I’m frustrated and saddened to see tons of entrepreneurs delve into the world of entrepreneurship from the totally opposite starting point. The hype and fraudulent concept of a “software as a subscription” has stolen the opportunity that they might’ve had.
I see too many posts on Reddit as well as get DM’d too many times asking what SaaS they can make, without an ounce of a clue of a problem they’re trying to solve. It’s totally the wrong way around.
SaaS, software as a subscription, is a business model, not a business. The attributes of the SaaS model are super freaking attractive.
Everyone that has once thought of creating a SaaS product has done the bro math:
It's a tempting proposition, no doubt; scalable, highly iterative, low up-front resource requirements, predictable revenue, the list goes on.
I’m not writing here to throw shade at the SaaS model (although I personally am getting tired of it) but instead the approach that new entrepreneurs are taking to enter their entrepreneurial journey.
A business’s primary purpose is to solve a problem in exchange for profit. This fundamental concept underscores the importance of identifying and addressing real-world problems.
The allure of the SaaS model can blind entrepreneurs to the fundamental question: What problem are you actually solving?
It should be a problem-first approach instead of a model-first approach. I mean imagine Google thinking "You know.. ad providers pay a lot of money to show their ads… let's create a search engine to display those ads!" That's not how it happened. They solved a problem first - organizing the world's information - and then found a business model to support it. The same principle applies to aspiring SaaS entrepreneurs.
The strongest way to enter this side of the money-making internet, in my opinion, is to eat your own dog food— solve your own problem. Don’t go looking for problems that don’t exist. This approach just solves too many problems to not be the best approach.
Those were just off the top of my head, I’m sure there are more. The axiom behind this is that it is a problem that you’ve already tried solving with existing solutions, this means that you’ve found substitutions and/or competitors to your future product. You decide there’s something missing in the market’s current offer to your problem. That is the conclusion that must be true for the idea of “eating your own dog food” to also be correct.
Best of luck founders o7
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