing how to use ChatGPT probably is not a good incentive to use a product.
I had the same problem with a product of mine Excelly-AI. While marketing, I found that it's basically impossible to defend it against ChatGPT.
Hence, I implemented features that give Excelly-AI an advantage against ChatGPT by implementing useful features that are not possible in ChatGPT. For example, I implemented a feature where you can upload *.xlsx files and generate formulas on the basis of your own files, or specify column schemas for more semantically meaningful prompts. Both of which is not possible in ChatGPT, but might provide high value to the user.
You are right! Everyone is saying the same here. I need to add such functionality that chatGPT can't do and that will make my product stand out and actually be helpful for people.
Excelly-AI looks wonderful! Let me know if you need help with anything!
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts and feedback :) Super helpful!!
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much for your feedback 😊
I like your idea. However, I would like to somehow put into the equation preferred days and times for the posts, based on userbase location, timezone - recommended by AI.
That's a good suggestion. I will think about this for sure. I need to create a good flow so that user can take advantage of both functionalities .
Cool idea!
The main bit of feedback I have is that I think this would be valuable even outside of the context of content scheduling.
I see it being the starting point for an "inspiration" platform -- a platform that is effectively a muse. Call it a MaaS, haha. It would be a general inspiration platform, for which one of the features is scheduling, but not the core.
With that in mind, consider making scheduling an optional criteria when they are specifying their details.
Also, in your demo video, consider showing a schedule with much more content ... So people can see how varied the recommendations are if you have, say, 20 of them. That might be more impressive to some.
Good luck!
This is such a different and great perspective. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I am working on the output design. But before investing a lot of time in making the perfect product, I want to evaluate if this is really helpful for the people or not.
I write every week at Micro SaaS Ideas. You can find some related ideas here.
Coming to ContentCal, At a high level, the idea looks fine but it may need to be refined a little bit, may be improve the workflow a little bit with more pointers and a readily available text field to post content to social media platforms.
Subscribed to Micro SaaS Ideas! Great stuff.
Thanks for your feedback :) I am focusing only on content title ideas for now. But later we can add this functionality so it will be easier for users.
Ok. Nice to see you have a plan.
Interesting nifty little idea. I'd say keep the first 3 questions as they are, leave the customization for advanced users past registration. Good luck!
I was thinking about the same! haha! Thanks a lot for your feedback!
Very good idea BUT: Why not create your own prompt or learn how to do it on ChatGPT? Here is an article explaining how writing good prompts with plenty of prompts that can be bought for a cheaper price than a monthly subscription and one-time-payment only: https://promptengineer.medium.com/writing-prompts-that-work-the-secret-to-better-chatgpt-performance-b86b1a234d14
That's a good suggestion. I was thinking about creating a platform where people can sell their chatGPT prompts only. But I think there is something already like that. Generating content schedules is very easy and everyone can do it but giving some extra functionality that chatGPT can't do makes the product good.
@heli_naik thanks for sharing this!
I used the exact scenario to create a ChatGPT prompt. Here it goes: https://ibb.co/DQ3z6F1
Here comes the question, why would I use your platform if ChatGPT is able to help me?
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When you are building a product, "importance" and "satisfaction" are two important factors;
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Idea Validation is ideally something that you need to do before you build a prototype.
Let me know if you have any questions about the idea validation process.
Thank you so much for your feedback and thoughts. Super helpful.
If you can use chatGPT directly, there is no need to use what I made. There are so many people out there who do not know how to use it. Rather than writing detailed prompts every time for every social media platform, ContentCal can do all those things by just selecting a few options.
I am also thinking to integrate Google Calendar with the tool, so that, if a user is satisfied with the generated calendar, it will automatically pop up in his/her Google calendar.
I haven't spoken to many people who are facing the same problem, but I am an artist as well and I write blogs and post on social media and it is very difficult for me to come up with different ideas every time. There is another friend of mine who is a freelance blog writer and she said this tool can be very helpful for her.
What do you think?
You are welcome @heli_naik
It is great to hear that you are thinking about adding new features and expanding your scope.
However, at this stage, it is better if you focus on understanding if people really have a problem. You seem to have a problem and assume that every content creator has a similar problem.
Thinking that content creators are not able to use ChatGPT is another assumption. Yes, there may be some people who are not able to use ChatGPT but who are they? There It is for you to prove that these people actually exist and then find those people.
You are at a stage which is called “Customer-Problem Fit”. You have a hypothesis and you need to prove or disprove that hypothesis.
So I suggest that you go out and speak with at least 7-8 potential customers to see if they really have a problem with coming up with new content ideas. Please share your thoughts on this.
I agree! I need to speak to more people before working on the MVP.
I can't assume sitting at my table that a lot of people have the same problem and would need a tool like this.
Thanks a lot!!!!