Vet Request: Yet another catalog of online services, but this time with a focus on "normal" people, not business owners. Is there a point?
Hello everyone! I would like to ask you for a little bit of your time. Could you please tell me if you think that there is any point in pursuing the following idea?
I was wondering if there would be a place on the market for yet another online service catalog. The little twist would be that it would be focused not on business owners and indie hackers but on "regular" people.
I would advertise this to the people as a catalog of online tools and services and categorize every online business, add meaningful tags and keywords. And later, I would let people browse and search this catalog by adding single keywords in the search bar and filters like - needs to have a free tier, needs to contain API feature, etc.
The result would be presented as a nice list with logos of the SaaS'es, a short general description, and a nice, mini table with described costs and pricing levels.
My main question is, do you think that there is a space in the market for something like this?
Do you see yourself searching for:
"writing ai" + needs to have free tier
"discord bot" + needs to have API
"scraping real estate database"
Or maybe there are simply too many websites like that and a few little spins won't be enough to gain traction?
I would be really grateful for any feedback and poll votes. Even simple comments like "stupid" could help me save time or make a decision to proceed with it or not.
Thank you very much!
Definitely Overdue! - Transforming the UX for online catalogs is overdue. It is not just about the normal person., though that is an excellent insight.
The prevailing UX is terrible, still. Most currently errk me too much to pay money for the wrapped service. I move on. Stock stylized catalogs like stock websites unwittingly communicate 'dont care'. Need beauty. Need UX that makes you want to use it. There is a gap for a KIT that just does it superbly. Convert all the ugly catalogs out there that definitely drive me nuts.
Even the no-code platform softr, offers yet another ugly catalog. Missed opportunity. I avoid any website that uses softr catalog, way too much friction - stock, low discoverability, no MyCollection, too many clicks.
For me, catalogs need to show big picture, polling style info for your collection, and fast discoverability. My current go-to catalog for all things AI, could do with some UX assist in my book https://allthingsai.com/tools/research
Helping many SMEs for yonks, means I regularly am listening to their grrr when trying to discover + their sense of 'its too hard' when they push out their own catalog (aka no great no-code solution).
@catalystNewbie Thank you very much for your answer! I appreciate it!
I think a solid online catalog could be SDK for mobile app and UI kit for web app
I have been playing with Loomio (participatory decision making) great poll graphs, on airtable as my clunky workaround.
@catalystNewbie What do you mean by "SDK"? Maybe your idea is that it could also provide an API for searching/listing those services so people could use it in their websites or aps?
no, not API. The problem is not a data/content issue.
The problem is a UX issue first and foremost . Solution is either a UK kit or SDK if it is to be a no-code solution, or a packaged solution (like the open source solution for aggregator's as discourse is or payment as slack is)
dealroom.co has one of the best aggregator UX that I have found as it includes
Many are the horrid gallery view. No-code ship the horrid gallery view. Useless. Once a user is watching/interested in more than 10 items, they need solid filters, at-a-glance views (graphical elements), tables.
When an aggregator platform sorts out the UX problem + has ability to support multiple data-sets, thru scheduled batch update.. that is truelly the next level offering. Growing number of new technologies, or any of the huge growth in sustainability/circular economy collectives . These style of groups all have an urgent / burning need so rapid go-to-market is key. A SDK /UI kit significantly reduces the go-to-market time.
@catalystNewbie Thank you but I am not exactly sure what do you mean by UK Kit/SDK.
What I meant earlier is a simple website. With search and filters that would be presenting online tools. I could also add features like "liking" some tools and later comparing them on a single page etc.
And I wanted to ask, what do you mean by multiple data-sets? The problem is that I will have to more or less - manually add each saas/online tool to my database so later users would be able to find it.
I just started wondering if we are for sure talking about the same solution :P
Hi sorry slow reply, was relocating. I made a typo UI Kit/SDK. This is the no-code option of a aggregator catalog. The problem in this space is one of poor UX. Other than dealroom.co, all over online catalogs I have seen are terrible UX. I am actually shocked how bad the UX is on most.
Your online catalog, is an example of an online aggregator platform. For me in this space, it is not a data problem or discovery problem (aka how do i search), but a UX problem.
If I was to rank these in order of pain in this space, it would be
1 UX problem
2 discovery problem (improved now with AI search capabilities) like https://topai.tools/ai-assist is doing)
3 data problem
I realise your thinking 'your app' is unique because you wish to target 'normal' people and not business owners. I am not sure by 'normal' people if you mean citizen or a community passionate citizen or any ole citizen. It matters.
Plus I have never seen a good aggregator platform that serves the needs of 'business owners', in the space of shifting to true online business. This could be launching a new business online, or the transformation of brick & mortar (physical shopfront) to online store + collective shopfront (aka digitalization of most operational processes).
The key point I was trying to raise was -- if the online catalog had a great UX (example dealroom.co), that would be the differentiator. Apologise unclear.
Then my second point was -- in fact the UX problem is sorted out, say for your own online catalog --there is a 2nd opportunity. If you build this solution in such a way that you modulize it, then you can sell that as a UI kit / SDK. I saw a fellow IH sell their UI kit for mobile app, basic but great UI (called Semplice). I wrote to them suggesting we need a great UI kit for online aggregator platforms.
Also for me, being yonks in world of business applications. It is simply a too noisy place for a business owner to go searching. They dont approach the problem this way. The look for examples in their context. Their context is typically a business problem. This means, no matter how good the tagging, filtering is, its unlikely to be used by a business owner of SME (small to medium size business)
But great UX, crowd source tagging, tag alias feature, superb UX filtering, at-a-glance graphics (big picture viewpoint) etc.. are very important. They will enable the champions, the stewards, that are helping these many small businesses who find it too noisy. Once these dudes/dudetters show the SME, hey look its here.. they will start to use it... but the first step is the trusted advisors (aka champions, stewards)