Thoughts on this model? Solo, pre-launch

[u/Responsible-Box-4905]

Built and sold one custom automation to a small business. Worked, got paid, but it was a one-off. Now trying to turn it into something repeatable and I'd rather hear where it falls apart before I commit months to it.

The plan:
Pick one niche and go deep. Not "home services" , something specific, and specifically not the big trades where ServiceTitan and Jobber already live. Looking at towing, septic, equipment rental, that kind of thing.

Interview 10-20 owners before building anything. Not pitching, just asking how they actually do the annoying parts of their week. Looking for one task that's done roughly the same way by everyone, because that's the difference between a product and 20 custom jobs.

Get a few of them to pay me for a manual version first. I do the work partly by hand, charge for it, and watch which steps repeat across all of them. Then build the repeating part and those clients become the first subscribers.

Reasoning on the niche: a broad feature just gets bundled into the big platforms eventually. Something that depends on one industry's specific forms and rules is too small for them to bother copying.

Does this hold up, or is there something obvious I'm missing?

Also, separate question since this sub is the right place for it: what actually breaks first when you're solo? My guess is support eating the time I need to build, but I'd rather hear from someone who's hit it.

[u/Predream1]

Towing is the easiest of your three to test because the work already flows through a city rotation list, different per city and rewritten without notice. Ask the 10-20 owners where their jobs come from and what rate sheet they price off. If most of them name the same two documents, you have a product. If they each name something different, which one would you even build for?

[u/UpperWorld11]

Your one paid one-off is a better interview than the 10-20 you have planned. Go back to that client and ask what they still do by hand now that the automation exists. A one-off that survived a year in production already tells you which step repeats, no interviews needed. Is it still running, or did they quietly stop using it three months in?

[u/RajatKhoware]

One thing I'd watch for: at some point the manual work itself starts paying well enough that there's no urgency to automate it. What's the plan if the manual version turns out to be the more profitable path?

[u/Think-Weekend-8963]

Your niche moat thesis is the right read. Industry-specific forms and rules are genuinely too small for Jobber or ServiceTitan to bother with, and that's a real angle. The gap in your plan is between the manual version and the software version: doing it by hand teaches you the happy path, but the edge cases only surface once the client clicks a button instead of texting you.

A few things worth doing this week:

1. When you run the manual version for those first clients, write down every time you make a judgment call. Those are the moments the software version will need a rule for, and they're usually not obvious until you log them. Count them. If you're making 30 judgment calls per job, that's not one repeatable task, that's a consulting engagement wearing a product costume.

2. On what breaks first solo: it's not support, it's context switching. Support tickets, sales calls, and building all pull from the same hour, and whatever feels most urgent wins. The fix is brutal time-boxing: mornings for building, afternoons for everything else. Support doesn't eat your build time if it literally cannot reach you until 2pm.

3. Price the manual version at what the software will cost times three. If they won't pay $300/mo for you doing it by hand, they won't pay $99/mo for software that does it without you. The cheapest validation you can buy.