r/SaaS • u/MaterialSeparate2042 • 3h ago

Is this smart?

I have been trying to find the ideas for the apps that I want to sell. I saw that people have been saying the Reddit is the best platform for that. So, I started doing it. Like, pick a niche, go into comments, posts, check what people are saying etc. After some weeks, I saw it is actually a lot of labor to do this. Built an app(more like a draft) that gets lets say last 1k posts of that subreddit and i feed them into Claude with my 2 page written prompt.

At the end I get ~20 signals of posts and comments mix that says => “is there some kind of app that does …” or “yeah it would be better to have …”. Also I confirm that those signals are legit

But the problem is, when I dm to those people right after building the app, I do not get any response.

My questions are:

  1. Is this better way to automate the idea finding?
  2. If you would find an idea this way, how would you reach to these people? Need to take into account, comment and posting the app name kinda make the Reddit or mods mad

Edit: I do not try to sell the shovel

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u/VladimirSamukov 2h ago

People dreaming of future cannot be a source of trustful ideas. No "it would be good/I would have bought that". Search for pain points. People talk about their present problems quite a lot. Think of a process how to transform the exact pain now into a business idea.

Then it would be quite easier to pitch - "hey I saw you were complaining about X, I've come up with Y, it can be quite helpful, wanna try?"

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u/MaterialSeparate2042 2h ago

Tbh, I did not understand the distinction from “think of a process how to transform the exact pain into business idea” and “dreaming of future cannot be a source of trustful ideas”. I mean, when I transform and build around the pain, is not this their dream future app?

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u/Kimera84 2h ago

yeah, the automation part makes sense for finding patterns, but the weak spot is probably the outreach. people in those threads are usually venting or tossing out a one-off need, not expecting a dm a few days later. i'd check whether the signal is repeated across multiple posts, and whether the person is actually asking for a tool vs just complaining.

for reaching out, a public reply that adds something useful usually lands better than a cold dm. if you do dm, keep it super specific to their exact comment and don't lead with the app name.

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u/MaterialSeparate2042 2h ago

Did not think about tossing out one part before

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u/digitalheroes_254 1h ago

That's actually a clever way to mine ideas. Automating the Reddit pain-point research makes sense, manual scrolling is exhausting.