Greg Isenberg - SaaS Startup Ideas

I just discovered a weird way to spot profitable b2b SaaS startup ideas nobody’s talking about and figured I’d share it with you.

Watch what people do on Friday afternoons.

Not what they say they do. What they actually do.

I’ve spent the last 6 months observing office workers at that specific time (I got a little office in a co-working space). Found something fascinating.

Every Friday at 4pm, highly paid knowledge workers turn into human APIs:

• Sales teams copying data from emails to CRMs
• PMs updating the same dashboards they updated last week
• CS teams reconciling support tickets with customer health scores
• Marketing manually attributing campaigns

But the reality is everyone has their “real” system.

The VP of Sales’ “actual” forecast spreadsheet. The PM’s “real” dashboard. The CS team’s “unofficial” customer scoring doc.

These shadow systems, they’re gold mines for SaaS ideas.

Most founders try to replace these systems. I don't blame them. But there's a better way.

The opportunity is adding AI to make them 10x better:

- Turn those manual data entries into automated workflows

- Convert those repeated tasks into one-click operations

- Transform those Friday reports into real-time dashboards

You can also prompt Claude to give you an idea of what some Friday tasks might be in different niches.

The playbook:

1. Watch for “swivel chair interfaces” - people copying between systems
2. Look for “Friday tasks” - work that piles up weekly
3. Find the “shadow systems” - where real work happens
4. Track repeat questions in Slack
5. Add AI to automate the obvious
6. Price based on time saved, not features added
7. Build content that makes their current pain funny

And once you've got your idea, time to be thinking about building distribution.

The good new is there's still untapped opportunity to build social accounts for these b2b niches. B2B doesn't mean boring. Every niche has its watering holes:

• Excel pros have their meme accounts
• PMs follow productivity threads
• Data analysts have their tutorial channels
• RevOps people share automation hacks

Build the media (social, community) that should exist but doesn't:

• Make memes about their daily struggles
• Create threads about saving time
• Share tutorials that make them better
• Build in public and document the journey

That’s your unfair advantage. Your competition is busy writing feature comparison blogs.

So, this is today's reminder that the best opportunities are hiding in plain sight.

Just watch what people do on Friday afternoons.

Happy building.

By the way 2 new, Startup Ideas Podcast episodes are out for you to consume.

#1 - I had one of my favorite product thinkers Mike Hudack (used to work with Zuck, sold companies etc) give a masterclass on building AI products.

Listen: Apple, Spotify, YouTube​

#2 - A new episode with Jonathan Courtney on how to get customers without having to be on social media and doing the whole personal brand thing. A good listen to plan your 2025.

Listen: Apple, Spotify, YouTube​

#1

Zach 🏴 @zachpogrob You must constantly package your ideas You cannot simply 'say things' and 'do things' You must brand them, name them, and share them, with the relentless and selfless abandon to the art of attention 11:46 AM • Dec 16, 2024 17 Retweets 214 Likes Read 6 replies

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This is so true. People who package their ideas have more luck in life.

#2

Aaron Levie @levie Browsing through the latest Y Combinator batch shows how much unexplored terrain there is in AI. The default playbook of a startup used to be “software to help the person doing the work” and now it’s “software that does the work”. This opens up 1,000’s of new use cases. 11:31 PM • Dec 12, 2024 120 Retweets 924 Likes Read 52 replies

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#3

em herrera 🌃 @emilyhxrrera Not reflective of customer size or potential revenue! Just intellectually a visualization of where creator expands to. Open for debate: 2:26 PM • Oct 28, 2024 0 Retweets 18 Likes Read 5 replies

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The natural evolution of every creator.

#4

Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca It turned out Twitter was more important than flying cars. 1:2 AM • Dec 18, 2024 1300 Retweets 19362 Likes Read 516 replies

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Good tweet.

Thank you for reading Greg's Letter. I hope you it got your creative juices flowing. You can forward this email to a friend that might benefit.

And feel free to click follow/subscribe on The Startup Ideas pod on Apple, Spotify and/or YouTube to get more startup ideas in your feed. It's free, so why not?

Until next week.

Be well,

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