How I Picked My Next SaaS Idea (Without Getting Stuck for 3 Weeks)

I used to overthink SaaS ideas.

I’d bounce between Notion docs, newsletters, market maps, and “top AI tools” threads until I convinced myself everything was either too saturated, too boring, or too hard to monetize.

This time, I approached it differently.

Here’s the 4-step system I used to pick my next SaaS idea — without building anything, and without lying to myself that “brainstorming” was progress.

🧠 Step 1: List Problems You Have — Not Features You Want to Build

No Figma.
No fancy dashboards.
No dreaming of building the next Stripe.

I opened a doc and wrote down:

“What keeps annoying me every week that no one has solved well?”

Some examples:

• Getting surprised by platform issues (but not wanting a bloated analytics tool)

• Struggling to organize launch tasks (but not needing another Notion template)

• AI tools feeling either too gimmicky or way too complex

This gave me real, felt problems.
Not just “AI for X” templates.

🔍 Step 2: Look for Underdelivered Niches — Not “Underserved” Markets

Here’s the difference:

• Underserved market → People aren’t paying (yet)

• Underdelivered experience → People are paying, but the tools are bad

I searched:

• Reddit complaints

• Product Hunt comments

• Twitter/X: “I hate using [tool]” or “why is there no good [category] app?”

That’s where you find pain people already know, and already spend money trying to solve.

That’s where small SaaS wins.

🧪 Step 3: Prewrite the Landing Page

Before touching code, I write a fake homepage.

Literally open Notion and write:

Headline: “We alert you instantly when [bad thing happens]”
Subhead: “Stop losing time and money from [specific pain]”
CTA: “Get started in 60 seconds”

Then I ask:

• Would I click this?

• Is it instantly clear?

• Can I pitch it in a tweet?

If I can’t explain the value in 10 seconds, I drop the idea.

⏱ Step 4: Give Yourself a 48-Hour Validation Deadline

No endless research.
No fake “customer discovery” calls that go nowhere.

Just this:

1. Mock a 1-page landing or MVP

2. Post it in 3 relevant places

3. Ask 5 real people if they’d use it — not if they “like” it

If I get even mild traction (interest, questions, signup intent) — I go deeper.

If I get silence, I kill it.

I’m not proving the whole market wants it.
Just proving someone does.

✅ What I Picked

I chose a simple, clear product that solves a pain I personally face as a founder.

It:

• Solves a recurring headache

• Lives in a proven, paying market

• Can be MVP’d in a weekend

• Doesn’t require complex infra or months of dev

• Solves a pain, not a “nice-to-have”

That’s enough.

Final Thought

Picking a SaaS idea isn’t a creative process.
It’s a filtering process.

• Start with your pain points.

• Look for underdelivered solutions people already pay for.

• Sanity check it with a fake landing page.

• Test it in 48 hours.

You don’t need to reinvent anything.
You just need to solve something annoying — slightly better.

🔁 What’s your idea filtering process like?
If you’re stuck choosing, drop a comment — happy to jam with you.