Has anyone here built a saas app in an uncommon industry? How did you do it?

We’ve seen so many apps built for project management, social media, analytics etc etc. Has anyone built an app in a niche that is not common? How did you get the idea? How did you validate it?

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I built an app for independent film production. It was both a product of need (needed to put every dollar on screen) as well as a scratch your own itch so I did not validate it. I learned a lot making it (and even more by making the movie) so I do not regret it.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned about building the software (and this probably applies to a lot of industries) is that it takes A LOT to move filmmakers off of the workflow they are comfortable with. They will happily reuse the same budget and callsheet templates they have used for decades. A lot of times those are Excel files or fairly expensive desktop software that hasn’t had much improvement in twenty years.

So I aimed to be the software for the beginner filmmaker who hasn’t established deep preferences yet. Unfortunately the beginner filmmakers, like myself at that time, do not have money to spend on software. Catch-22.

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it takes A LOT to move filmmakers off of the workflow they are comfortable with

Isn’t that the case with most industries, especially established ones?
Is the app online now? Are you still selling it?

Not sure we answer your description, however we built a tool that adds analytics dashboards into Intercom.io accounts.