Product Hunt for MVPs, 'Honey' for digital products & more...
Product Hunt for MVPs, 'Honey' for digital products & more...
Today I bring the best ideas from Product Ideas podcast, Trends.co FB group and Brainstorms.io...
Welcome to Everyday Startup, a weekly newsletter all about bootstrappable startup ideas and trends. 💎 You’re only one idea away!
Happy new year, everyone! 🍾. A special thanks to everyone who has been reading this newsletter since I started about halfway in 2020. I’ve been summarizing all the startup ideas from My First Million podcast and have recently been adding other high-quality startup idea sources. I’m super grateful for your support!
So this week Sam and Shaan did not release new episodes of the My First Million podcast (at time of this writing). But do not fear! I have included other quality startup idea sources in this edition to keep your creative juices flowing… (I’ll be sure to recap new MFM episode ideas next week.) Hope you like it!
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‘Product Hunt’ for MVPs only
(Source: Product Ideas podcast #1)
Problem
The founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, famously said if you launch your product and you aren’t embarrassed, then you launched too late. The idea being you shouldn’t put too much effort in making your product perfect before you find out if people actually want that product. This is referred to as MVP (minimum viable product) popularized by the book Lean Startup.
Platforms like Product Hunt cater to companies or people releasing their products to the world first. The problem is Product Hunt has developed such a high bar and the audience expects such a high quality product that the whole MVP kinda get’s lost. Most products launched on PH are very polished and have been worked on for months, if not years.
Idea
What if someone created a a platform like Product Hunt but only for “true” MVP? Is there room and opportunity for a MVP specific product release platform? Beta List is a platform that diverges from Product Hunt in that they have different rules than PH but the products still seem pretty polished.
Analysis
A significant problem you will likely face is getting this thing off the ground. Marketplaces are notorious for being extremely difficult to start because you have to find both the supply AND the demand. It’s the chicken and egg problem. One way to relieve this pain is to target a niche audience you are already engaged with that know and trust you. This could be any audience selected from FB groups, subreddits, twitter, etc.
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‘Honey’ for SaaS and digital products
(Source: Brainstorms.io Issue #12)
Problem
Honey is an internet browser extension that gives users discount codes when they are checking out to purchase a physical product online. It sources codes from all over the internet to give you the best deals available. The company was acquired by PayPal in January 2020 for an estimated $4 billion.
Idea
Currently, Honey does not typically provide discounts for SaaS or other digital products. Plus, commissions paid out by SaaS companies is several times more than the amount of commission offered on physical products. So what if you created a similar extension focused on sectors Honey is not operating? You may even niche down more to online courses or something similar. For example, you could work directly with marketing specific course creators and create an affiliate program with each of them that way everyone benefits—you get a commission from the users, the users get a discount, and course creators get new revenue by referrals. You could even approach successful course creators on Udemy with this idea and work out an affiliate program.
Analysis
A downside to this idea is Honey could enter your market and potentially crush you. Or you may be able to create a strong enough moat in your nice you might end up selling to Honey for a nice ROI!
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Niche product review website
(Source: Dustin Glass from Trends.co FB group)
Problem
There are TONS of product review websites out there. The problem is quality and the fact that the vast majority of the reviewers are getting kick-backs for giving a positive review of their product. In fact, they typically only review products that give them a huge commission This is an obvious conflict of interest for people trying to get to the truth of whether a product is worth their hard-earned money.
There are a few companies like Angies List that charge a membership subscription charge to access their reviews. This should side step any conflicts of interest. But the problem with Angies List is it serves service based companies very broadly. Then there is Consumer Reports that mostly reviews physical products—but again, very broad.
Idea
Dustin Glass in the Trends.co Facebook group asked if there would be a market for product reviews in certain niches that charge a subscription fee. He called it the “unbundling” of Consumer Reports.
Analysis
According to Niall Doherty, who earns $15,000 to $20,000 per month mostly from the product review portion of his website, “the subscription model…is interesting but a very tough road, IMO.”
But I think you could in fact find a way around this by (again) really niching down. For instance, say you wanted to start a website that reviews paid indie newsletters focused on marketing trends. You are likely actively involved in a Facebook Group, Subeddit, or even Twitter group already that discusses marketing trends. You could simply put out a poll and ask which online marketing newsletters they pay to subscribe to or have considered subscribing. Then subscribe to them (hopefully they include past archives) and create your product review website and share it with an eager audience!
That’s it for this week! Subscribe so you don’t miss your one 💎 idea…