{"id":11,"date":"2025-03-19T14:40:34","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T14:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/?p=11"},"modified":"2025-03-19T15:09:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T15:09:22","slug":"finding-and-building-a-b2b-saas-business-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/2025\/03\/19\/finding-and-building-a-b2b-saas-business-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding and building a B2B SaaS business: introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>100M\u20ac at 0.1% probability (Expected Value 100k\u20ac) vs. 1M\u20ac at 10% probability (EV 100k\u20ac). Which would you choose?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While these figures are illustrative, I think they represent the fundamental choice between venture-backed big-league startups and bootstrapped, less ambitious entrepreneurship that doesn&#8217;t get as much attention or glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This blog documents my project of finding an idea and building a bootstrapped business. I&#8217;m writing primarily for myself\u2014writing forces me to think more clearly and identify flaws in my reasoning. The public blog format adds a layer of accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My journey has been shaped by courses I&#8217;ve taken at Aalto University (Starting Up: <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.minnalearn.com\/en\/courses\/startingup\/\">https:\/\/courses.minnalearn.com\/en\/courses\/startingup\/<\/a>, Entrepreneurship: <a href=\"https:\/\/mycourses.aalto.fi\/course\/search.php?search=MNGT-A3001\">https:\/\/mycourses.aalto.fi\/course\/search.php?search=MNGT-A3001<\/a>), along with inspiration from entrepreneurs like Rob Walling and various business books that have influenced my thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My entrepreneurial philosophy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I don&#8217;t want to sell my time. While I&#8217;ve done consulting work, I wouldn&#8217;t want to start a consulting business. Instead, I want to create a product where the marginal cost of serving another customer is near zero. This provides freedom (timewise) and scalability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve deliberately chosen the path with a relatively small potential best-case upside based on better risk-adjusted value:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Studies show limited extra happiness from extreme wealth beyond financial independence (marginal utility of income). If my happiness starts to plateau at, say, about 20k\u20ac per month, why would I increase my risk of not achieving any meaningful results just for a better (measured in euros) best-case outcome?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The venture model offers high potential outcomes but with an extremely low probability of success<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The bootstrapped model provides moderate best-case outcomes but with a higher probability<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There&#8217;s less competition in smaller niches (think &#8220;regional games&#8221; vs. &#8220;Olympics&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My approach to finding and evaluating ideas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I have published a document summarizing what I&#8217;ve learned about finding and evaluating business ideas: <a href=\"https:\/\/users.aalto.fi\/~haapanm6\/finding-idea-and-validating-saas-business\/\">https:\/\/users.aalto.fi\/haapanm6\/finding-idea-and-validating-saas-business\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I originally wrote the text for myself but decided to publish it while reviewing my notes. I did this for the same reason I&#8217;m writing this blog; just the thought of publishing forces me to think more critically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My current entrepreneurial reality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I currently operate three very small-scale SaaS services that I&#8217;ve created, which combined cover my salary. These services have flaws in market and product type selection and no doubt in execution as well. I&#8217;ve tried many more ideas that didn&#8217;t work out, usually ultimately due to poor research and planning. Still, I&#8217;m proud of my achievement: I&#8217;ve built something generating revenue\u2014providing real value to real people. I find it amazing that people I&#8217;ve never met are willing to give me money in exchange for something I&#8217;ve built. I continue ideating and creating something new because I can&#8217;t assume my current services will generate revenue forever. I view them as learning stepping stones toward better businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What&#8217;s next<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>What I plan to post here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Analysis of my ideation process with concrete examples<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Idea evaluation and early validation techniques with real-world examples<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A deep dive into one promising idea I&#8217;m currently working on<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m not writing in real time. Instead, I&#8217;m converting private notes into posts for the early stages to document and analyze my process. I may transition to real-time blogging later if I continue to find this habit useful and I will reach my actual stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>100M\u20ac at 0.1% probability (Expected Value 100k\u20ac) vs. 1M\u20ac at 10% probability (EV 100k\u20ac). Which would you choose? While these figures are illustrative, I think they represent the fundamental choice between venture-backed big-league startups and bootstrapped, less ambitious entrepreneurship that doesn&#8217;t get as much attention or glory. This blog documents my project of finding an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.aalto.fi\/nichenavigator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}