The Startup Ideas Podcast - 4 SaaS ideas you can build as a SOLO founder

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

In this episode, I share 4 SaaS ideas with massive potential. I'll dissect each concept, revealing its market opportunities and possible pitfalls. Plus, learn the exact strategies and frameworks I'd use to grow these innovative software businesses from the ground up.1) Legal Jargon Simplifier• Chrome extension that demystifies complex legal docs• AI-powered "for dummies" version of Terms of Service• Highlights red flags and unusual clauses• $5/month or $50-75/year for premium featuresGrowth Strategy:• Viral social media comparing simplified vs. original ToS• Chrome store optimization• Referral program: "Protect a friend, get a month free"• Partner with legal education platforms2) Micro-Influencer Campaign Manager• AI-powered tool for small to medium-sized brands• Vets micro-influencers• Automates outreach, negotiation, content approval• Tracks performance across platforms• $149 for 20 influencersGrowth Strategy:• Free influencer campaign ROI calculator• Partner with smaller e-commerce platforms• Certification program for marketing specialists• "Campaign of the month" showcase• Host online speed dating events for brands/influencers3) AI Writing Coach for Non-Native English Speakers• Analyzes writing style and common errors• Real-time suggestions for grammar, style, vocabulary• Content-specific language usage tips• Personalized writing exercisesGrowth Strategy:• Free professional English proficiency assessment tool• Host webinars on effective business writing• Build a community for non-native speakers• Showcase success stories of career advancement4) Micro-Localization Platform• AI analysis of local cultural nuances and trends• Adapts content for different localities• Integrates with CMS and social media platforms• Real-time performance tracking• $199-400 per localityGrowth Strategy:• Free cultural sensitivity reports for top global brands• Create a "local rank score" for brand adaptation efforts• Partner with marketing agencies• Host workshops on micro-localization impact on sales• Local referral program for marketing consultantsWant more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav)Get access: [gregisenberg.com/30startupideas](http://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas)🚀  My FREE 5 day email course to learn how to build a business of the future using the ACP funnel:https://www.communityempire.co/free-course🎯 To build your own portfolio businesses powered by community you might enjoy my membership.You'll get my full course with all my secrets on building businesses, peer-groups to keep you accountable, business ideas every single month and more!Spots are limited.https://www.communityempire.co/📬 Join my free newsletter to get weekly startup insights for free:https://www.gregisenberg.com70,000+ people are already subscribed.FIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/To improve your rankings your business on Google and using AI for SEO, sign up tohttp://boringmarketing.com/Episode Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 02:27 Startup Idea 1: Legal Jargon Simplifier07:07 Startup Idea 2: Micro-Influencer Campaign Manager09:32 Startup Idea 3: AI Writing Coach for Non-Native English Speakers12:04 Startup Idea 4: Micro-Localization Platform

And, you know, why I like SaaS businesses so much is the margins are incredible. You can expect anywhere from 70, 80, 90% margins. What other businesses could you do that in? And today, that's what we're going to talk about, only SaaS businesses. And by the way, each of these ideas, I'll give you the playbook. So the first idea is called, I just had way too much coffee. And I get the jitters. And when I get the jitters, I need to, I have the, the,

best startup ideas. I don't know why. So I just was writing down a ton of SaaS startup ideas and I needed to click record and share it with you. Now, you might listen to one of these SaaS ideas and steal it and build the MVP in a weekend and it starts growing and growing. All of a sudden, you're doing a million dollars a month. You end up selling the business to Salesforce and then you send me a DM or comment on YouTube. Change your life. And I wouldn't be surprised. Or, you might just listen to one of these ideas and it gets your creative juices flowing. And that is why I love doing this podcast

because these ideas, you don't necessarily need a steal if you don't want to. But it might just spark something in your own life. It might just, you know, you might hear this one idea for this niche and want to apply it to another niche that you know well. So we're just going to go through these ideas. I'm going to give them all to you,

listen to the whole thing, think about them. And, you know, why I like SaaS businesses so much is the margins are incredible. You can expect anywhere from 70, 80, 90% margins. What other businesses could you do that in? And now it's, it's cheaper than ever to go and build these MVPs, build these minimal viable products. So over the last few years, I've gotten more and more interested in building SaaS products and I have built a bunch of them. And today, that's what we're going to talk about, only SaaS businesses. Are you ready? I'm ready. Can you tell? Can you tell what this, with this, the coffee jitters?

All right. So the first idea is called, what I'm calling the legal jargon simplifier. And I had this idea because I was just signing some documents with a real estate agent that I'm working with. So I'm selling, I'm selling my apartment. And I honestly didn't understand a lot of what was going on. And I know a lot of you are like me. So what if there was a one-click solution, like a Chrome extension that could demystify complex legal documents? And I think you start with just terms of service. So how would it work? Okay, I'll give you the playbook.

And by the way, each of these ideas, I'll give you the playbook. So you install the Chrome extension. It would be free to start. And then you activate it on any web page with legal text. So that could be a Google Doc. It could be a website. And then you click the extension button to generate a quote unquote four dummies version of the legal document. Now, I don't know if you can use the term four dummies because it might be for the books.

But you get the idea, something like that that's super catchy. And then what happens is the AI analyzes the text in real time. So then you get these like plain language summaries of the key points. If you have a 20 page doc, hopefully it just gives you two, three, four points. it highlights and exposes the red flags of unusual clauses in simple terms. That's really what you're looking for. And then you offer a risk assessment score based on industry standards and user rights. And I know there's probably a lawyer listening to this and being like, oh my God, you know, I don't know if that you can do that.

And I'm not a lawyer. I don't know. I just wish this thing would exist. And I know that people would pay for it. and how would they pay for it? I think you can charge something like $5 a month. It can be very, very cheap. Or you can do something like $50 a year, $75 a year,

and you'd get things like advance explanations, document comparison stuff. So you'd apply a very similar model to like a docu sign. You know, you get a free few signatures and then they eventually charge for it. So how would I grow this business? What would be my growth strategy? So I think you can actually create accounts,

like Twitter accounts, Instagram accounts, where you show like the simplified versus original versions of famous terms of services. No one knows what they're signing when they're signing in terms of services. I think everyone knows that. So I think if you compared them and just showed what they actually said,

I think those would go viral. The other growth strategy, it's free, right? You're doing a Chrome extension, so you can do all the app store optimization in the Chrome store. And then you can do a referral program. So protect a, I'm thinking like, protect a friend, get them on free. And then, of course, you can partner with all the legal education platforms to offer this tool as a part of their curriculum. I think that you can also do something cool where you implement like a legal clarity. certification for businesses.

You try to ride this wave that everyone knows that these terms of services are, they're really, you know, there's a lot of words and people don't understand it. So I think that if you can do that, that's a huge business.

And someone would buy it. I think you can definitely sell that business to a Salesforce, to a box.com, to someone like that once you get your revenue up. So that's idea number one. legal. We're just getting, we're just getting, uh, warmed up here. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world.

They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO. And that's why I use Boringmarketing.com. And that's why I invested in it.

They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend Boringmarketing.com. Idea number two. the micro-influencer campaign manager. So this is about streamlining the process of running a micro-influencer campaign

for small-to-medium-sized brands. And micro-influencer, I'm talking less than 8,000 followers. Okay, so how does it work? Well, you use AI to identify and vet these micro-influencers based on brand alignment and engagement rates, followers, that sort of thing. and then you create basically an agent that automates outreach and negotiation processes with these templates. You can manage content approval workflows and posting schedules. You can track campaign performance across all the different platforms like IG and TikTok and YouTube.

And then you provide return on investment analysis and suggestions for campaign optimization. You can charge something like $149 for 20 influencers. There's this growing demand for Microsoft. micro influencers and small to medium-sized businesses, just they're, it's like a lot of work to do. You know, if you have a store or something, you have two employees, it's just difficult to manage this. And yes, you know, there's marketplaces that you can go to, but I think if you can do an automated AI type of micro-influencer campaign manager, there's something here. So, yeah, just making influencer marketing accessible and manager for smaller brink.

brands because I think this is just a bigger and bigger marketing channel. Okay, how would I grow this thing? So you know I'm really big into tools and lead magnets. First thing I would do is I'd probably create an influencer campaign ROI calculator, make it completely for free. I'd partner with e-commerce platforms to offer it as a marketing tool for their merchants. Probably hard to do with Shopify because they're too big. but the smaller ones.

I think I'm really into these certification programs, so I think you can do something, a certification program for micro-influencer marketing specialist. I'd implement a campaign of the month showcase to highlight success stories, and then I'd love to host some sort of speed dating event between brands and micro-influencers online, get people to sign up,

and then you can nurture those people. That is idea number two. All right, for idea number three, I'm calling it the AI writing coach for non-native English speakers. And by the way, there are billions of non-native English speakers. This is a huge market. And they want to learn English. They want to work online.

And a lot of them could speak English well, but sometimes writing it, you know, it's not their first language. I get it. I speak multiple languages. It's not easy. So the idea is basically creating a tool. for writing improvement for the specific niche. So, okay, how does it work? You start by just analyzing the user's writing style

and their common errors. You give real-time suggestions for grammar, style, and vocabulary improvements. You offer content-specific language usage shifts based on the industry and document type. You generate personal writing exercises to address the weak areas, track and adapt suggestions over time.

So this is basically like grammarly, but really focus on the non-native group. And I think that just like the positioning, if you just focus on that, that itself is a huge opportunity. And then again, focusing on professional talking and really focusing on business, I think a lot of people would pay for it.

And they'd probably pay, you know, $5, 10, $15, $20 a month. And that has, That's up. You can also do it if you want to do like a yearly, you know, a couple hundred dollars or $100 or you can also think about doing lifetime deals. But you got to be careful with that because you really do have to know what your costs are. Okay, how would I grow this thing? So for a tool perspective, I do like a free professional English proficiency assessment tool. And I'd probably just do a ton of webinars for like, you know, I'd be like the effective

business writing guy for non- or gal for non-native speakers. So I would bring people in online. I would show them how writing has, you know, increased their job prospects, have helped them get promoted. And I just, yeah, I'd start by just hosting all these workshops, bring them in, get their emails, maybe nurture them through a community where they can meet other people. And I think this is a multi-million dollar business. The next idea. All right. So a microlocalization platform. So I've actually told this story on the pod before, but I'm here in Quebec right now. And Quebec has this weird thing where it's like one of the biggest markets in the world for Pepsi, not Coke. You know, I went into a store the other day.

It's like, can I have a Coke? They're like, will Pepsi do? You hear that all the time here in Quebec. And it has to do with Coke didn't really understand the local nuances of Quebec when they first came here. And this is many years ago. And I think in the 60s,

they just bought the same ads for British Columbia that they did for Quebec. And that didn't resonate. Where Pepsi understood the local cultural nuances and created campaigns that spoke to them. So how do we think, about that in today's world. How can we productize that, create a SaaS product out of it?

Basically, you do AI-powered analysis of local cultural nuances and trends. You basically adapt automatically content for the different localities. People in Montreal might speak a little bit differently or like to do different things in people in Quebec City. you can integrate with all like the major CMSs, like the WordPresses and social media platforms. You do real-time performance tracking of localized content. The content production isn't necessarily just words.

Like this could be videos, gifts, all types of automatic content. And then there's a suggestion engine for local partnerships and influencers. These global brands want to know what are the, like what's cool in this neighborhood, in this city, different neighborhoods even are different. So I think you can charge something like a couple hundred dollars per locality.

So if you want Montreal and Quebec City, that might be $400. For some of the bigger global brands, you might even say, you know, and some of the bigger cities, you might even say certain cities cost more. If you think of a city like New York City, you know, they're so different. You know, even Williamsburg to Bushwick is very different or Tribeca to the Upper East Side is different. So maybe you're charging $199 for each of them. So I think this is just cool because it allows the global brands to feel way local, helps them increase engagement, conversion rates.

And that's going to be the big moat going forward. I think local, I'm really, really bullish on that. So how would I grow this thing? I would basically do every month or every couple months, these free cultural sensitivity reports for top global brands. I'd create like a local rank score for brands, local adaptation efforts. Obviously, I'd be partnering with the different marketing agencies. I'd be hosting workshops on the impact of micro-localization on sales. And I feel like no one really

owns that on places like Twitter. So who's talking about micro-localization? And then you just implement a local, just a local referral program for local marketing consultants. And that's what I got for you today. I don't want to overload you. I want to keep it. It's short and sweet. These are some ideas and how I'd grow them. I hope it got you thinking. Shoot me over a comment on YouTube and let me know what you're thinking. And if you liked it, if you want more of these powwows,

if you want me more to overdose and coffee, I'll do it and I'll do it for you. So thank you for listening to the Startup Ideas podcast. And I will see you in the comment section. See ya.