🗞 What's New: What you can learn from successful SaaS products

We can learn a lot from successful SaaS products that were recently created:

• Is there a way you can add AI to a product to make it faster, more efficient, or easier to use? You could also isolate a key feature.
• 78% of Generation Alpha has already made bank. Founders can tap into these new opportunities to help them manage their money.
• $20K in revenue from an exercise-based course. Joe Previte is an indie hacker and an influencer, but is still trying to find product-market fit.

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from the Trendy Software Ideas newsletter

I've analyzed the 140 most recent founder interviews from the stories database to find businesses that were created recently.

I was trying to find patterns among those interviews. If something has recently worked for someone, there are more chances that the same thing will work for you.

The keyword here is "recently."

The results

Out of 140 interviews, 19 contained products that were launched in 2023. One was launched in 2024. So, I had a total of 20 interviews.

My first goal was to see if there were any patterns when it comes to the niches those products are in.

12/20 products were AI-based

Let's take a deeper look:

• IACrea ($8.6K+ per month) is an AI-based, real estate SaaS that stages house photos in seconds.

• StealthGPT ($190K per month) is a SaaS that allows you to create AI-based text not detectable by AI generators.

• FormWise ($34K per month) allows you to white label AI tools.

B2B

Only two of the 12 products I examined was B2C, and those made the least amount of money.

The others focused on businesses and freelancers who use those tools to make more money.

What we can learn from all this

To improve your chances of creating a successful product, find a profitable job-to-be-done and add AI to it.

Many of these products just add AI to enormous industries that are already profitable:

• The essay writing industry is huge.

• There's a large market of people who provide services to validate your ideas or provide growth strategies.

• StackOverflow is a major search engine for developers.

• There are already a lot of landing page builders.

My recommendation is to go through the stories database and sort by the oldest stories. For each successful story, ask yourself:

• Is there a way I can add AI to this product and make it faster, more efficient, or easier to use?

• Is there a key feature I could isolate, and create an AI-based product based off it?

If yes, then you're off to a good start!

Discuss this story.

from the Trendy Software Ideas newsletter

💻 Faulty ClowdStrike update causes major global IT outage.

📈 How to calculate and increase your PPC conversion rate.

💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.

🖼️ Samsung's image-generating AI tool is a little too good.

👀 Upcoming changes to page size in the Google Ads API.

📱 Will banning phones in schools become the norm?

Check out Trendy Software Ideas to discover more software ideas inspired by recent news.

from The Hustle newsletter

78% of Generation Alpha (born 2010-2025) have already made bank in the past year, half of whom did it with technology. Some even raked in millions. (Gasps in Millennial.)

*Interest peaked in June 2024. Source: Google Trends, six-month rolling average

Watch out for the young hustlers. From food to fashion to learning, any business that successfully captures Gen Alpha's mindshare will see huge growth momentum in the years to come.

The space we see the biggest opportunity in? Financial education.

Money-making Gen Alphas might still be too young to manage their wallets responsibly, but financial literacy is a top priority for them (and their Millennial parents).

Banks and startups are already jumping on the trend:

• Greenlight, a fintech unicorn that offers debit cards to kids, reached $100M ARR as of 2021.
• Capital One's teen checking account, MONEY, received rave reviews.
• GoHenry, a banking app for children as young as six, was acquired by Acorns last year.

These products are pretty uniform, bundling a kid's debit card and a banking app with educational resources.

So, there's space to build more differentiated services and experiences. Here are a few ideas!

Niche down demographically

There'll be 2.2B Gen Alphas by 2025, which means you'll find no shortage of subgroups who need specialized financial education. For instance:

• Kids on the spectrum: Optimize the learning experience for different needs, like ADHD, autism, or dyslexia. The neurodivergent population is 5x more likely to become founders.

• Multicultural kids: Varying money attitudes based on race and culture can impact children's financial future. With Gen Alpha being the most racially diverse, consider building specialized education for them and their multicultural families.

Cause-based investments

Gen Alphas are known to be vocal about social and environmental issues. So, combine financial education with causes they care about.

Changebowl, an Acorns-style investment app, rounds up your spare change and donates to nonprofits of your choosing.

The company website is no longer active, so you can take that idea and revamp it to teach youngsters about ETFs, charity, and impact investing.

Financial mentors for creators

The biggest Gen Alpha earners made their fortune on social media, or UGC gaming platforms like Roblox.

The top 10 Roblox creators took home an average of $23M last year.

*Nearly half of all Roblox users belong to Gen Alpha. Source: Backlinko

With ever-evolving platforms and tech, parents of young creators might not be equipped to offer financial help. They'll need specialized mentoring.

Build a marketplace that pairs Gen Alpha with vetted, financially savvy Gen Z creators or influencers, and offer peer-to-peer tutoring on how to save, spend, and grow their wealth smartly.

Or, design courses on managing the business of being a young creator, like how to build a brand, negotiate deals, etc. Use AI to simplify complex subjects, and make the experience fun and interactive.

Subscribe to The Hustle newsletter for more.

🤩 Get featured on Forbes, Yahoo, MSN, etc. Posted by Khadin Akbar.

🚀 I finally launched on Product Hunt! Posted by Cristian.

📝 Landing page copy resources. Posted by Trojan Joel.

🤔 What's most effective for driving sales for a new website? Posted by Smoteria.

🏃 Kickstart your side project, and maintain momentum. Posted by Devanshu Shrivastava.

🤗 90 day founder accountability group. Posted by Adib Zouiten.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

by James Fleischmann

Joe Previte grew an audience on X, then built a product for that audience. Vim for VSCode has brought in around $20K to date!

Two week challenge

My friend and I decided to do a challenge that was recommended by Daniel Vassallo on X. The challenge was to launch an infoproduct in two weeks.

Learning the Vim keybindings had taken me a long time, so I figured I'd go with that. I wanted to save someone else a couple of weeks by teaching them in a more efficient way.

I didn't even really validate it, to be honest. I just set the goal of selling over $100. Luckily, it was a win. I made over $1K in the first weekend!

That was my first product, Vim for VSCode, and it's still my main revenue-generating product. It's an exercise-based course that teaches the basics of Vim keybindings in VSCode.

Running six projects

I also have five other projects that I'm working on:

• tscourse.com: Free video tutorials, articles, and a podcast to learn TypeScript. $2K in workshop revenue.

• coworkwithfriends.com: Make friends in your local community through coworking at coffee shops. $0 revenue (besides some free coffee from sponsorships).

• vocabminer.com: An easy-to-find new vocabulary in text, and articles in Spanish. $0 revenue.

• speakargentinianspanish.com: A newsletter and blog to help you speak Argentinian Spanish like a native. $0 revenue.

• howmuchtomake.org: A free calculator to figure out how to hit your revenue and traffic targets, selling one-time products. $0 revenue.

None of these products require any maintenance. Most were "let's build this, launch, and let it sit!"

I have to be very conscious with my time, and I've become very good at breaking ideas into action plans and executing them.

I try to break every step down as small as possible. That way, I can knock out tasks in short periods of time; a 30 minute lunch break at work, or a 45 minute period on the weekend when my kids are napping.

I wrote more about this process here.

Struggling to find product-market fit

The main problem I'm having is that I haven't yet found anything that sticks. I've sold everything from a $10 product all the way up to a $5K service. I've even made over $10K in a month through a combination of services and products. However, none of my things have had sustained growth.

People say you need to build an audience, figure out what they want, and then sell to them.

I tried that, and sometimes, it works. In the beginning, it was my unfair advantage. When I launched my first course, I had ~30K followers. I sold 100+ courses in the first weekend.

But this strategy makes you subject to the constantly changing social media algorithm.

Nowadays, the X algorithm is very much like TikTok. It's good in that anyone can go viral, but you have to have really good content or storytelling to make it happen. Or, you have to be funny. It's much harder for indie hackers to just build in public and catch some traction.

I don't like playing that game because I suck at it. I just want to build and solve problems.

Selling as an influencer

To leverage your audience, you have to sell to your audience.

I wish I could tell you I had this amazing X strategy, but I didn't. I honestly just engaged with people:

• Ask questions.

• Respond to big accounts.

• Offer free services, like mentoring.

I also did a collaboration with a YouTuber who happened to live in Arizona and have a large tech audience. That drew in around $3.5K in sales.

He was doing a series called "[X] in 100 seconds." He explained Vim in 100 seconds, then let me use the second half of the video to walk through the basics.

He got the ad revenue generated by the video, and I got to promote my product!

Just get started

My main takeaway is that anyone can do it.

I wish I had known how easy it was to sell things online. I would have started years ago.

You don't have to be an expert. You have to know what you're talking about, sure, but mostly, you just have to provide something that people want.

Just give yourself two weeks to validate or launch your idea, then do it!

Also, be sure to charge from the beginning.

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 Darko, Cyan Zhong, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing