How to validate a SaaS idea before you write the first line of code

Most SaaS products that never sell had a visible problem before anyone wrote code: someone already did it for less, or nobody was looking for a fix. Both facts can be checked in an hour of searching. Here is the order to look at them in, and what came up when we did it on real ideas.

1. Find who already sells it, under every name

Founders describe their product in their own words; customers search in theirs. Run at least three angles: the feature (“dog grooming booking software”), the problem (“grooming no-shows”), and “alternative to” followed by the market leader.

For an idea of booking software for independent dog groomers, that search turned up MoeGo, Gingr, Pawfinity, DaySmart Pet, Teddy and more. The idea's headline feature, deposits to cut no-shows, was already shipped by Teddy and used as a comparison point between vendors. “Room in the market” scored 4 out of 10.

A crowded market isn't always closed. But it forces you to say, in one sentence, what you do that the others don't. If that sentence doesn't exist yet, the rest of the validation is wasted effort.

2. Read the prices on competitors' own pages

A price tells you two things: that customers pay, and how much you can ask. Read it on the pricing page, and on the marketplace listing when the product is sold through one.

In the groomer report, Gingr's grooming plan came out at around $99 a month, with annual contracts described as the norm. “Proven willingness to pay” scored 7: groomers already pay real money for software. The same report shows that a market that pays and a market with room left are two separate questions.

When nobody publishes a price, write that down too. A category where everyone says “contact sales” sells through demos and calls, not self-serve checkout. That's a different business to run.

3. Find people describing the problem in their own words

The most useful demand signals aren't statistics. They are sentences written by potential customers: a forum question, a complaint in a review, a spreadsheet shared to patch the problem.

The groomer idea scored 8 out of 10 on demand for that reason. An r/doggrooming thread calls no-shows an “epidemic getting out of hand”, groomers argue about deposits versus no-show fees, and one says collecting deposits with their current setup “sounds like a pain”. The Shopify low-stock alert app got the same 8: merchants keep asking how to know when to reorder, and some share Google Sheets templates that compute a reorder point by hand. When people build workarounds, the need is real.

The reverse is also telling: a topic covered by dozens of “best tools” listicles but with no customer complaints is often a market where vendors fight over search rankings, not a need that nobody serves.

4. Name the channel your first customers will come from

A SaaS with no specific acquisition channel depends on SEO, which takes months. Channels that work early are concrete: an app marketplace (Shopify, WordPress, Chrome), a community where the problem is discussed, or a trade that gathers in groups you can find.

The Shopify idea had both: the Shopify App Store, and a deadline that forces merchants to shop around. The sources show Stocky, Shopify's own inventory app, shutting down on August 31, 2026, with competitors already publishing migration guides. The groomer idea has channels too, r/doggrooming and Facebook groups where people ask for alternatives to their current software, but incumbents answer in those threads as well.

What these checks don't tell you

They tell you whether the field is open, not whether you'll win it. No web search replaces ten conversations with potential customers or a pre-order page with a real price on it. That's why every AppGap report ends with a concrete test to run in one or two weeks, with a threshold set in advance.

We ran AppGap through its own analysis: 51 out of 100, in a category the report calls saturated, with IdeaProof, Trend Seeker, ValidatorAI and others already selling. A tool that claims to tell the truth about other people's ideas should at least do the same about its own.