How do you come up with the first idea?

Trey Winterbourne
4 replies
After validating a few ideas and realising they wont work, I came to wonder how y'all come up with these fantastic SaaS product ideas? The main thing I hear is "take something someone else may already do, but focus on ONE feature and do it better". But sometimes this just doesn't feel right, and often these big companies have such budgets and developer power that you can't build that feature out better than them + market enough to make it worth it. I've got no experience with SaaS, never launched, never finished a product, so maybe I've just missed the marketing side - and products like this can work. But what do you do to get these amazing ideas?

Replies

Gurkaran Singh
Coming up with SaaS ideas is like a digital treasure hunt - sometimes you stumble upon a gem when you least expect it! Maybe mix in some tech brainstorm sessions with a sprinkle of market research to uncover your golden ticket. Who knows, your next idea might just be a unicorn disguised as a regular ol' horse!
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Trey Winterbourne
😂 yeah it seems to be! I need to always remember that media keeps up with big products and successes, it doesn't include fails. I need to remind myself it's not a 1 attempt 1 success, it may be 10 attempts 1 success. Gotta keep trying tho!
Luka Brzin
Just talk to people (friends, familiym random strangers) and try to figure out a problem they are facing and then solve it. Validate your idea on forums, blogs, and communities like this. Then write about that problem in the same groups to gain traction and recognition even before you have a product to show. Try to show really empathy towards people about said probem and then describe how your product best solves it.
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Trey Winterbourne
Great suggestions @luka_brzin, really appreciate it! I've had a couple of great ideas from people close to me but I've found it hard trying to sell to them, quite stubborn to move to SaaS rather than doing things manually. That's the thing with a mix of customers + businesses, if the person you're working with is high up, but does some manual things, you'd think making their life easier would be a big enticement, but in my attempts it hasn't been. So my motivation just went down and down. Maybe I need to speak to potential customers that aren't close to me.