7 Proven Ways to Create Profitable SaaS Ideas EVERY Time

Summary

Dans ce script de vidéo, l'animateur TK partage sept méthodes éprouvées pour créer des idées de SaaS rentables et validées. Il insiste sur l'importance de commencer par le marché et de comprendre le problème urgent et important que l'on cherche à résoudre, plutôt que de se lancer dans la construction d'un produit. Le MGP (Market, Go-to-Market, Product) est présenté comme le cadre de validation des idées. Les sept méthodes incluent l'utilisation de sa propre connaissance du domaine, la transformation de services en produit, la disruption de logiciels locaux existants par des solutions cloud, et la création de niches pour des segments de marché sous-servis. L'animateur encourage également à entrer en conversation avec un centaine de personnes cibles pour valider l'idée, tout en développant le produit et en améliorant continuellement la stratégie de go-to-market.

Takeaways

• 🚀 **Commencer par le marché** : Identifiez un problème urgent et important pour un groupe de personnes identifiables avant de se lancer dans la construction d'un produit.
• 🎯 **Validation de l'idée** : Engagez des conversations avec cent personnes cibles pour valider si le problème est réel et si votre proposition de valeur est pertinente.
• 🤝 **Stratégie de marché** : Développez une stratégie de marché efficace pour atteindre et engager votre audience cible.
• 💡 **Connaissances sectorielles** : Utilisez vos propres connaissances et expériences professionnelles pour identifier des problèmes à résoudre avec un produit SaaS.
• 🔄 **Services vers produit** : Transformer une entreprise de services en une entreprise SaaS en internalisant et commercialisant des outils internes pour résoudre des problèmes récurrents.
• ☁️ **Déplacement vers le cloud** : Identifier des logiciels locaux ou hérités et proposer une version SaaS plus moderne et compétitive.
• 📱 **Expérience utilisateur** : Créez un produit 10 fois meilleur que la solution existante, par exemple en réduisant considérablement le nombre de clics nécessaires pour résoudre un problème.
• 🐦 **Suivre les leaders** : Observer et apprendre des entreprises réussies du secteur pour déterminer des opportunités à exploiter.
• 💸 **Disruption de série B** : Cibler des startups de série B validées qui ont déjà identifié un problème urgent et important, et proposer une alternative compétitive.
• 🔧 **Conception parallèle** : Développez votre produit en parallèle de la collecte de feedback et des données du marché pour s'assurer qu'il répond réellement aux besoins des clients.
• 📈 **Accélérer la croissance** : Utilisez le framework MGP (Marché, Go-to-Market, Produit) pour accélérer la convergence vers un ajustement du marché et la croissance.

Q & A

Comment un entrepreneur peut-il éviter de passer des mois à construire le mauvais produit SaaS?

Un entrepreneur doit toujours commencer par le marché et identifier un problème urgent et important pour ce marché, plutôt que de se concentrer d'abord sur le produit. Ensuite, il doit valider l'idée en discutant avec le marché cible avant de passer à la construction du produit.

Quels sont les trois éléments clés du MGP Framework mentionné par TK?

Le MGP Framework se compose de trois éléments clés : le marché (Market), qui doit avoir un problème urgent et important ; le go-to-market (Go-to-market), qui est la capacité à atteindre ce marché ; et le produit (Product), qui doit être 10 fois meilleur que les solutions existantes.

Quelle est la première étape recommandée par TK pour valider une idée de SaaS?

La première étape recommandée est de parler avec un échantillon représentatif du marché cible, généralement cent personnes, pour s'assurer que le problème que l'on cherche à résoudre est en effet urgent et important pour eux.

Comment un entrepreneur peut-il identifier s'il a une véritable opportunité de marché dans son idée de SaaS?

Un entrepreneur peut identifier une opportunité de marché en utilisant l'un des sept moyens mentionnés par TK, notamment en s'appuyant sur sa propre connaissance du domaine, en passant d'un service à un produit, en dérendant un produit existant plus accessible via le cloud, ou en ciblant un niche non desservie par une offre SaaS existante.

Quelle est la différence entre un produit 10x et un produit traditionnel dans le contexte de SaaS?

Un produit 10x est celui qui offre une expérience 10 fois meilleure que les solutions existantes sur le marché pour résoudre un problème urgent et important. Cela peut être atteint en réduisant considérablement la complexité, en automatisant des tâches ou en offrant une meilleure efficacité ou des fonctionnalités uniques.

Comment l'histoire de TK avec la création de ToutApp et son expérience en tant que coach SaaS influencent-elles son approche pour identifier et valider des idées SaaS?

L'expérience de TK avec la création de ToutApp, qui a connu le succès et a été vendue à Marketo, ainsi que son expérience en tant que coach de plus de 250 fondateurs de SaaS, lui ont permis de développer un cadre de validation d'idées SaaS éprouvé et basé sur la pratique. Il utilise ces connaissances pour guider les autres fondateurs vers le succès.

Quels sont les avantages de passer d'un service à un produit dans le développement d'une entreprise SaaS?

Passer d'un service à un produit permet de transformer un modèle d'affaires qui dépend de l'échange de temps contre de l'argent en un modèle plusscalable et plus rentable. Cela permet également de se concentrer sur la création d'une solution récurrente et prédictible pour un problème spécifique, au lieu de fournir des services personnalisés qui peuvent être plus difficiles à échaler.

Comment la stratégie de croissance SaaS à cinq points de TK peut-elle aider les pré-fondateurs et les fondateurs de SaaS?

La stratégie de croissance SaaS à cinq points fournit un guide détaillé pour identifier et développer une idée de SaaS rentablee. Elle couvre des aspects tels que la façon de construire une machine de go-to-market efficace, de générer des conversations significatives avec le marché cible et de construire un produit qui répond aux besoins de ce marché tout en générant des revenus.

Quels sont les risques associés au développement d'un produit SaaS sans préalablement valider l'idée de marché?

Le risque principal est de passer des mois, voire des années, à développer un produit qui ne répond pas aux besoins du marché ou qui n'est pas souhaité par les clients. Cela peut entraîner une perte de temps, d'argent et d'énergie, ainsi qu'une déception pour l'équipe et les investisseurs.

Comment la validation du marché avant la construction du produit peut-elle améliorer les chances de succès d'une entreprise SaaS?

La validation du marché en premier lieu permet de s'assurer qu'il y a une véritable demande pour la solution proposée. Cela réduit le risque de développement inutile et oriente les efforts de l'équipe vers la construction d'un produit qui a des chances réelles d'être adopté et payé par les clients.

Quels sont les facteurs clés que les fondateurs de SaaS devraient considérer lors de la transition d'un service à un produit?

Les fondateurs devraient évaluer la fréquence et l'intensité du problème que leur service résout, la faisabilité technique de l'automatisation de cette solution, la portée du marché potentiel et la manière dont le produit pourrait être distribué et commercialisé efficacement.

Quelle est la méthode recommandée par TK pour discuter avec le marché cible et valider l'idée de SaaS?

La méthode recommandée consiste à entrer en conversation avec un échantillon de cent personnes du marché cible, d'où on ne s'attend qu'à ce que 10% répondent积极地 et engagent une conversation plus approfondie. L'objectif est d'en arriver à deux personnes qui seraient disposées à prépayer, participer à un essai ou devenir partenaires de conception.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Débuter dans le SaaS : Trouver l'idée parfaite

Le premier paragraphe met l'accent sur les défis que rencontrent les ingénieurs qui cherchent à lancer leur entreprise SaaS. Il décrit l'importance de choisir une idée SaaS adéquate et de la valider avant de se lancer dans la construction du produit. Le narrateur, TK, promet d'exposer sept méthodes éprouvées pour choisir et valider une idée SaaS, afin d'accélérer la convergence vers le marché et la croissance. Il introduit également son canal et son approche pour aider les fondateurs de SaaS à grandir leurs entreprises.

05:01

🎯 L'importance de la connaissance de domaine et du passage de services à produit

Le deuxième paragraphe explique en détail les trois premières méthodes pour créer des entreprises SaaS rentables. La première méthode repose sur l'utilisation de sa propre connaissance de domaine pour identifier un problème urgent et important, et s'assurer qu'un marché existant est prêt à payer pour une solution. La deuxième méthode consiste à passer d'une entreprise de services à une entreprise SaaS en internalisant et commercialisant des outils internes. La troisième méthode implique la disruption d'un produit existant hébergé en local (on-premises) en le déplaçant vers le cloud.

10:02

🌐 Disruption de niches et de l'industrie SaaS existante

Le troisième paragraphe développe les méthodes quatre et cinq pour identifier des idées SaaS profitables. La quatrième méthode consiste à disrupter une entreprise SaaS existante en ciblant une niche spécifique, tandis que la cinquième méthode propose de disrupter un produit SaaS existant en le rendant plus simple et automatisé, avec moins de clics pour résoudre le même problème.

15:04

🔄 Suivi rapide et disruption de start-ups de série B

Le quatrième paragraphe décrit les méthodes six et sept pour identifier des idées SaaS. La sixième méthode suggère de devenir un 'suiveur rapide' en copiant une start-up qui a déjà réussi, tout en cherchant à se différencier par un produit 10 fois meilleur. La septième méthode, qui peut être considérée comme plus audacieuse et 'maligne', est de disrupter une start-up de série B en profitant de la validation de marché et de l'investissement effectué par les capitaux-risque, tout en proposant une solution concurrentielle.

20:06

📈 Validation de l'idée SaaS et construction du produit

Le cinquième paragraphe insiste sur l'importance de la validation d'une idée SaaS avant de commencer à construire le produit. Il explique le processus de validation qui implique de parler à un centain nombre de personnes pour comprendre si le problème est réellement urgent et important, et si le produit proposé est le bon candidat pour résoudre ce problème. Il met également l'accent sur la nécessité d'un produit 10 fois meilleur pour réussir sur le marché concurrentiel du SaaS.

25:06

📚 Stratégie de croissance SaaS et ressources supplémentaires

Le sixième paragraphe résume le processus décrit dans le script pour créer et valider une idée SaaS rentable. Il met en évidence le framework MGP (Market, Go-to-Market, Product) et explique comment intégrer la validation du marché, la construction du produit et le développement du marché tout au long du processus. Le narrateur encourage également les spectateurs à télécharger son guide de stratégie de croissance SaaS pour obtenir des conseils plus détaillés sur la façon de mettre en œuvre cette stratégie et de grandir leur entreprise.

Keywords

💡SaaS

SaaS (Software as a Service) fait référence à un modèle de livraison de logiciels où un fournisseur de services met des applications tierces à disposition des clients via Internet. Dans la vidéo, l'accent est mis sur la création et la croissance d'une entreprise SaaS, montrant à travers des exemples et des stratégies comment identifier et développer des idées rentables pour un service de logiciel.

💡Product Market Fit

Le Product Market Fit (PMF) est un concept clé en affaires qui décrit la situation où un produit répond efficacement aux besoins du marché cible. Dans le script, l'objectif est de guider les fondateurs de SaaS vers un PMF en validant d'abord un problème urgent et important, en développant ensuite un produit 10 fois meilleur (10x product) et en mettant en place une stratégie de go-to-market adaptée.

💡Go-to-Market Strategy

Une stratégie de go-to-market est un plan détaillé qui décrit comment une entreprise prévoit de commercialiser et de distribuer son produit ou service. Le script insiste sur l'importance de cette stratégie pour atteindre le marché cible et de valider l'idée de SaaS en s'appuyant sur des conversations avec les clients potentiels.

💡10x Product

Un produit 10x est un produit qui offre une expérience ou des fonctionnalités nettement supérieures (disons, dix fois meilleures) par rapport à celles des produits concurrents existants. Dans la vidéo, le concept est utilisé pour souligner la nécessité d'innover et de fournir une valeur ajoutée considérable pour se démarquer dans un marché concurrentiel.

💡Domain Knowledge

Les connaissances sectorielles ou domain knowledge font référence à l'expertise et aux informations spécifiques détenues par une personne dans un domaine ou un secteur d'activité. Dans le contexte du script, le domaine knowledge est mentionné comme une source clé pour identifier des problèmes à résoudre et ainsi créer un produit SaaS qui répond à des besoins réels.

💡MGP Framework

Le MGP Framework est un modèle utilisé pour évaluer et valider une idée de SaaS. Les trois composantes sont le Market (Marché), le Go-to-Market (Stratégie de Commercialisation) et le Product (Produit). Le script utilise ce cadre pour expliquer comment évaluer si une idée de SaaS est prometteuse en fonction de ces trois aspects.

💡Urgent and Important Problem

Un problème urgent et important est un besoin ou une difficulté que les clients ressentent fortement et immédiatement. Le script souligne que pour réussir avec un SaaS, il est essentiel de cibler un tel problème qui pousse les clients à chercher une solution rapidement.

💡Competitive Advantage

L'avantage concurrentiel est une caractéristique ou un facteur qui donne à une entreprise une position plus forte que ses concurrents dans le marché. Dans le script, le concept est abordé en termes de création d'un produit 10x qui offre une meilleure expérience que les solutions existantes.

💡Validation

La validation est le processus d'confirmation que l'idée de produit ou de service répond réellement aux besoins du marché. Le script met en évidence l'importance de cette étape avant le développement du produit pour éviter de gaspiller des ressources sur une idée qui ne sera pas adoptée par les clients.

💡Revenue Generation

La génération de revenus fait référence à la capacité d'une entreprise à produire des profits à partir de ses activités commerciales. Le script décrit les méthodes pour passer de l'idée de SaaS à la création de revenus réels en utilisant le MGP Framework et en s'appuyant sur des conversations avec le marché cible.

💡Market Segmentation

La segmentation de marché est la pratique de diviser un grand marché en groupes plus petits de clients avec des besoins ou des caractéristiques similaires. Dans le script, cela est mentionné comme une stratégie pour identifier des niches non servies ou des segments du marché qui peuvent bénéficier d'un produit SaaS spécialisé.

Highlights

工程师在开始SaaS业务时，面临的最大挑战是选择正确的创意并避免花费大量时间开发最终无人问津的产品。

TK介绍了七个经过验证的方法来挑选和验证正确的SaaS创意，以加速产品市场契合和增长。

强调了在构建产品之前，先确定市场存在紧迫且重要的问题的重要性。

提出了MGP框架（市场、市场进入、产品），作为评估和选择SaaS创意的指导原则。

分享了个人在SaaS领域的经验，包括成功创立并出售ToutApp，以及作为SaaS教练的背景。

讨论了如何通过自己的领域知识来识别SaaS创意，即解决自己遇到的问题，并验证市场上有足够多人面临同样的问题。

解释了如何将服务业务转化为产品，通过内部工具化和产品化解决特定问题，从而转变为SaaS业务。

探讨了颠覆现有本地产品并将其迁移到云端的策略，以提供更便宜、更新、更好用的解决方案。

介绍了针对特定细分市场创建SaaS产品的方法，如为兽医诊所或移动公证人定制CRM系统。

提出了通过减少用户操作点击次数来颠覆现有SaaS解决方案的策略，以提供更自动化和更简化的用户体验。

讨论了快速跟随者的策略，即模仿市场上已经成功的初创公司，并尝试通过10倍更好的产品来区分自己。

描述了如何通过颠覆B轮融资的公司来识别和验证SaaS创意，利用他们已经证明的市场契合度和市场规模。

强调了在构建产品之前进行市场验证的重要性，包括与潜在客户的对话和预销售验证。

提出了一个数学模型，说明在接触100人后，只有10人会进行深入对话，其中2人可能会购买或试用产品。

分享了如何通过与市场的持续对话来改进市场假设、市场进入策略和产品开发，以实现产品市场契合。

提供了一个免费的五点SaaS增长战略指南，帮助读者深入理解如何选择和验证SaaS创意，并构建增长策略。

鼓励观众通过点赞、分享和订阅来支持频道，以便持续接收有关构建、增长和扩大SaaS公司的实用策略和技巧。

Transcripts

- If you're an engineer and you're just starting out

your SaaS business or you're at that point

where you're thinking about what's the right idea to pursue,

but you know you really wanna build a SaaS business,

I know it can be really daunting.

There's so many opportunities out there,

there's so many competing products out there,

it can be really daunting on what's the idea

that you actually start building.

Because the worst thing

to happen is you spend eight months building the wrong

product because you spend eight months building it

and then you take it out into the market

and then you realize no one wants what you are selling.

So in this episode,

I'm gonna walk you through seven proven ways

to actually pick the right SaaS idea,

to validate it and then build it

so that you can actually accelerate your path

to product market fit and to that next stage of growth.

Intro.

(upbeat music)

What's up everybody?

Welcome to Unstoppable.

I'm TK, and on this channel I help SaaS founders

like you grow your SaaS businesses faster

with an unstoppable strategy.

Now if you're new to this channel, welcome.

I drop an episode every single Sunday

with actionable strategies

and tactics from the trenches on how

to actually grow your SaaS business faster.

So be sure to hit that subscribe button

and that bell icon

where you'll get notified every single time

I drop an episode with the TK energy.

Now, if you're already part of this community,

if you're part of my SaaS go-to-market coaching programs.

My people, welcome back.

It's really awesome to see you over here.

Lemme set some context.

You might be watching a lot of these videos that say,

here's five great SaaS ideas.

And I've seen those too.

And the thing that always goes through my mind is,

if these are such great ideas,

why are you not building them?

Why are you telling people about it?

If it's such a great opportunity, why are you not doing it?

Clearly that's what you should be doing.

So I'm always skeptical about those kind of videos

where people just say, here's five really great ideas.

So I hate those kind of videos.

At the same time, I also know that SaaS is very competitive

and whenever there's competition

there's also great opportunity.

So there are a lot of great SaaS ideas out there.

And so over the years in my journey as a SaaS founder

and a SaaS coach, I've developed a framework on how

to think about SaaS ideas, how to validate SaaS ideas.

I get a new SaaS idea every single day,

but I don't pursue any of them, barely any of them

because I have a framework to actually validate them

and pick the ideas that really make sense.

So my history in SaaS

is my last company was called, ToutApp.

I started it in my second bedroom while I had a day job

and I was working on it on the side.

Eventually the idea came together.

I went from bootstrapping it all the way

to raising from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz

and then selling it to a company called Marketo,

which is a market leader.

Since then, I've started to coach SaaS founders.

I've worked with over 250 SaaS founders

and I've helped them go from pre-revenues

to initial revenues to ARR to 3 million ARR and beyond.

In fact, there's something really cool

that I had to do this past week.

In fact, let me just show you 'cause this is really cool

and then I'll get to the actual ideas and the framework.

We've had so many of the founders that I work with

and that I coach get to that million ARR

and get to that 3 million ARR

I actually started building out

and sending out these trophies.

So all these trophies,

each of them represent, the small one represents a company

that got to a million ARR after working with me.

And then it represents companies.

The bigger ones represent companies

that got to 3 million ARR.

That's been the track record

that I've been following to actually help founders.

In addition to that, in the last year alone,

I started on two SaaS ideas

and took it from idea

to revenues in the past 12 months

using the same exact framework.

So I know a thing or two

and I'm gonna be teaching you the framework that I use,

not SaaS ideas because quite honestly

if I had great SaaS ideas, I would just do them,

unless I explicitly said, I'm never gonna do this

because this is totally not interesting to me.

But I'm gonna teach you the framework that I use

to pick the ideas, to validate them

and then go build them and then drive to revenues.

So if you're excited to dig in,

go ahead and smash that like button

for the YouTube algorithm.

It just loves it when you do that.

And let's take right into it, shall we.

So the first thing I want you

to understand is I'm an engineer.

I started with engineering and coding products

and probably coding too many products,

before I learned this framework.

And so I always think in terms of equations.

And so principle number zero.

Before I get to the seven proven ways is this is

the equation that I follow to validate a SaaS idea.

I get a lot of SaaS ideas, but here's how I validate it.

Here's what makes for a successful SaaS business.

The first part of it is

you need an urgent and important problem.

It needs to be urgent

for the market that you're going after,

a group of people that you can actually identify,

and it also needs to be important to them.

If it's just urgent

and it's not important, they won't take action right away.

It'll be hard to sell.

If it's important, but it's not urgent,

again, it'll be important, but they'll eventually get to it.

It's harder to sell.

You need both.

Whenever it's urgent and important,

then you know you are talking about a problem

that they really need fixed right away

and you wanna align your software along that.

The second piece that you need is go-to-market.

Some people also refer to this as distribution.

So distribution is essentially how you distribution.

There we go.

It's hard to talk and spell at the same time sometimes.

So you need the urgent and important problem

to go after a specific market,

but then you also need the go-to-market motions

to be able to reach those people.

If you're choosing a market that's impossible to get to,

impossible to market to, while you might be able to sell one

or two items, you won't be able to scale the SaaS business

and therefore it won't be very profitable

and won't really churn out cash

and it won't really be a thing

that you can actually quit your day job for

or actually earn a living off of

or even raise venture capital for.

So you wanna make sure you can actually

reach these people through a go-to-market machine.

And the last thing that you need, again,

because SaaS is so so competitive,

it's really hard to compete with the existing solutions

that are well known.

It's equally hard to compete with a spreadsheet, which means

that your product needs to be 10x better.

So you need a 10x product,

meaning some aspect of your product needs

to provide a 10x better experience

in solving this urgent and important problem.

So that's pretty much it.

That's the core equation

that I look at and when I dig into these seven ways

to actually pick the right product, the right idea,

I always go back to this equation

and it kind of simplifies down to market,

go-to-market and product.

I call it essentially my MGP framework.

The better the market and the better the go-to-market

and the better the product, the higher the probability

that you're going to be successful with your SaaS business.

So often I see people saying you should start

a SaaS business and they're pitching to people

that aren't even engineers.

It's like I always say, don't start a rocket company

if you don't have a rocket engineer on the team

or you can't hire a group of rocket engineers.

It's really hard. It's the same with SaaS companies.

So if you're an engineer and you're thinking about starting

a SaaS business, that's incredible 'cause I've done that.

It's changed my life.

You always wanna pass every single idea

through the MGP framework.

So now given that, let's break down the seven key ways

that you can actually create your own profitable SaaS idea.

And so I always break it down to MGP.

Market, do they have an urgent important problem?

Go-to-market, can I actually reach them.

And product, is there a 10x product?

So we just talked about that equation.

When you're picking a SaaS idea more often,

you're really talking about the market.

Here's the biggest mistake that I see people make.

They start building a product.

And trust me, I'm an engineer, it's so easy

to download the latest React framework starter kit,

SaaS application boilerplate

and just say, cool, I'm just gonna go build this thing.

It's so easy. It's also gratifying.

I love coding too,

but you don't wanna start with the product.

You almost always wanna start with the market.

So there's seven proven ways that I'm gonna show you

to actually create the right SaaS idea and then validate it

is always starting with the market, not the product.

It's not the other way around where people usually go wrong.

When you start with the product,

you essentially end up spending months building a product

and then saying, I'm gonna go take it to the market

and then try to find a market

that actually needs your product

only to realize no one wants it.

So we always start with market

and figuring out whether it's an urgent

and important problem.

So now you're like, all right TK how do I know if the idea

that I have is an urgent and important problem?

You can see how I always filter through this

and that's why 99% of the ideas that I think of

or come across, I just say, no, that's not worth it.

At the same time, when I picked the two SaaS companies

that I started over 12 months ago,

it's actually not over 12 months, it's about 12 months.

One was slightly above 12 months,

one was right at 12 months.

When I started those, they passed this filter,

which is why I said, yeah, I want to go build these.

And now they're generating revenues.

Like that's why this works.

So you might be wondering, all right,

how do I figure out an urgent and important problem

and therefore that's my SaaS idea?

And then I can go do these other pieces.

You don't wanna start with a product.

Here's how you do it.

This is where the seven pieces come into play.

So let's pick a different color marker

and we're just gonna number these

and I'm gonna go through these.

Three, four, five, six and then seven.

I first listed these out

because I've seen these play out

with the over 250 founders that I coach.

I've seen this play out in my 15-year career,

but then I reprioritize it based on what gets the best ideas

and then goes to the least to likely.

So I'll go in that order.

Now sometimes YouTubers are like,

I'm gonna leave the best for last,

so you watch the whole thing.

Well that's not what I'm doing.

I'm just gonna give you the most impactful ones first

and then what I'm gonna walk you through

is once you have identified your SaaS idea,

you still don't code it.

I'm gonna walk you through

what you need to do to go validate it.

So we'll talk about that as well.

The first way that I've seen it's a proven way

to create profitable SaaS companies

and pick the right idea

is to go on your own domain knowledge.

What does that mean?

Domain knowledge means you have been

doing a certain job and you have encountered

a certain urgent and important problem,

which means that you can actually build a SaaS product

that solves your own problem.

Now there's a caveat here.

You wanna make sure it's your own domain knowledge plus 100.

What does that 100 mean?

If you have a problem, you're like TK,

to me this is urgent and important.

I've seen it firsthand. I would pay for this.

Before you actually build the product you wanna find

and make sure there's another hundred people

that you can identify, that's what we call a market,

who has this same urgent and important problem that you have

through your own domain knowledge.

So if you're an engineer and you code all day

and you've seen people across the aisle on the sales side

have the same problem, you're like,

I can build a product for that, great.

That means you have domain knowledge,

but now you wanna find another a hundred people that agree

with you on that same domain knowledge and that insight.

So that's the number one way.

The most successful companies,

the most successful founders, in fact these trophies

that I'm talking about,

a majority of these founders built something out

of their own domain knowledge.

They were working on this, encountered the problem,

realized another a hundred people have it,

and they started to actually build out their go-to-market

and their product to actually scale their business.

And that's why they're so successful.

Using your own domain knowledge, solving your own problem,

but putting it through the filter

that there's another a hundred people

that would actually have the same problem is the best number

one way to proven way to actually choose the right SaaS idea

and to build great SaaS products.

The second way that I've seen

is to go from services to product.

I've seen this very often where we have founders

that had a consulting company,

they had a services business, they had an agency

and they were solving a very specific problem over and over

and over using their time

and using their team's time for a specific market.

And what they realized was they could build internal tooling

and an internal product to do that job

and to automate that job.

And what they did then was they sold that product

to the same clients they were selling the services to.

And over time they switched from being a services business

to a proper SaaS business.

They kept selling the same product over

and over for solving that problem over

and over instead of services,

which is basically trading time for money.

Nothing wrong with that,

but that's a great way

to figure out domain knowledge if you don't have it yet.

And that's the second most common way

that I've seen founders discover great SaaS ideas

and be successful in getting to revenues and scaling.

The third way that I've seen is to disrupt

an existing product that's on-prem.

And believe it or not, in 2023 we still see this

and take it to the cloud.

Overall if you're a new business,

you're a large enterprise across the gamut.

Most of them have adopted cloud in one shape or form,

meaning they're actually paying for software

as a service, SaaS.

But there's still a huge portion of the world

that's running on what we call old legacy software.

This is on-premise software, this is for specific verticals,

this is for specific use cases.

And I keep meeting founders

who come from specific industries where they say, look,

it's still running on on-premise software.

They haven't moved to the cloud.

It's 10-year old software, that company's dying,

so we're gonna sell them software

that's in the cloud, that's cheaper, brand new

that's easier to use and 10 times better.

So these are folks that identify the urgent

and important problem but realize they're not really being

served really well and the way they disrupt them is going

in and saying, look,

you don't need to renew this legacy software,

you can just buy it for nine bucks a month

or a hundred dollars a month

and you can just subscribe to it and it'll be brand new

and it'll streamline their entire workflow.

And that's one of the great ways

to actually identify an urgent important problem.

Figure out who's already buying software

but it's on-premise or legacy software

and build a 10 times better product for them

and go-to-market to them and actually sell it to them

and say, look, we'll just move you to the cloud

that way there'll be total cost savings

and you'll be just better software

and you'll streamline your entire business.

So that's the third most common way I worked with founders

who have great ideas and

are successful in getting to revenues.

Now, before I go to number four, number five, number six

and number seven, these are the additional ways

you can identify great SaaS ideas.

And then we're gonna talk about

how do you validate your SaaS idea.

Let me just pause here for a second.

Are you starting to see the power in this?

Are you starting to see the power of this MGP framework?

Don't start with product, start with market.

A market has an urgent and important problem

and here are the key ways

to identify urgent important problems.

And I'm gonna give you four more right after this

and then I'm gonna teach you how to validate.

If you're starting to see the power in this,

can I just get a "Yes" in the comments below

and also smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm?

It just loves it when you do that.

Also, if you're in this stage

where you're like, okay, I'm gonna do this.

If you're like baby TK,

I was like working at a job, I didn't love it.

I knew I wanted to do a code and build my own SaaS product

and launch my SaaS business

and gain the independent life that I want

and then maybe raise venture capital

or build a boost start company.

If you're in that stage where you're like, look,

I definitely wanna build a SaaS business,

but I want to dig into this even more even beyond

what I'm gonna cover in this video.

Then after this video, make sure you grab a copy

of my five-point SaaS growth strategy guide.

It's a guide that really breaks down the key steps

to building and scaling a SaaS business.

It's an incredible guide, it's completely free.

I'll link to it below and I'll tell you more about it

at the end of this episode so you can dig in even more.

Let's go to number four, shall we.

All right, number four is really awesome,

and I've met so many founders,

so many incredible founders who followed this one.

Number four is they disrupt an existing SaaS company,

but they bring it to a specific niche.

So for example, let's take CRM,

that's an existing SaaS category.

Let's take Salesforce or HubSpot.

That's an existing category for SaaS

that serves a wide variety of businesses.

An example of this is creating a CRM

just for veterinarian clinics

or creating a CRM for mobile notaries,

or creating a CRM for SaaS companies,

or creating a CRM specifically for services businesses

that sell social media marketing for small businesses.

This is a case where you can take these broad SaaS offerings

and you can say, look, that's great,

but I'm gonna create a SaaS offering for a subset

of the market because that subset

of the market still has the urgent important problem.

CRM for example, customer relationship management

is a proven, urgent and important problem.

So the market exists, but I'm gonna go find an underserved

segment of the market and really double down in there.

And I've worked with founders who, for example,

that veterinary CRM, they run a veterinary clinic

and they're like all the other CRM suck and we built our own

and helps us run our business better,

so we're gonna build it. Super powerful.

So they kind of took the domain knowledge

and disrupted an existing niche,

which is super, super powerful.

So that's number four.

Number five, this is where it starts to get harder.

You notice like these are the easiest, this is net new,

and then you start to disrupt existing ones.

It's harder to disrupt existing ones,

but it's very much possible.

So you can also disrupt an existing one.

So you can say, I'm gonna disrupt the CRM market,

but I am not gonna niche down.

I'm gonna be broad, so I'm gonna do CRM for businesses,

like keep it broad, like that's a broad market,

but I'm gonna make the software so it's fewer clicks.

Fewer clicks is one

of the greatest competitive differentiators in SaaS.

So for example, every SaaS product solves a problem,

it solves an urgent important problem.

Now to solve the urgent important problem,

let's say the user logs in

and then they get some sort of a result

that solves the problem.

In the traditional SaaS player,

let's just say Salesforce, it takes 50 clicks

for us to actually book a deal and navigate a deal.

If you can build CRM software that does it in fewer clicks.

If you're like, look, you don't have to log anything,

you don't have to create any opportunities, you don't have

to enter any data, we'll just follow you around all day.

We'll listen to all your phone conversations, we'll listen

to all your Zoom calls, we'll listen to all your emails

and we'll create all the opportunities for you.

Log all the data for you, forecast for you.

It'll all be automatic, it just takes one click.

Instead of a hundred clicks,

it takes one click, would you buy?

Would you at least try it out?

That's one way to differentiate

and disrupt an existing player, fewer clicks.

And that's actually very powerful.

Sometimes this gets positioned as we'll just automate it.

Sometimes this gets positioned like we'll add an AI

assistant that does it for you.

And sometimes it's literally like you just

don't have to worry about that anymore.

We'll just do it for you. You don't have to think about it.

We'll just sync your data and it's all automatic.

You'll just get a report. You're just hiring this robot.

So there are different ways to position this

when you go-to-market, but ultimately

what you're doing is you're looking at the existing solution

and realizing it takes a hundred clicks to do something

and you're building the 10x product

that says we're gonna do it in two clicks

and that's what's gonna be game changing.

So you go to every customer that is a customer of

that entrenched player and you disrupt them saying, look,

you can keep doing it that way or you can use us

and it just takes fewer clicks and we get better results.

And by the way, we are new so we're cheaper.

So do you wanna give it a try?

There's no risk to you

and it's a compelling offer at that point.

See that's the number five way.

And this is happening more

and more now, especially now we're seeing

a platform shift in SaaS.

It's going from cloud to AI plus cloud.

So you're starting to see a lot

of these workflows getting changed up

by making it less clicks

and making it a lot more streamlined, a lot more automated,

which is really, really cool and a huge opportunity for you.

Number six, this starts to get less and less interesting

but still works really well.

Just be a fast follower.

You can just literally find another

startup and you can clone them.

If they're doing well, then you can clone them

and you can find some way to differentiate

between them in terms of a 10x product

and you can have just as much of a distribution strategy

and you will be picking a really great idea

because if they're doing it really well

and you can build a product and a go-to-market just as well,

then you can compete with them

and the market's probably big enough.

So that's one of the easiest ways

to validate an urgent important problem.

If they're doing it well, might as well copy them.

Now copying is one of those things where just

because you copied their product doesn't mean you can

actually beat them because companies

compete in different vectors.

So it's not guaranteed you'll be successful,

which is why I put it as number six

instead of number one.

Everyone thinks like, oh we'll just copy them.

But it's like, look, you can copy them

but at the time you get to where they are,

they're gonna be going to where they're gonna be

'cause they're original and they are innovating.

So it'll be a race you'll never win,

but maybe there's a way to win it.

So that's something for you to think about,

which is why it's number six.

Not as powerful as number one or two or three.

And the final one, which is kind of a genius one,

it's also a very evil one.

It's disrupt a series B company.

If you are familiar with venture capital,

you get a seed round.

Seed round is when you kind of have initial revenues

and you need to like get to a proper go-to-market machine

and like really invest in it.

Series A is you have a go-to-market machine.

You need to scale it.

Series B is you have a scalable go-to-market machine.

When you put in a dollar $2 comes out.

A series B startup is actually really young

but also very validated.

That's why investors invest in them.

Series B is usually a 20 million, 30 million,

$40 million round depending on market conditions.

The reason they're raising that series B

is this proven product market fit and they've proven

that they're solving an urgent important problem

and they've proven that they have go-to-market.

So you can literally copy all of that.

And they've also proven that it's a very large market,

otherwise venture capital wouldn't be investing in them.

So you can just go in and say, look, we're just gonna do

what they're doing and we're just gonna,

all that hard work they did between seed series A, series B

to figure out the market, we can just take that

and we can compete with them.

We already know what the product is,

we know what the urgent important problem is,

we have some clues on what the go-to-market is,

so you can go compete with them.

Again, this is kinda like number six

where just because you decide

to compete with them doesn't mean

you're good enough to compete with them.

But it's a great way to identify, hey,

this is gonna be a really successful idea

because they've already proven it

but they're not huge and well entrenched.

That's why they're so the series B level.

So that means there's still room for another player

and that's what makes 'em really vulnerable

and you could go after them.

So those are the seven key ways,

the seven proven ways to create profitable SaaS ideas.

Now here's the thing, I dunno about you, but

because I can code, I've gone down rabbit holes

before where I've built a product, I've worked on it

for eight months and then I realized, oh my god,

who do we sell this to and how do we sell it?

Now we're gonna do sales and marketing.

So over time, that was baby TK,

and over time I've learned, okay,

you need to actually sell it.

You need a proper go-to-market strategy

and you need a 10x product,

which is why I have this MGP framework.

Which is also why I encourage people to start with market,

what's the urgent important problem that you're solving for?

And then go engage with those people

and then go build a product

that way you're not wasting months building

the wrong product and then go in this order.

The reason I really say this is

there's a certain math to this.

So if you are picking one of these ideas

and you have a SaaS idea, here's basically what you do next.

Once you have the idea,

you basically have to go validate it.

Now in order to validate it,

you need to take this idea that you have.

Let's just say you have a certain idea

and you figure out what's your value proposition,

what's the market you're going after,

how do you actually describe the problem

you're solving and what you're gonna be solving for?

Then you need to go-to-market, meaning you go to that market

and you need to talk to a hundred people.

The reason you wanna talk to a hundred people is

because that's the only way you can statistically verify

if this is truly an urgent important problem.

Even if there is an existing player,

you're going after a series B company, there's no proof

that you can actually compete against that series B company

with the product that is gonna be 10x.

They might say, look, you're two people,

they're a series B company.

Your product's the same or not even there.

So I don't know if I'm gonna do it.

To really validate that, okay,

we don't do all the things that series B company does,

but we do the important things and we do it better

and ours is 10x better.

Would you wanna buy?

You need to go talk to a hundred people to validate it.

If you have your own domain knowledge,

you're creating something net new in the market,

you definitely need to go talk

to a hundred people and validate it.

And the reason for this is basically the law of averages.

Again, I take an engineering approach to this

so it's super ruthless and it's super simple

and it hurts also when you lay it out this way.

You talk to a hundred people, 10% of them will actually talk

to you and engage with you.

You reach out to a hundred people.

So you're gonna get about 10% of people and say, yeah,

I'll talk to you about this problem.

I'll take a look at your mockups or I'll talk to you

and tell you if this is urgent or important

or if your product thesis is right.

So you're gonna get 10 people.

And by the way,

this is true whether you have a product or not.

Meaning you could ignore all of my advice

and just go build a product and not listen to me.

Then you're gonna be like, cool, we need now sell this.

So then again, you're gonna go now, go to go to a market,

you're gonna be like, we should market and sell.

So then you're gonna have to go talk to a hundred people.

So might as well do it before you build the product

and parallel track it.

Like that's kind of how this works.

So the law of averages says only 10% of people

that you reach out to will actually truly engage with you

and have a deeper conversation.

And then the Pareto principle says 20%

will actually buy from you.

So which means that only two people will actually buy

or try your product depending on what your offer is.

So in order to really know if you're building the right

thing before you actually build it,

you actually need to get that go-to-market together.

Figure out if you can get to a hundred of these people.

If you can convert them to actually 10 phone conversations

and Zoom conversations, you can get two to prepay or pre-buy

or do a trial or do a free thing.

Any one of those things.

And once you know this math equation,

it essentially cannot be unseen.

Meaning you can go code

but then six months from now,

once that version is good enough

and you don't fall into one more feature trap,

you're gonna have to say, cool,

let's now do sales and marketing.

Maybe you'll say, oh, I'll just post it on Hacker News

or I'll do an app sumo deal.

But here's the thing that's not really gonna

get you your ideal market.

You want to go after your ideal market

that has the urgent important problem.

But when you flip the model

and you start with market,

what's the urgent important problem?

Who are these people?

And these are the ways you can develop your idea.

Then you actually develop the go-to-market.

It doesn't have to be sophisticated.

You actually go reach out to these people

and engage with them and get 10%

to actually get into a conversation

and 20% to say, yeah, like I'll buy it

or here's, I'll prepay

or I'll be a design partner or something like that.

And then you can go build a 10x product

and then you keep generating more conversations

with another a hundred people and another a hundred people.

What ends up happening is as you are talking

to these people, you are getting better data on the market

and you're improving your market thesis,

and you're improving your go-to-market,

and you're building a better product,

and it makes you more likely to actually drive

to product market fit and revenues.

And that's why I have all these awards.

That's why I've been able to actually get to two companies

that are revenue generating in the last 12 months

because this is the framework that I follow.

Firstly, I validate

that there's an urgent important problem,

then I actually build out the go-to-market to engage

with these people in a meaningful way.

And then as I'm getting into conversations,

I'm building the product and as I'm building the product,

I'm getting in more conversations

'cause I'm operating the go-to-market

and the product building at the same time.

And therefore as we're building it,

we're getting more data, we're getting more insight,

and that drives it to revenues faster,

'cause we end up validating the market

as we're building the product.

And quite frankly, we also end up building a better product

based on market feedback and that's the power in this.

So to recap now you know the seven proven ways

to actually create profitable SaaS ideas every single time.

First you start with the MGP framework market,

then go-to-market, then product.

When you are figuring out if you're solving an urgent

important problem or trying to identify the right SaaS idea

for you, here are the seven key ways

that you can actually pick the right SaaS idea.

And then once you have picked a SaaS idea,

then you should build out your go-to-market,

try to get a new conversation with a hundred people,

get to 10 real conversations

and out of those get two to commit to a trial,

to be a design partner or to prepay and buy.

As you're doing that, start building the product

and as you're building the product,

get another a hundred people and keep building the product,

get another a hundred people and keep building the product.

And that way you're driving to product market fit

with revenues and you're also building a better product.

Now you know the exact framework that I use

and all the founders that I coach, what they use

to get from pre revenues to initial revenues.

This is super simple, but it's super powerful

and it's very scientific

because it doesn't have to be chaotic.

You follow this process, it's a lot easier

to actually navigate this shawshank crawl

to product market fit.

Now what you may not know is TK

how do I actually figure out the right market?

Or how do I actually build out my go-to-market

so I can get into these hundred conversations?

Or what is a 10x product?

Like what makes for a 10x product?

These are all questions that I tackle in detail inside

of my five-point SaaS growth strategy guide.

That five-point SaaS growth strategy guide really focuses on

this part of the puzzle.

It really focuses on once you have that idea

or you're picking a few ideas, how do you build out

that go-to-market machine to get into as many conversations

as possible and actually drive to real customers

as you're building the right product for them.

So if you wanna grab a copy

of my five-point SaaS score strategy guide,

which will help you slash out this strategy

and really put all these pieces into action,

just go to getunstoppable.com/strategy.

Getunstoppable.com/strategy.

It's completely free. It's an incredible guide.

It's got my best pieces of content on actually how

to flesh out the strategy to grow your SaaS business,

and it links back to all the other videos

that I have in this YouTube channel.

So you can kind of navigate this path.

To grab your completely free copy,

it's an incredible guide.

Just go to getunstoppable.com/strategy,

getunstoppable.com/strategy.

Also, if you've got value from this video,

please smash out like button for the YouTube algorithm.

We put a lot of love into these videos

and it means the world to us when you hit that like button

because it tells YouTube

that we're creating valuable content.

Speaking of valuable content,

we want to help as many SaaS pre-founders

and founders like you to build incredible SaaS companies.

That's why I put so much love into these videos.

So please, if you're part of a Slack group,

a WhatsApp group, if you have a co-founder,

if you have a friend that you wanna start a company with,

if you're part of a community, if you're part of Twitter

or LinkedIn, please share this video,

which just mean the world to us.

Also, I drop an episode every single Sunday

with actionable strategy

and tactics from the trenches on how to build, grow,

and scale SaaS companies.

So be sure to hit that subscribe button

and that bell icon,

you'll get notified every single time I drop an episode.

And lastly, remember, everyone needs a strategy

for their life and their business.

When you are with us, yours is gonna be unstoppable.

I'm TK and I'll see you the next episode

or inside the five-point SaaS growth strategy guide.

Link below.

Take care, everybody.

(inspiring music)