How to Clone a SaaS and Launch Without Competition
You want to make a SaaS, but you have no ideas?
You thought of stealing an idea. But you see lots of people making clones. Even clones of clones! The competition is crazy. And the whole game seems just… pointless?
Let me give you a hope today.
In this post I will teach you a simple method of niching down. With this method you can take any existing SaaS, clone it and launch without any competition.
The Simple Idea
Take any currently rising SaaS trend. Sell it in a non-english speaking country.
All new SaaS trends are born in the English speaking bubble. Mostly the US.
What you do, is NOT joining the race like all the others. Instead, you choose a product and launch it in one non-english speaking country ONLY. Full focus on it.
Forget about the sweet US market. Yes it's a big pie. The biggest one. But the problem is that everyone wants this pie. Let them fight. You find a smaller pie and eat it all alone.
You have 2 questions now:
- Which country to choose?
- What are the SaaS trends.
First, the country. Have a look at the big countries with people who do not speak English fluently.
Japan, South Korea, Germany, Thailand, Argentina, Brasil, France.
I like France. French people are snobs. They like all French. They prefer a French service even if they know English.
France GDP is only 10 times less than the US. But the competition is ten hundreds times smaller.
Let's take something from the SaaS trends and bring it to France:
What is the today's trend? AI!
AI logos, AI chatbox, AI interior, AI tweet generator, AI SEO automatization tool (e.g. SEObot), AI headshots, AI page generator etc.
Take any successful AI product and just clone it.
Then bring it to France.
But how?
First, regional domain. Google will prefer .fr regional domain when showing the results for French.
Second, get perfect translation. Rely on multiple LLMs and double check the texts with a native speaker person.
Third, see how they do it in the country you are targeting. Discover similar products and notice everything that seems different. Which integrations do they use? Do they use facebook for login? Do they like to pay a subscription? For example Japanese websites are nothing near what we got used to.
Next, do everything you would normally do for the english-speaking market: write content, engage in social networks, partner with influencers, make side-projects, give interviews, get your product listed on directories, partner with others.
Your last question: how can you be sure in this strategy?
A couple of my friends did that in the past.
- One made kiwiforms. forms builder for the latam market. he was making over 50k per month the last time we spoke.
- Other made a e-com builder for the Thailand market. Sold it for millions.
- My friend John made Cakeiteasy, a e-com for bakeries aimed for Norway shops only. Also successful.
You will also have chances to get acquired by big companies when they come to the country later:
Here are a couple of examples of Shopify's acquisitions:
https://www.crunchbase.com/acquisition/shopify-acquires-tictail--806cde7d
https://www.crunchbase.com/acquisition/shopify-acquires-oberlo--700d6396
Instead of starting in a new country from a ground level, Shopify just acquires existing local players. Which can be you!
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Cloning a SaaS (Software as a Service) and launching it barring opposition includes various key steps:
Identify a Niche: Choose a SaaS product that serves a area of interest market. Look for areas the place present options are both missing or have room for improvement. Conduct thorough market lookup to recognize the wants and ache factors of your goal audience.
Understand the Product: Fully apprehend the features, functionalities, and person journey of the SaaS you design to clone. Identify its strengths and weaknesses to decide how you can differentiate your offering.
Add Unique Value: While cloning a SaaS, intention to add special fee or elements that set your product aside from competitors. This may want to contain enhancing consumer interface design, bettering functionality, or imparting higher consumer support.
Focus on User Experience: Prioritize person trip in each factor of your product development. Ensure that your SaaS is intuitive, user-friendly, and solves the issues of your goal target market effectively.
Invest in Marketing: Develop a complete advertising and marketing approach to promote your cloned SaaS. Highlight the special price proposition and advantages of your product via focused advertising, content material marketing, social media, and different channels.
Bro c'mon
Hi, I’m French. Let’s discuss about a saas to clone !
Bonjour! What do you want to discuss?
I wrote an indiehacker post on this topic Novelty is overrated,
just copy what's working.
The idea is if you are an indiehacker, or boostrap it almost impossible to built an entirely new thing, because educating the potential customer will be painful and costly.
Leave the new thing to big boys with big fund.
Improving what already working is more economical for indiehackers
Great thought. No more innovations, please!
The title seemed counter-intuitive. Interesting thoughts, though language/translations may be only one success factor for those regional variants. In general, translating software is not that hard (in theory, at least...). So I'm thinking that it probably requires also some additional understanding of the regional markets. For example, customers may have different preferred payment methods, local laws, etc.. I imagine it may be difficult to gain that understanding if one is not even familiar with the language, but this is also an advantage for all people who know more than one language. It would be interesting to learn more details about how your friends approached challenges in the local markets.
It definitely requires additional understanding of the regional markets. My point it is easy to research a market, than compete.