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Will you join me?
Last week I was in sunny Spain accompanying my wife on a shoot for an advert (she’s an actress).
I was absolutely blown away by the huge amount of resources, people, and time it took to shoot what will end up being a 30-60 second advert. 100+ people, 10 trucks, loads of camera and lighting equipment, food, wardrobe, multiple locations… it’s unreal.
It made me think:
- Large corporates like the one funding this advert have ridiculous budgets.
- How do they measure the return on their investment? Do people even watch TV ads anymore? Surely spending half the budget on TikTok influencers would be more effective in 2024? Corporate mindsets are slow to evolve.
- Those of us exploring new technologies are leagues ahead of these companies in our thinking.
While I was hanging around on set (one happened to be a beach) I started re-reading The SaaS Playbook by Rob Walling. It’s so good.
Highly recommend if you’re interested in starting a bootstrapped (self-funded) SaaS.
I’ve been feeling stuck, have you?
A friend posted the other day that despite feeling excited about all the new technologies we’re witnessing, and being well positioned to take advantage of them, he’s been feeling stuck recently.
I realised I feel exactly the same.
I have all the tools at my fingertips to build new app ideas in weeks, if not faster.
I’ve got better ideas than I’ve ever had before.
I know more about solopreneurship than ever before.
I’m desperate to launch a new SaaS.
Yet I haven’t taken action.
Me from a few years ago would be very upset with current me.
The truth is the rapid advancement of A.I. is both exciting and paralysing.
It’s like playing football (soccer) and watching the other team passing the ball extremely well, before you realise you’ve just been standing there in awe instead of trying to defend against them.
It’s mesmerising.
The sheer amount of possibilities A.I. opens up makes my head spin.
Every day I see a new brilliant idea that wasn’t possible a couple of years ago.
On the flipside, many SaaS businesses are at risk of being killed when the same functionality is added to common A.I. tools.
Add to that the uncertainty about what the future will look like and it’s a perfect recipe for analysis paralysis.
I’m interested to know if any of you feel the same?
Getting unstuck
One thing that recently inspired me was this message exchange with a solopreneur friend, Steven.
He’s a busy guy, always working on something.
I was very interested to hear Steven has recently launched a new SaaS, and even more interested when he said he’s already got 250 users.
Meanwhile it’s been 9 months since my last SaaS was acquired, and I haven’t launched any new projects!
And what’s more, his new SaaS is built on my own Bullet Launch boilerplate!
If that's not a sign I should be building, I don't know what is.
I checked out Steven’s product, Autoklips.ai, which generates faceless AI videos on any topic for TikTok.
I was actually amazed at its functionality. I was able to generate a full TikTok video in a couple of minutes. If I let it, it would create and post these automagically every day without me needing to do anything.
The Autoklips dashboard, built with Bullet Launch!
The great thing is, Steven knew there were lots of similar products on the market but built it anyway.
I know this is the right thing to do. A crowded market is a validated market. But so often I’ve been put off because I’m trying to think of fresh new ideas.
Steven didn’t just build it, he’s also been successfully marketing it on Tiktok.
It all made me think:
What am I waiting for??
Instead of trying to find the perfect idea in the perfect market, why don’t I just pick an idea, build it, and do some marketing?
So that’s what I’m going to do.
My 4-week build, launch and monetise challenge
I’ve decided I need a strict deadline to motivate me. Being a freelancer it’s too easy to let things drift into the next month which quickly becomes the next quarter.
My plan is:
- Choose my idea by next Tuesday 24th September.
- Build and launch it within 2 weeks (by the 8th October).
- Try and get at least 3 paying customers by 22nd October (4 weeks after the idea was chosen).
P.S. Pete from one of my favourite newsletters High Signal tracked down 20 indie startups that got acquired. He’s made a spreadsheet with all the details and he’s giving it away for FREE! Check it out here.
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