Fishing where others are fishing
jasonleow • 8 Nov 2024 •
Talking about fishing in the right (B2B) spots also got me thinking about fishing where others are fishing.
Basically, having competition means a validated idea.
That’s such an underrated path to ramen profitability. Just choose an idea that’s validated by the market through all the incumbents, plus a niche I’m interested in, and just grind at SEO to carve out my slice of the pie.
Don’t know why I took this long to come to this realisation… because grinding consistently, incrementally over months is exactly what works well for my life stage now. But yet I constantly get distracted and want to build something new and shiny. I don’t understand why so many indie folks—me included—start off wanting to build completely unique, innovative products where there’s no proven market yet.
Just look at Tally Forms, and then Youform, which grew well as indie products chasing after a slice of the pie that Typeform created. Who’d knew building a boring form builder is still a great opportunity in 2024…
Yet we don’t want to go to where everyone is fishing, like AI wrappers. Too saturated, too noisy, too hard to get attention. Some middle place where there’s lots of fish but just a few competitors.
So, fish in the right spots, where there’s also others fishing and hauling in full nets of fish. B2B painkillers where there’s a handful of profitable competitors, and preferably in a growing market.
Fish where others fish.
Comments
@drodol Yes that’s true! Out of sight, out of mind. I’m sure being active on X where there’s lots of B2C makers has it’s downsides, like what you said.
This is a great strategy! You might find the Five Lightbulbs framework useful when it comes to marketing messaging. If you have competition, you have to convince your users you’re better than they are because they will be comparing solutions. https://fivelightbulbs.com/
I keep liking where this is going!!! There is some unspoken truth though, in the B2B space, there are fewer people that talk about their success and that build in public. Not a deterrent, but maybe worth considering that if there is a bias for confirmation that this path works, not seeing the signs publicly, might be misleading.