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Software Ideas

Preview Newsletter. Issue #71

WHAT DO I GET WITH A SOFTWARE IDEAS SUBSCRIPTION?

Beyond access to the newsletter that contains three brand-new opportunities each week, you'll also get:

📝 Access to the newsletter archive, with over 250 in-depth market reports and opportunities!
💡 Early access to The Foundation course, an in-progress video series focused on how to validate an idea and get your first $2,000 in MRR.
💰 Over $50,000 in discounts for starting your next software company, through our partnership with Secret.
💖 And many more perks on the way!

Become a Member - $57/Quarter (3 months)

OPPORTUNITY #1:
A Software Demo platform for Marketing Teams

Level 3 - Bootstrapper

Product-led growth is the latest buzzword in SaaS sales, but it’s taking a while for sales models to catch up with the concept.

The movement is closely tied to the freemium and free trial sales models, which engage users with the product early on and embed marketing and sales into the product experience.

These product-led approaches are effective because they reduce the obstacles to user engagement and qualify leads in the process: just one click, and customers can see for themselves whether or not a product will work for them without going through a lengthy sales process.

But freemium and free trial models have experienced some growing pains over the years as many SaaS companies have failed to convert customers to paid plans.

Product demos are emerging as the next contender for product-led growth since they don’t pose as much risk to revenue. With demos, SaaS companies can showcase their product upfront and keep the true value of the product behind a paywall at the same time. And this approach is rapidly picking up speed.

While demos are becoming increasingly popular, most product demos still involve a live meeting with a sales team, making the process cumbersome for leads. In a survey of 78 B2B and B2C SaaS companies, CXL found that 70% of companies had a live demo that required users to sign up for a sales call.

This week, we'll talk about how you can bring an innovative "hybrid demo" software to market by focusing on building the ideal software to help companies craft self-serve product demos as a lead generation tool!

We look closely at the existing competitors in the market, how they differ technologically and what direction the market is moving in, and the key difference between the needs of enterprise customers and down-market companies.

If you're looking for a technically-complex but high-demand product that can sell directly to SaaS companies, this is a great opportunity for you!

Learn more about Software Ideas

OPPORTUNITY #2:
A "just-in-time" knowledge base tool

Level 1 - Micro-SaaS

In our second opportunity of Issue #72, we'll be looking at tools like HelpCrunch, which is a customer communications platform that combines live chat, public-facing knowledge bases, and more to simplify customer support.

A key feature of HelpCrunch is its focus on self-serve customer service, such as being able to search for help articles right from the chat window.

And that's what we'll be looking at in this issue - the move away from traditional customer service towards self-service.

According to Zendesk, 67% of customers prefer to find answers on their own. This is a fundamental shift in this industry, and companies are struggling to find the right balance between self-serve customer service, automation, and human-to-human engagement.

One customer service niche where this has been playing out most recently is live chat support. According to Inc.com's guide, one of the major mistakes being made by companies that utilize live chat is creating the expectation of 24/7 customer service by not disabling live chat when agents are unavailable.

In this issue, we take a detailed look at the chatbot market. We'll look at how low-cost players are commoditizing the space, making it harder for companies to differentiate. We'll also look at some of the existing players in the space who are adapting to that challenge, and what direction they are growing their live-chat solutions so that they can offer unique features and benefits.

Then, we'll look at an opportunity to build a micro-SaaS that combines the intelligence and automation of Live Chat with the power of self-serve Knowledge Bases to create the ideal down-market support automation workflow!

This opportunity is about building a tool that lives directly on a website or SaaS application that acts as a help bar. When clicked, it presents the user with helpful FAQs, common navigation options, and even automations based on real-time data such as their current page!

Instead of keeping customer support documents hidden in a large knowledge base, this tool is smart enough to help users at the exact moment they get stuck, improving the customer experience dramatically while removing support burden from customer support reps.

This is an opportunity in a competitive space that leverages a smaller and often overlooked feature in chatbot tools: the ability to optimize a knowledge base. The MVP doesn’t require a huge development effort, but there’s a substantial potential to grow and shape the product over time to give it greater flexibility.

There are a wide variety of marketing channels open to a founder that wants to explore this space, including some uniquely challenging ones! The ideal founder will be someone with a strong marketing background who can bring their interest in customer service and data organization to the table.

Are these two not for you?
Click here to see 100+ more ideas!

What else do I get?

A Software Ideas membership is much more than a single newsletter. You'll also get:

📝 Access to the newsletter archive, with over 250 in-depth market reports and opportunities, just like this one!
💡 Early access to The Foundation course, an in-progress video series focused on how to validate an idea and get your first $2,000 in MRR.
💰 Over $50,000 in discounts for starting your next software company, through our partnership with Secret.
💖 And many more perks on the way!

Become a Member - $57/Quarter (3 months)

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Software Ideas Preview Newsletter | Issue #72! ⭐

Software Ideas

Preview Newsletter. Issue #71

OPPORTUNITY #1:
A Software Demo platform for Marketing Teams

OPPORTUNITY #2:
A "just-in-time" knowledge base tool

What else do I get?

Older messages

Software Ideas Preview Newsletter | Issue #71! ⭐

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Software Ideas Preview Newsletter | Issue #72! ⭐

Software Ideas

Preview Newsletter. Issue #71

OPPORTUNITY #1: A Software Demo platform for Marketing Teams

OPPORTUNITY #2: A "just-in-time" knowledge base tool

What else do I get?

Older messages

You Might Also Like

OPPORTUNITY #1:
A Software Demo platform for Marketing Teams

OPPORTUNITY #2:
A "just-in-time" knowledge base tool