I have no doubt luck was involved. I hit the market at a good time and gained traction quickly. I have done zero marketing and customers come in through word of mouth and via search engines. Surely there was luck in there.
As for choosing the idea-- that was more systematic. I chose a service that solved a real pain point for many companies in a specific industry. I chose it because it because:
1. There were many competitors (10+). That meant someone was making money, and more importantly, someone was spending money.
2. The industry/customers had a very clear channel for early word of mouth/traction (ie, it was easy to reach the customers and say "hey look at this solution for X").
3. A cottage industry exists around the industry. There are many "influencers" and training seminars, conferences, etc. Once my service gained some traction it was easy to stick around because people kept talking about it at conferences. I also gave access to these "influencers" for free.
I'd say stick to B2B, and look for 1-3 from above.. those are ideal for a solo-SaaS product.
As @lorenzk said, thanks for sharing your experience on these things.
You also taught me something meaningful, and you didn't even have to do anything!
I was curious about what kind of product you've made and started stalking your comment history to see if I got some clues about it.
I eventually reach a comment from you (on a thread about a dev. who got his Apple account cancelled) to which I replied ... like ... this ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38395858
<clown face>
I wish I could hide under a rock now, lol; but on the positive side I feel like I learned how/why one should be more measured in general, to avoid ending up looking in situations like these.
Congrats for shipping whatever it is that you do, and thanks for the life lesson on the side!
