What can we learn from successful SaaS products created recently?

I've analyzed the 140 most recent founder interviews from the stories database.

These were pretty much all of the interviews published in 2024.

The goal: Find businesses that were created recently.

More specifically, I was trying to find businesses that were created in 2023.

The reasoning: I was trying to find patterns among those interviews:

• Are those products in a particular industry?

• If yes, are there any patterns among those industries?

The reasoning was that if something has recently worked for someone, there are more chances that same thing will work for you.

The keyword here is recently. Something is more likely to work for you if it worked for someone a year ago vs. 10 years ago.

The results

Out of 140 interviews, 19 contained products that were launched during 2023. One was launched in 2024. So I had a total of 20 interviews.

My first goal was to see if there are any patterns when it comes to the niches those products are in.

12/20 products were AI-based

Let's take a deeper look:

• IACrea ($8,638/mo) is an AI-based, real estate SaaS that stages house photos in seconds.

• StealthGPT ($190k/mo) is a SaaS allowing you to create AI-based text that is not detectable by AI generators. My guess is that a lot of students use this for their essays.

• FormWise ($34k/mo) is a SaaS that allows you to white-label AI tools (have your own ChatGPT, etc.)

• UserDesk (sold) allows you to create AI chatbots using your own website.

• Devv ($30k/mo) is an AI search engine for developers

• PluginSurf ($600/total) is a directory of ChatGPT plugins

• FounderAI ($57k since launch) is a set of marketing tools for founders

• OlympiaChat ($6k/MRR) is a set of AI-powered consultants that help marketers/founders (with things like marketing strategy, copy editing, social media, etc.)

• PressPulse ($336/mo, probably making more now) allows you to automate your HARO pitches with AI (HARO is a popular platform where a lot of SEOs go to get backlinks by connecting with journalists who need quotes from experts on a particular topic).

• PreDev ($144k/year) allows agencies and product managers to reduce their client onboarding time with AI.

• MakeLanding (sold for $35k) allows people to create a landing page with AI

• GPT Hotline ($400/mo) allows you to interact with ChatGPT on WhatsApp.

Most of these products are B2B-based

I could only find 2 out of these 12 products that I could say was B2C (GPT Hotline and PluginSurf). They made the least amount of $$$.

The others focused on businesses/freelancers/people who use those tools to make more money. More specifically:

• 4 products focused on digital marketers

• 4 products focused on founders

• 1 focused on realtors

• 1 focused on students

• 1 focused on product managers

• 1 focused on developers

What we can learn from all this

*To improve your chances of creating a successful product, find a (profitable) JTBD and add AI to it.

Many of these products just add some "AI flavor" to enormous industries that are already profitable:

• The essay writing industry is huge

• There is a huge market of people who provide services to validate your ideas or provide growth strategies

• There's StackOverflow that is a huge search engine for developers

• There are already a lot of landing page builders

My recommendation is to go through the stories database and sort by the oldest stories. For each successful story, ask yourself:

• Is there a way I can add AI to this product and make it faster/more efficient/easier to use?

• Is there a key feature you could isolate and create an AI-based product based off it?

If yes, you're off to a good start.
Good luck!