Trend #023 - 🔥B2B MicroSAAS ideas | 💡Stealing ideas from TechCrunch | ✨Directories

Hey,

ChatGPT released yet another game-changing update (more on that later) and I just found you a way to find validated B2B SAAS ideas.

But first…

It’s almost a year since I started writing free trend reports and I would LOVE to get to know you guys a bit better to make this THE MOST actionable startup newsletter in your inbox every week.👇

What you will learn today:

• Why build B2B microSAAS

• A quick way to find hundreds of validated B2B problems to solve

• 7 B2B problems worth solving and who’s working on a solution

• The visual ChatGPT update everyone is talking about

• An underrated strategy to get eyeballs on your startup

🔎 Why build a B2B (micro)SAAS business?

I get it. Building consumer SAAS is fun. My first 2 businesses are both consumer apps (Savage Cards and Narrated Tours). However here’s the reality:

• Consumers are cheap. Think about the last time you paid more than $10 for an app?

• Customer support costs are high.

• Acquisition costs are climbing.

That’s why VCs love B2B.

👀 Find Validated B2B SAAS ideas 

I was browsing TechCrunch’s recently funded startup list and it suddenly hit me how simple some of the startups that raised millions were. Seriously. Just spend an hour to list out names listed in the Startups category in TechCrunch, and you will end up with bunch of potential B2B SAAS ideas.

Best of all, they usually include what problems they are trying to solve in the interviews. So you can just use that as an initial hypothesis and start doing your own customer interviews.

🔥 Examples

• Qobra (raised $10.5m)- Helps companies calculate sales commissions in real time

• Sparz (raised $3.1m)- Recurring bills management, for corporates

• Ten Key Labs - Leverages AI to manage equity stakes for startups

• Humana AI (raised $3.5m) - ChatGPT for your PDFs. Yes, just like indie hacker, Damon Chen’s PDF.ai

• Beam - Productivity app for enterprises

• Pivot - Makes procurement simpler

• Apron (raised $15m) - Simplifies invoice processing for small companies

💀 Challenges  

1. ❌Don’t assume Product Market Fit just because they’ve raised millions of VC money. Sometimes VCs invest in the founder and their ability to iterate in a space the founder knows well. Do your own user interviews.

2. ❌Don’t boil the ocean. If you’re bootstrapping, find a niche you can access easily and keep it to the core features.

3. ？You probably need to know how to code. Yes, some of these tools, like PDF AI can probably be built with something like Bubble or Glide (the no code platform I used for both my startups). You will however run into questions like reliability and scalability from your potential clients.

👁 Growth Strategy of the Week

One word. Directories. Add your startup to directories like TechCrunch Startup Battlefield (free) to get in front of potential customers and investors.

🔗Also read

• ChatGPT can now “see” images. Nico is using ChatGPT to roast landing pages.

• 500 juicy AI ideas waiting for you

• Selling pre-revenue startups for $10,000

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Until the next one,

Hazel

p/s: Please share your feedback so I can make this newsletter more valuable to you!

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