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Ask HN: I'm an actor. I need an SaaS idea that allows me to act full-time

12 points by simplistic_guy ↗ HN
I'm not looking for the "next big thing" idea. This is purely me getting sick of waiting tables and having to clock in, having a fixed work schedule, etc. and wanting to utilize my coding skills to build a passive income engine. I'm an aspiring actor and need all the free time I can get to attend auditions and be on the film set on shooting days.

I started and still run a daily deal platform (basically Shopify for Groupon clone sites) that made me sufficient passive income (~$1.5k/mo) for a number of years, and I had a blast just travelling, chilling, playing video games, hosting parties, etc. from 2012-2014 while my bills get paid. Unfortunately, I'm really unwilling to work on the idea anymore, and the market is shrinking I believe, and revenue is suffering now. I'm not sure if I'm disinterested because it's not growing anymore, or it's not growing anymore because I'm disinterested. Either way, it's just a whole big mess of code right now that I'd rather not work on anymore.

I need a new idea that:

1) Can be coded up and iterated a number of times in 3 months;

2) Makes $2,000/mo in recurring revenue;

3) Can preferably be sold to small businesses who don't have high expectations (or any arbitrage-like market where small effort is disproportionately rewarded; sometimes waiting tables is also like that -- we occasionally get big tips for almost negligible work); and

4) Can be maintained on 10-20 hours a week of work (i.e. fixing bugs, adding features, customer service).

Anyone has any idea?

22 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 62.3 ms ] thread
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nitam
Join 30x500 or TheFoundation. They'll teach you how to find plenty of ideas. And also how to get them off the ground without a VC.
ape-box
Hi im interested in you actual platform, would you mind to share the link ?
darklajid
Is that .. serious?

I'm assuming this is a joke. Quite some parts ("it was great just playing video games", "market without high expectations, disproportional rewards") are so much over the top. Wow.

martin-adams
Talk to small businesses and find the pain points that they would pay money to solve. Once you do that, the idea part builds itself.
kctess5
Build some random workflow tool. Find a repetitive thing that a lot of software people do, and build a plugin of some kind to automate it for them. Sell it for a reasonable price, and build another one. Offering a suite of useful workflow tools for reasonable prices would be a pretty cool company. Also this helps everyone out, and makes the work that you yourself do faster (by building tools that solve problems you also encounter.)
pjc50
I too would like to make $2k/mo on 10-20 hours a week. I think everyone would.
smeyer
Really? Plenty of software devs in the US making six figures, which is a lot better than $2k a month for 20 hours a week, especially considering that it comes with a lot of other benefits.
empressplay
I don't know that there's much left in the small business SAAS space (in general) that isn't already well filled, or complicated to implement. So all you can really do is implement something that already exists but charge less (half) for it, but that becomes a race to the bottom.

I'd suggest finding a niche.

asattarmd
How about Aaas, Acting as a Service?
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pskittle
well build something for yourself and aspiring actors like you, that help scheduling auditions on film sets easier.
thenomad
You might want to look into doing infoproducts instead of SAAS. Given you're an actor, you presumably have presentation skills - explaining something in front of a camera is something you'll be able to outperform most people at, and in my experience (having done both) infoproducts are a lot easier to get to market than SAAS.

Also, do check the passive income posts here on HN: they're great.

Bear in mind that your primary problem, whether you're doing SAAS or infoproduct, will be marketing. You need to know you can market whatever you're making - that's probably the most important element of what you're considering.

This is completely doable, btw. Good luck!

matt_s
This sounds sort of unrealistic but here's a shot at an idea for yourself:

- A SaaS that markets to restaurants or hourly jobs where there is an abundance of aspiring actors

- App will allow owner/manager of restaurant to schedule people's hours allowing them time for auditions

- App will allow employees to swap shifts on short notice, adjust requested time off, etc. without having to clear things with manager - they have too much other stuff to worry about with a restaurant.

- App could be linked to number of tickets/hour to help manager adjust staff level to be appropriate for customer flow

This could work for people going to college as well - although they have a more set schedule that just changes every 3-6 months.

There are probably apps out there that do this, figure out what pain points they aren't solving.

crazypyro
The problem is getting people to take shifts. We had this at a restaurant I worked at in high school, but the only shifts that people would pick up were shifts where the tips were good and those were generally on weekend nights. Not many audition times there. Most of the time, servers only got day time shifts picked up if they paid another server $25-$75. It was a little different for hourly workers. Generally those shifts were much easier to offload.

On top of this, I doubt a restaurant manager really wants to deal with scheduling around auditions when there's really no upside. Its not like there is a labor shortage for serving jobs.

mromanuk
Use your strength, which should be acting lessons as a service (can be broader, like how to host, roles, group behavior, etc). Basically online courses to a small audience, over hangouts or your own platform. A 3 month course with 1-2 sessions a week. $150 each month, with only 15 participants, you will net $2250/month, probably less than 20 hours a week.
AznHisoka
Not to discourage you, but in my experience building a lifestyle project that can low maintenance is just as hard as building a $100 million startup. Why not aim for the latter and have a bigger payout?
MalcolmDiggs
It's kind of hard to tell if this is satire or not. If it's not, and you're serious: I'd recommend browsing through website-sales sites like Flippa. See what's selling right now, and what their stated income figures look like.

But, as others have noted: Your best chance at success is to focus on what people already pay you to do (act), and to build a service that automates and scales that up in some way. No idea what that would look like exactly, but maybe there's a way.

dalacv
If you know anything worth teaching, you could easily make $2000 a month on Udemy.com especially with your acting / presentation skills. I make $500 a month and I now spend 0 hours a month on my courses. My initial work that I put in was about 10-15 hours per month.