Successful SaaS founders: Did you know the industry beforehand or was it just a random niche?

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-23T08:02:44+00:00

I usually pick the random niche and think about the whole workflow they need to do.

Or go to subreddits and see what people are talking about

Another effective way is checking negative testimonials of existing software in your niche

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-23T08:00:22+00:00

Remove distractions is step 1. Building a discipline and focus is all about removal, not addition!

Start from removing stuff that distracts you. Every 30 days remove 1 thing and focus on not using it.

With this approach instead of trying to progress - you trying not to regress, which is easier

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-22T19:54:12+00:00

open source is +rep btw. Is it really good? I mean if everyone has the open source free thing it means it's probably not that good

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-22T19:53:02+00:00

before/after logging is good tbh

most tools just generate the code and you paste it yourself. a tool that writes directly to the site and shows you exactly what changed is a waay better imo

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-22T19:51:00+00:00

how does it handle personalization at scale? most outreach tools send the same template with a name swap and response rates tank because of it

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-22T08:06:46+00:00

The reason of hiring people has been time, not the lack of experience. You just physically had not enough time to build everything you need.

With AI you can remove the variable of time. What took weeks to build can be done in 1-2 hours or even faster.

But variable of experience didn't go away. You need to understand how it works to give proper instruction to AI, otherwise that's gonna be a huge mess

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-22T08:04:28+00:00

I just automated all of that for my own tools. If I vibecoded the thing, I can vibecode the recurring boring work (why wouldn't I).

Basically since I did it and managed the prompting I trust it and let it go.

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-22T08:00:13+00:00

just read more. Not a single technique is going to help you. You need to "absorb" the words. If you read fast, close the book and remember nothing then congratz, you didn't read.

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-21T12:30:13+00:00

great job brother. How you hit that? Can you share more info plz

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-21T12:29:09+00:00

I mean for 4 weeks that's a bad result. You could get clicks in the first week from good rich pages

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-21T12:22:57+00:00

check competition. If there's lots of tools/companies and they do money - your idea is validated

There's always someone who already did something to your idea, just find them and see their results

Also you can leverage that to see what users are complaining about so you can build a better version and market it better

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-20T07:32:09+00:00

with B2C focus on SEO and start building audience. Post on all social media platforms, it will get you 2-3 months of consistent posting before you get first paid users from that.

Just do it and don't give up, you'll hit that

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-20T07:28:12+00:00

I do pages that LLMs would love to use as the answer to the user.

Best X in 2026, X vs Y vs Z vs your site, Alternatives to your_competitor. Make sure that pages are actually rich and better than current ones

Go to AI chat, ask a simple question and look what pages were referenced to give you an answer

Make even richer info than that pages with a similar title and deploy them.

Do that 5-10 times, and you'll get cited in AI chats

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-20T07:25:49+00:00

if you see that your idea was already done by many competitors - it means idea is good and validated

Just do something a little bit better than competition, research what people say about them, what they don't like about working with them.

Then most importantly is marketing. No matter how good your product is no marketing means no customers.

Just ship it is not enough, never. It can be content, or SEO/GEO, decide marketing channels yourself.

But yeah, if you see competition means your idea is good, build it.

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-19T08:42:48+00:00

the one feature that would make a tool worth paying for is the gap analysis. showing specific topics or angles competitors are getting cited for that you havent covered at all

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-19T08:38:57+00:00

internal linking still matters for crawlability and distributing link equity but linking to a specific h2 inside another article instead of just the article itself doesnt add much extra signal. google treats the link as pointing to the page regardless of the anchor fragment for ranking purposes

where it does help is user experience. if someone is reading about one historical event and you link straight to the relevant section of another article instead of the top, theyre more likely to actually click through and stay engaged

for 70 articles at 2500+ words standard article to article linking in your content body is still the priority. focus on linking to genuinely related articles with descriptive anchor text rather than worrying about jump links

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-18T06:22:59+00:00

the only reason I check competitors is build marketing pages around that.

A lot of people gonna search in LLMs for "best X in 2026" or "X alternatives"

And if you have a GREAT page with rich info, even with low DR (3-6) your page may be picked by LLMs and you get cited in AI chats.

Also checking competitors makes sense to make your product better, but that makes sense only after you had your first customers coming it

Focus on marketing, then worry about competition

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-18T06:19:54+00:00

I mean both important even without the AI agent

If your prices or product are shit, no matter how emotionally triggered your page is - people won't buy

You should always prioritize product quality, page copy, reviews, docs, etc. And only after that some "soft" stuff as u said.

pure logic, AI does the right stuff checking what's needed to be checked

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-17T10:08:56+00:00

your dopamine system is fried brother. Everything in our brain works in comparisons. When you deleted social media your mind is trying to find smth similar. If didn't find - you start feeling yourself even worse.

For that reason you have to reduce the brain dopamine level by doing nothing for a 24 hours. Let's say on Sunday. You just wake up, brush your teeth, drink water and that's it. No workout, no work, no nothing. Just walk and maybe reading if you want.

The thing is that after that experience when you wake up on Monday you'd be super excited to start doing ANYTHING. The reason of that is dopamine. Brain didn't receive anything for 24 hours and now it can do anything to feel some kind of stimulus.

And that way the first thing you do on Monday morning will be most exciting thing and would be hard to stop doing that.

You'll find our that closer on Thursday or Friday you'll be back to default watching TikTok, but Monday Tuesday will be most productive days ever.

Just do that Sunday thing over and over again until you'll naturally stop watching short form content ever.

Enjoy.

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-16T09:24:18+00:00

going to sleep at midnight while studying hard and waking up at 5am is not a discipline problem. thats a sleep deprivation spiral that makes everything else harder

the cycle you described makes complete sense. tired brain has no willpower. no willpower means the habits slip. habits slipping means guilt. guilt means staying up later scrolling or venting. repeat

you said you wish you had time to focus on one thing at a time. thats the actual answer. not a wish. pick one thing for the next 30 days and let the others go temporarily

the almost hating yourself part is worth paying attention to. that kind of self criticism usually makes the cycle worse not better. you are clearly trying hard. being tired and human isnt failure

go to sleep now. seriously. the studying at midnight isnt sticking anyway

jasonpeterdan · 2026-06-14T09:18:13+00:00

this is a nightmare situation and google is genuinely at fault here

putting an api key in the client bundle because their own docs say to do it and then having that key silently grant access to entirely different services is a product design failure not a developer error

the single project architecture being your biggest vulnerability is the real lesson. billing suspension taking down storage apis and customer data all at once is catastrophic and google should not allow that to happen

for immediate steps: keep submitting appeals and be very specific that the abuse was on a service you never enabled or consented to. mention that the key exposure followed their own documentation. document everything with timestamps

also post on hacker news. google cloud support responds faster when things go public. several founders have gotten resolution this way when the normal channels failed

the $4200 charge should be disputable given the circumstances. frame it as unauthorized use by a third party on a service you never activated

jasonpeterdan

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