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6 Micro SaaS Ideas You Can Steal - YouTube
Channel: MicroConf
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so you want to start a SAS to change
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your life in some way you either want
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some side income while you continue
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working your day job or you want to quit
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the day job altogether and work for
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yourself that's why on this channel we
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dive deep into the reality of what it's
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like to build and grow SAS companies
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they're incredible they can be
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life-changing and in today's video I'm
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going to talk about six micro SAS ideas
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that they steal if you stick around to
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the end you're going to hear a special
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bonus idea that would be an extreme
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technical challenge but it could turn
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into something much larger than a
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microsass I'm Rob Walling a Serial
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entrepreneur I've written four books on
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building startups and invested in more
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than 125 companies a couple notes before
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we dive into the ideas today I'm looking
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specifically at micro SAS ideas so these
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are mostly step one businesses in my
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stair step method often microsass ideas
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are a single feature or they're built
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into an existing ecosystem like say the
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Shopify or the Heroku add-on
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marketplaces and today's video will
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almost solely focus on microsask these
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are things that are faster to build and
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faster to get to Market but usually they
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have a built-in ceiling where they're
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not going to become a million dollar
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business but if your goal is to get to
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5K a month or 10K a month microsass can
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be a good way to go second point is no
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validation has been done on these ideas
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so in your shoes I wouldn't just go out
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and start building I would definitely
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think about how to evaluate these ideas
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talk to customers etc etc and lastly
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people have already started reaching out
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letting me know that they are tackling
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some of the ideas that we've released on
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this channel please feel free to comment
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below with a link if you find success
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with any of these ideas it's inevitable
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that there will be success stories
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coming out of the ideas shared in these
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videos and once again I'd like to give a
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shout out to nugget.1 and its founder
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Justin Vincent for allowing me to share
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these ideas that we pulled from nugget
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so let's dive in six ideas today plus
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our bonus the first idea is a piece of
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software to effectively separate colors
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for t-shirt screen printing as a
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reminder all of these ideas are
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requested by real people who are
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experiencing trouble or difficulties at
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their day job and they have a problem
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that they want to solve so this one was
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submitted by a screen printer and they
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say I print custom t-shirts for people
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for businesses events what have you and
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I cannot find software that will
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effectively separate colors for me to
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use in the printing process when you
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print a t-shirt it has several colors
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that need to be separated before you
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print most of the tools out there are
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just macros for Photoshop and not an
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actual program that will separate the
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colors so you can print the options
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available are very expensive or
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essentially just plugins for Photoshop
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which make it not only expensive but
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needlessly complicated one example is
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simple steps which cost 300 for the
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plugin for coreldraw so not only do you
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need to pay 300 but you also need to buy
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coreldra if there was a program that
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could separate colors not be reliant on
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another piece of software rely on a free
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tool like which is open source
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software and it was affordable it would
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be great for a lot of startups and
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Veterans alike these ideas never cease
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to amaze me in their detail and in the
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fact that there are still so many small
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problems that are unsolved by software
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today if you're going to run with this
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idea I would start with conversations go
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to where screen printers hang out are
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they on Facebook do they have Reddit
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groups do they have private slack groups
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do you need to do cold Outreach whatever
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it is finding out if this is a problem
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for more than just this one screen
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printer is exactly where I would start
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idea number two is grammarly for SC EO
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the requester writes I'm a freelance
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writer and web editor my biggest concern
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when writing is search engine
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optimization while I understand the
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concepts I don't fully grasp how to
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improve my articles and posts for SEO so
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that they rank better in search engines
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or found when someone does a search what
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I need is software that works a bit like
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a grammar checker I don't want software
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that helps me game the system rather I
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need software that can read what I've
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written understand context but also
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offer tips or improvements for SEO it
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should be able to tell me if I've
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overused keywords and what alternative
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keywords I can use it should be
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updatable so that when Google changes
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its algorithm it knows what Google is
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focusing on this one was posted a couple
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years ago so a I'm curious if this
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doesn't exist today that's probably
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where I'd start but B if it does exist
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is it any good and with the wave of AI
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that's coming out with chat GPT Jasper
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copy.ai all the AI tools that are
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helping people write and be better at
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things like SEO and grammar I'm curious
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if this tool is easy to build today or
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if it's such a commodity that it would
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be hard to Stand Out Among the
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competition idea number three is Wix for
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Architects the poster writes I am an
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architect I would love to have a better
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way to display my projects currently my
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only options would be to hire a web
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designer or use a blogging service my
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proposal is a program that professionals
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can use to Showcase their work which can
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be heavily customized to accommodate the
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specific industry and the needs that
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come with that I wouldn't build Wix or
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Squarespace I would think about building
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a template with maybe a custom widget
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for displaying floor plans there are
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people selling premium Squarespace
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templates now Squarespace has a
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Marketplace but it appears to only let
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you hire people and not sell templates
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which is kind of a drag but Wix does
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have a Marketplace so that could be a
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nice positioning for this and frankly to
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look at what are the top 5 or 10 website
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builders that exist and which of those
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have marketplaces that would allow you
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to build an architect focused template
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that you could then resell it's almost
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the definition of a step one business is
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to find a small small Gap in one or more
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marketplaces and fill that gap for a
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very specific industry and maybe you'll
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find that there's Architects there's
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interior designers there's photographers
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I'm sure there's a kajillion
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photographer themes out there but I
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always say that doing things in public
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creates opportunity and so getting into
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one or more of these marketplaces is
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likely to lead you down a path that
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maybe you do discover that longer term
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you want to build an entirely new CMS
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and maybe you build that on an open
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source piece of software like WordPress
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or an equivalent or maybe down the line
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your step three business is in fact a
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full CMS for Architects but I wouldn't
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take that leap from the start but to
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keep this micro sass it's simply
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building a theme or a template on an
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existing CMS idea number four is a crisp
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add-on for help Scout and this one is
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anonymous it actually comes out of the
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Tiny Seed slack where someone asked does
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anyone use a help desk system that
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integrates both email and chat and also
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has basic chat bot scripting abilities
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we use help Scout which does okay with
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email and chat but it does not have chat
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bot capabilities or Integrations and
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several people suggested crisp which has
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really good chat bot support but crisp
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itself is a whole support platform and
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the original poster didn't want to move
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over to Chris they want to use help
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Scout and potentially integrate with
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crisp so maybe this idea is a crisp
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add-on or integration for help Scout
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maybe this idea is chat bot
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functionality that works with help Scout
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and realize does this have platform risk
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of course it does is help Scout probably
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working on chatbot functionality I would
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guess eventually they're going to roll
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it out so there is a danger here but
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there's also a need and it's something
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that would require a little more
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investigation idea number five is canva
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for charts and graphs the poster writes
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I work as a graphic designer and
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specialize in data heavy information
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Graphics my design work often
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incorporates different types of charts
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bar charts Pi line charts among others
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but currently there is no designer
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friendly charting software on the market
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sometimes I use Excel to format charts
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but the visuals are not aesthetically
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pleasing I typically use Adobe
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Illustrator which is the design industry
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standard for charting but even this
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program is lacking options I've
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researched options but nothing exists
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that is geared towards design and
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Aesthetics everything is geared towards
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analytics and tracking so is this a
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full-blown canva or do you build some
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type of template theme add-on for canva
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or figma or one of these other platforms
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much like the Wix for Architects above
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Do you want to build a full software
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platform or would you prefer to build an
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add-on to an existing ecosystem for
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microsass I would do the latter but
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obviously this requires a bit more
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research before taking the leap and idea
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number six is better analytics for
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square the poster writes I'm a small
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business owner that uses Square as point
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of sale and sale recording squares
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analytics are often disappointing I wish
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a tracked where clicks on the online
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store came from gave more detailed sales
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analytics while comparing month-to-month
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sales and other information another
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example we sell some items on
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consignment and at the end of the month
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I have to comb through all the
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transactions to find items sold by a
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particular artist in order to do their
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disbursements I wish you could sort sale
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items by the item or category and see
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how well particular groups of items did
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once again an add-on to an existing
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ecosystem I think of this a little bit
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like the metrics providers for SAS that
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were built on top of stripe barometrics
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profitwell chart Mogul and the rest now
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it's been a couple years since this was
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posted so obviously there have been a
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couple things that square has built that
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the poster requested but there's still a
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lot that can be done with square
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analytics the question is how do you get
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distribution can you get in the Square
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app store Marketplace or will it be more
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of a Grassroots effort of hanging out
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with Square Merchants on Facebook and
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the private slack groups on Reddit and
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getting enough traction there that you
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build a brand and try to build up your
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SEO and your referral Marketing in a
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second I'm going to give you the bonus
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idea that I think is technically
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complicated but could get a lot bigger
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than a micro sass before I do that if
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we're not connected on Twitter I'm at
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Rob Walling and I'm tweeting a few times
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a week sometimes with threads but I'm
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tweeting several times a week on all
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things SAS building growing and
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launching startups much like you would
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see on this channel and also at
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microcomp so if you're thinking about
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bootstrapping or mostly bootstrapping
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your SAS company you're going to want to
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follow at Rob Walling and microcomp
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let's connect so the bonus idea is a
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system to convert Daw files from one
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program to another the poster writes I'm
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a music composer mostly for film and
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broadcast media and music production a
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Daw is digital audio workstation and
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it's a program that's used to record
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arrange edit mix or monitor a digitally
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produced music project currently there
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are many Daws Pro Tools logic pro Cubase
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and many others they've all developed
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different processes to store and compile
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data and this data is usually retained
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in a sort of package or project folder
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at this point there are no Dow programs
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between which project data is compatible
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that is to say I cannot take a logic pro
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project file and open it with Pro Tools
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this can make it very time consuming and
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often impossible for musicians Engineers
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or Studios to work together when they
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arrange their production through
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different Daws the solution is software
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that would be able to convert DW project
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files between different programs this
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would save a significant amount of time
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and transfer and would allow anyone with
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any level of technical skill to use the
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DW of their choice without fear of
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limitation professionally obviously a
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deep Niche idea that you would only
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experience if you worked in the industry
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I think this is a very complex technical
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challenge because these are proprietary
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data formats that each piece of software
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is using and I don't know that it's in
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their best interest to allow you to
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convert between these tools but it
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sounds like this is a pretty generally
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known pain point that a lot of folks in
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this industry might have so once again
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after doing a bit of validation and
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maybe getting five or ten Early Access
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customers I would take a look at perhaps
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what two most popular Daws are and take
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a crack at building a proof of concept
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that could convert from one to the other
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you may find out that it's virtually
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impossible and that the formats change
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every time they update the software and
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that this isn't worth it but it's one of
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those ideas where if you can solve this
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technical problem it feels like given
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the amount of money that people spend in
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these industries on their tools you
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could charge pretty hefty price for it
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if you enjoyed those six micro SAS ideas
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hit the like And subscribe to the
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channel we're putting out a video every
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week on topics like this we give away
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business ideas I talk about how to come
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up with ideas how to validate them how
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to launch build and grow your startup
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see you next week
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[Music]
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thank you
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[Music]
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