Best way to succeed in startups is copying already successful startups.
You don't need to be a genius to find an original idea.
After all, everything is a remix.
But where do you find these successful startups making millions?
Well, its quite simple.
100s of Indiehackers have been tooting their own revenue on Twitter with the #buildinpublic hashtag.
You can find them through it but its a tedious process.
We can make it much simpler.
Enter Acquire.com, previously known as MicroAcquire.
Acquire is a marketplace for Startup Founders to sell their profit-generating Startups. These are usually small ones that are made by a team of 1-10 people. Since they are small, they are easy to copy.
Acquire shows you everything from Revenue to Profit to Competitors to the Cost it takes to run. What they don't tell you is the exact startup domain.
But if you are smart enough, you can find the exact domain through your OSINT and SOCMINT Skills. I'll include an example below.
Just sign up at Acquire. Click on your Avatar on top right and click Explore Marketplace.
You can find extremely good ideas on Acquire but I'll list a few that caught my eye:
Link: https://app.acquire.com/startup/zq3DbEFLHnZscyLRbTlxE1BosXv2/0wfJfThkimzDeVmJuieS?source=marketplace
This product is a Cold DM tool that has $185 mrr.
The total profit is $1k and the asking price is $30k.
If you scroll down a bit, you'll find the founding date, the team size, the tech stack, the business model, the competitors, and the growth opportunities.
The best part is when you scroll down a little further. You can find the exact Acquisition channels as it connects with Google Analytics.
This is a good idea to build because let's be honest, every business needs leads.
And what better way to get leads than to automate it with a Twitter outreach tool.
Link: https://app.acquire.com/startup/fMWCklAW4PPxiJ4xxpGKzu2Prct2/gvkmQYR8o3GFhG9pbYkS?source=marketplace
Notice on the right there are 15 buyers interested. This shows demand. Investors are mostly interested in the fastest-growing startups.
AI-Powered Roleplay is a huge market.
We recently covered AI Girlfriends being a Billion Dollar Business and with the recent release of Llama 3, there will be more alternatives like this.
This product is a 1-person product launched last year in June 2023. It has $5k in profit and $520 mrr but massive potential.
If you scroll a bit, we get a Chartmogul graph of ARR, MRR, Customers, and Churn rate.
Link: https://app.acquire.com/startup/daNCPe3tsEOyluwxQ5PybYIRVA53/KI3d9vSNWsE499iQjQqW?source=marketplace
AI Photography Studios are all the rage launched during the 2nd wave (text-to-image) of AI.
This one made $2.1m profit and $76k MRR.
It had a TikTok go viral so you can assume they are acquiring customers to TikTok. Shouldn't be too hard to find, eh?
They have said the competitors are Aragon and Headshot so you can cut those of your list now. There are only so many alternatives. You can nail this startup down even further.
The metrics are 100,000+ customers. I'm sure they are boasting it on their landing pages.
You can easily find this one.
Link: https://app.acquire.com/startup/nEOrnThIWNgtBK07TTdQ4Wbn3f73/eB78ZuQwKlVXFaszdnVJ?source=marketplace
This one has 43 serious buyers.
The description is extremely enticing. Hands-off and automated with traffic from Google? Of course, who doesn't like that.
4.7 rating on Trustpilot with 380 reviews!!
And the competitor is Uplead.
Metrics are incredible. ~$50k mrr ($578k / 12 months) with 100-1000 customers.
The traffic is consistent.
Try copying the description we found above and paste it into Google:
And scroll down a bit to see Outscraper and LeadSwift recommended.
Open them both up in the New Tab.
Remember the listing had Tech Stack?
Yep, we'll use that to nail it down further.
Install Wappalyzer on your platform of choice. I use Chrome so I installed the Chrome Extension.
Reload the websites (Outscraper and LeadSwift) so the extension loads.
Now, you'll see only Outscraper is using WordPress and jQuery while LeadSwift only uses jQuery.
But remember, they might be using React for their dashboard which you can only find after login.
But I've found an important datapoint. Outscraper was founded earlier than 2022. You can check the Oldest Tab on their YouTube channel.
Therefore, it might be Leadswift.
A few tips:
However, every listing gives enough info to find them. Some numbers might be misinterpreted to misdirect you.
This is basically how you find successful startup ideas.
Now you can build them and start marketing them. If you build it and nobody buys it, then you know your marketing sucks.
Once you know that, you can improve your marketing skills by reverse-engineering your competitors.
If you liked reading this, check out my post so you can see all this stuff with images. Don't forget to join the newsletter which contains daily tips on marketing/growth hacks to improve as a SaaS founder.
You don't need to be a genius to find an original idea.
After all, everything is a remix.
But where do you find these successful startups making millions?
Well, its quite simple.
100s of Indiehackers have been tooting their own revenue on Twitter with the #buildinpublic hashtag.
You can find them through it but its a tedious process.
We can make it much simpler.
Enter Acquire.com, previously known as MicroAcquire.
Acquire is a marketplace for Startup Founders to sell their profit-generating Startups. These are usually small ones that are made by a team of 1-10 people. Since they are small, they are easy to copy.
Acquire shows you everything from Revenue to Profit to Competitors to the Cost it takes to run. What they don't tell you is the exact startup domain.
But if you are smart enough, you can find the exact domain through your OSINT and SOCMINT Skills. I'll include an example below.
Just sign up at Acquire. Click on your Avatar on top right and click Explore Marketplace.
You can find extremely good ideas on Acquire but I'll list a few that caught my eye:
1. Twitter outreach tool to find, reach and nurture prospects as well as grow your audience
Link: https://app.acquire.com/startup/zq3DbEFLHnZscyLRbTlxE1BosXv2/0wfJfThkimzDeVmJuieS?source=marketplace
This product is a Cold DM tool that has $185 mrr.
The total profit is $1k and the asking price is $30k.
If you scroll down a bit, you'll find the founding date, the team size, the tech stack, the business model, the competitors, and the growth opportunities.
The best part is when you scroll down a little further. You can find the exact Acquisition channels as it connects with Google Analytics.
This is a good idea to build because let's be honest, every business needs leads.
And what better way to get leads than to automate it with a Twitter outreach tool.
2. AI-Powered Roleplay Site running custom LLM model based off Meta's Llama
Link: https://app.acquire.com/startup/fMWCklAW4PPxiJ4xxpGKzu2Prct2/gvkmQYR8o3GFhG9pbYkS?source=marketplace
Notice on the right there are 15 buyers interested. This shows demand. Investors are mostly interested in the fastest-growing startups.
AI-Powered Roleplay is a huge market.
We recently covered AI Girlfriends being a Billion Dollar Business and with the recent release of Llama 3, there will be more alternatives like this.
This product is a 1-person product launched last year in June 2023. It has $5k in profit and $520 mrr but massive potential.
If you scroll a bit, we get a Chartmogul graph of ARR, MRR, Customers, and Churn rate.
3. AI Photography Studio
Link: https://app.acquire.com/startup/daNCPe3tsEOyluwxQ5PybYIRVA53/KI3d9vSNWsE499iQjQqW?source=marketplace
AI Photography Studios are all the rage launched during the 2nd wave (text-to-image) of AI.
This one made $2.1m profit and $76k MRR.
It had a TikTok go viral so you can assume they are acquiring customers to TikTok. Shouldn't be too hard to find, eh?
They have said the competitors are Aragon and Headshot so you can cut those of your list now. There are only so many alternatives. You can nail this startup down even further.
The metrics are 100,000+ customers. I'm sure they are boasting it on their landing pages.
You can easily find this one.
4. A lead generation platform for businesses to generate and build email lists. 100% Organic Traffic.
Link: https://app.acquire.com/startup/nEOrnThIWNgtBK07TTdQ4Wbn3f73/eB78ZuQwKlVXFaszdnVJ?source=marketplace
This one has 43 serious buyers.
The description is extremely enticing. Hands-off and automated with traffic from Google? Of course, who doesn't like that.
4.7 rating on Trustpilot with 380 reviews!!
And the competitor is Uplead.
Metrics are incredible. ~$50k mrr ($578k / 12 months) with 100-1000 customers.
The traffic is consistent.
Try copying the description we found above and paste it into Google:
And scroll down a bit to see Outscraper and LeadSwift recommended.
Open them both up in the New Tab.
Remember the listing had Tech Stack?
Yep, we'll use that to nail it down further.
Install Wappalyzer on your platform of choice. I use Chrome so I installed the Chrome Extension.
Reload the websites (Outscraper and LeadSwift) so the extension loads.
Now, you'll see only Outscraper is using WordPress and jQuery while LeadSwift only uses jQuery.
But remember, they might be using React for their dashboard which you can only find after login.
But I've found an important datapoint. Outscraper was founded earlier than 2022. You can check the Oldest Tab on their YouTube channel.
Therefore, it might be Leadswift.
A few tips:
- Find their founding date and compare.
- Find Trustpilot ratings and sort by reviews. Don't forget to search for "leads"
- Stalk the founders on Linkedin to find their company starting date. You can also do that through YouTube Oldest Search.
- Reverse-engineer their SEO strategy
- Check their location on the website. The location in the listing is United States (Florida)
However, every listing gives enough info to find them. Some numbers might be misinterpreted to misdirect you.
This is basically how you find successful startup ideas.
Now you can build them and start marketing them. If you build it and nobody buys it, then you know your marketing sucks.
Once you know that, you can improve your marketing skills by reverse-engineering your competitors.
If you liked reading this, check out my post so you can see all this stuff with images. Don't forget to join the newsletter which contains daily tips on marketing/growth hacks to improve as a SaaS founder.
