There are no shortcuts to success obviously but here’s some criteria I want to use that I learned from shipping a handful of SaaS products (wins and fails):
- Pick a b2b or b2p (business to prosumer) .. def not b2c as it’s 100x harder
- Pick a mature & multi-player market (for ex: podcast hosting tools like Transistor, social media management tools like Buffer)
- Audit your P&L if you’re a biz (which I am) I pay for 12-15 SaaS tools each month. Been paying for 2 years. Pick 1 and build an alternative.
- Make sure the problem is something you actually care about and paid for in the past (be honest as you’ll quit when sh*t hits the fan)
- Make sure you have access to at least 5-10 potential customers within your network (this will make GTM much easier)
- Leverage the AI mega trend right now. Either as the value prop or a core functionality. Don’t build just a wrapper.. but apply AI on a pre-existing use case
- Charge $29-$49/month