🗞 What's New: A framework for choosing your best idea

When you have a new idea, run it through this framework to determine whether to proceed:

• Look for existing competition, a single high-value problem, an accessible market, and a good price point. Avoid platform dependency and fads.
• Blogging can increase your ROI by 13x. Make your blog more engaging by adding video, adding a search bar, and responding to comments.
• From zero to $4K MRR with a productized consulting service. Paul van Oijen launched Incomparable, and referrals helped it skyrocket.

Want your product seen by over 70,000 founders and businesses? Sponsor an issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter. Choose between 3 affordable tiers that can fit almost any budget.

by Mac Martine

When deciding on a new business idea, I have certain criteria that I consider. It’s really helpful to have a framework in place to make the process simpler and quicker when a new idea surfaces. Here's my criteria!

Must have existing competition

Creating a new market is incredibly difficult, requiring lots of resources and funding. The presence of existing competition means you don’t need to validate the idea itself.

We talked more about this last week.

No platform dependency

Build something you have control over. It's not good to be dependent on another platform for your livelihood.

This is not to be confused with integrating with other platforms. For example, I have no problem using Stripe as my payment processor, as I can swap that out (if needed) without risking my business as a whole.

A single high-value problem

Solve one single problem very well. This helps get it into the market fast, get early customers, get feedback, and expand.

Good price point

I like to look for problems with a price point averaging $49 a month, but ideally, $99+.

Not a fad

Are you looking to build a sustainable business, or are you okay with possibly riding a short wave? If you're looking for a long-term idea, don't go with a fad.

Would you be a customer?

The projects that I've used personally have all ended up dramatically better in terms of user experience.

You can learn a lot from talking to your customers and watching them use your product, but there's nothing like being a user yourself.

The market is easily accessible

You need to know that you can find, and get in front of, the market that you're planning to target.

If you’re already immersed in an industry, the market is accessible to you. Other times, this requires validation.

Is the solution mission-critical?

The more mission-critical the tool is, the more pressure on you to deliver.

If things go wrong, it can be incredibly stressful and scary, and you’re likely to be facing a lot of angry calls and emails very quickly.

On the other hand, a product that's not mission-critical may not be as valuable, but your life is likely to be significantly less stressful.

B2B vs. B2C

B2B is often considered preferable, in short because businesses are more willing to spend money.

However, I was recently listening to an interview with Danny Postma, who has several successful B2C apps. He convinced me that selling B2C has great advantages, especially one-off B2C apps that generate most of their sales through SEO. While he doesn't have recurring SaaS revenue from the same customers, he does have recurring revenue from steady search traffic to his sites.

Some benefits he points out about this product type are less customer support, not mission-critical by nature, and if they don't work, people just move on.

Discuss this story.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

😴 GPT-4 is getting "lazier."

💻 LinkedIn SEO tips: Optimize your profile and content.

🧠 Knowledge Base Software you will love to use. #ad

🤖 A practical guide to using GenAI.

🔎 Google's top search trends of 2023.

💰 Don't sell your product. Make it easy to buy.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

by Syed Balkhi

Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to have positive ROI. Here's how to make your blog more engaging.

Choose topics that matter to your readers

In planning blog content, keep your finger on the community's pulse. Spend time on social media, send email surveys, and compile data so you can build buyer personas that define your audience.

It's much easier to choose topics that matter to your readers if you understand their needs, goals, and pain points.

Scannable formatting makes a big difference

Most people simply scan blog posts, as opposed to reading closely. Help people get the most out of your posts without having to reading word-for-word by crafting scannable formatting.

Here are a few ways to instantly make your content easier to read:

• Use short sentences and paragraphs.
• Add H2 and H3 tags.
• Focus on conversational language.
• Use bullet lists.

Invest in video content

If you're not creating video content for your blog, you're missing out on a key opportunity to connect with readers. Videos can directly improve sales, engagement, and traffic. Research also shows that adding videos to your site makes it 53x more likely to rank on Google.

My suggestion is to create videos and upload them to YouTube to keep your site's loading time down.

Link relevant, popular posts

Create a hierarchy of content. For example, start with one longform ultimate guide. Then, write smaller articles that cover some of the topics mentioned in your guide in greater detail.

This structure will make it easy for readers to get lost in your content, as they continue to learn and find topics that catch their interest.

Add a search bar

A search bar makes it super easy for people to find what they want on your site.

Respond to comments

~91% of people are on the lookout for interactive experiences when they engage with websites. Responding to user comments is a great way to personalize their encounters.

Respond to both positive and negative feedback (within reason)!

Discuss this story.

from the Marketing Examples newsletter

Lean into real scenarios and relatable problems.

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.

by Paul van Oijen

By now, a lot of us are familiar with (and probably bored to death by) the idea of the "productized" consultancy. As a long-time freelancer, I'd been intrigued by the idea of productizing for a while. After being laid off from my full-time job a few months ago, I figured it was worth the risk to take the plunge, and see if I could carve out a tiny corner of this market for myself.

The idea

Enter Incomparable, a tiny design studio helping you build big software.

While the market is, in fact, quite saturated with the agency subscription model, I quickly came to the realization that most businesses were largely focused on marketing design. Services around landing pages, email, copywriting, leaflets, etc. were popping up everywhere. There was a gap in the market for a purely product-focused setup, and since I have over 10 years of experience in the industry, I knew I could fill it.

What's worked so far

• A higher price point: Product designers are both in demand, and expensive. A single senior product designer hire runs you an average of $150K annually, or $12.5K monthly, in the US. If you see a price point that's far below that, wouldn't you also have doubts about their capabilities?

• LinkedIn: This has been the best source of traffic, bar none. Having been in the industry for a good amount of time, I had built up a relatively large LinkedIn network. I made it my objective to post at least twice a week, sharing insights, new updates, and generally connecting with my audience. This was the source of the majority of my prospects.

• Design-focused directories: A large number of leads have been other design agencies. These agencies are often stellar in the marketing design department, but lack real product expertise.

• Referral rewards: I reached out to a good number of friends and ex-colleagues, and was put in touch with a lot of interested folks as a result. I offered each person a 5-10% finder's fee on each monthly payment for each referred client.

This blew up very quickly, leading to my having to reject several potential clients in order to keep up.

What hasn't worked

• X: Aside from my personal opinions on the platform's direction lately, it has also been straight up garbage for leads for me. Admittedly, I started with zero followers. So far, it's been a lot of sifting through low-quality posts to find content worth engaging with, and to build an interested audience. Zero leads thus far.

What's next

Between managing clients, dealing with occasional churn, and the insane response to referral rewards, I plan to:

• Cold email former and prospective clients: Definitely not my strong suit, but probably worth the effort.
• Formalize referral rewards: This is currently still very manual, mostly based on LinkedIn messaging. I'd like to implement a software-based approach.

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Mac Martine, Darko, Syed Balkhi, Harry Dry, and Paul van Oijen for contributing posts. —Channing