It’s hunting season again for me. Out on a hunt to my next product idea. For my past two products, I went with the conventional approach of identifying a really specific niche that I am familiar with and a part of, and then making a product addressing the needs of that particular group. Keto List Singapore was for locals on a keto diet. Sweet Jam Sites was for productized services and freelancers. I tried the conventional approach, it works somewhat, and there’s still lots to do.

But a blog post by Alex West made me think otherwise. He wrote about his journey making products, and this line resonated deeply:

“They say if you want something you have never had before, you should do something you have never done before.”

Indeed, reading that felt like a sign. For my next product, I feel ready to try an approach that I never tried before. Instead of going ultra-niche, what if I tried making something in a saturated market, where there’s already lots of competitors? 

Some benefits to that approach:

• Market size and demand is substantiated
• Product-market fit is easier, if not already proven by competitors
• You can make something multiple times better based on what the competitors lack

Of course, the downsides are:

• Harder to differentiate
• Noise to signal ratio higher
• Price wars (not ideal when you’re just a solo dev entrepreneur)
• Things can start getting commoditised real fast

When thinking about anyone who had been successful with this approach, @ajlkn—founder of Carrd—comes to mind. Carrd is a website builder, and he made it at a time when there’s already so many website builders available out there– Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace, Elementor, Strikingly, etc. Yet, he went ahead to build yet another site builder, because:

I think because I realized pretty quickly that that particular market, and this isn’t true of all of them, but at least this particular one is so massive, there is room for pretty much any solution because everyone going to need a website that’s a little bit different from the next person.

The features they need a different, what they’re willing to pay will be different. So, you could really carve out a niche within this much larger market and not really step on anyone else’s toes. You will to an extent, but you can coexist with a Squarespace, a Wix, all these other guys. [source]

That’s an interesting perspective. Tech startups don’t like to think that way because most of the time, they are seeking market dominance and near monopoly. Like how Google dominates search, Amazon for ecommerce. But as indie makers, we don’t have to think like that. I’m not after dominance or monopoly. I just want to make a comfortable living working for myself. We indie makers can be like small artisan shops all gathered along a single street selling cheese, located next to a giant cheese supermarket. There’s room for everyone, because every store offers their own unique recipes, experiences and relationships.

Like how Alex West says in his post:

“It’s better to be the least successful shipowner than the most successful shoe mender, as far as money goes.”

Let’s try the shipowner approach then.