At AppSumo, we sell close to $100M of software/year. So we know a thing or two about the trends happening in tech.
In this post, I reveal 8 of the best-selling tech startup ideas based on our $100M worth of sales data. Hopefully, these ideas inspire you to create the next billion-dollar company.
Let’s dive in!
8 Tech Startup Ideas
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Tech Startup Idea #1: Management Tools for Remote Teams
More companies now more than ever are going remote—and what do we have as tools?
We have Google Drive, Slack, and Dropbox.
What other solutions can you build to help with remote work?
Here are two examples…
A lot of Youtube channels (like mine) have teams working behind the scenes. Maybe you can create tech software for remote content creators.
And at AppSumo, we hire people all over the world from countries like Croatia and Australia, so we have HR nightmares trying to get people paid and figuring out all the different regulations we have to abide by.
There are some solutions for that, but with more teams going remote, I bet there will be more demand for tools that support global workplaces.
What I’m trying to spark in you is that remote work is getting bigger, which means there will be more problems you can start solving with tech.
Tech Startup Idea #2: AI Chatbots for Customer Support
I don’t have a crystal ball, but in the future, I predict that software is going to be used to answer the majority of people’s questions.
Even now, when you send an email—how do you know it’s actually a human that’s responding??
How could you start something like that for yourself, but with your own spin on things?
Everyone’s focused on making online chatbots, so maybe you could create virtual chatbots at physical locations?
What I would do is look at companies’ job pages and if they’re hiring a lot of customer support people, I know that they have a problem they’re looking to solve. They need their customer support queries answered.
And that’s going to cost a lot of money.
So I would hit up these companies and say, “I will do all of your jobs for customer support for half off.” And they’ll say, “Okay, really?” And I’ll say, “Yep!”
And I’ll start doing that work. I won’t even have any software coded yet. What I’ll be looking for are the things that I can automate. What tasks can I get software to do, and what tasks do I need people to handle?
That will help me figure out a solution that I can now sell to multiple companies.
A lot of times, people come up with ideas they think are a solution and then they try to find a problem. It doesn’t work that way. Just go solve people’s problems and that will help you create better solutions.
Tech Startup Idea #3: Video Marketing Tools
The demand for online video content is going up every single year, and any tool that makes it easier for marketers to take advantage of this opportunity is going to make bookoo bucks.
An example from the AppSumo Marketplace is BIGVU. It’s an easy-to-use video editing app for Android and iOS. The cool thing about this app is that it comes with its own teleprompter, so you don’t have to look back and forth between your script and the camera.
What you can think about in this category, is LinkedIn is a super fast-growing platform and many B2B businesses are using it to get clients. You could make a unique video editor specifically for making LinkedIn videos—not a bad idea.
The other thing I would think about if I wanted to start a video marketing tech startup, is work backward from who’s already making videos that would PAY you for a solution. Or, think about who’s NOT making videos that would pay you for a solution to fix that problem.
Go to companies who aren’t doing YouTube at all—maybe they’re focusing on other marketing channels like Facebook Ads or email marketing and figure out if you can start creating video content for them.
Remember, Software as a Service (SaaS) is all about you building software based on a service.
So go do the service first.
Find people to make videos for and from there, create software.
It’s a customer-first approach.
We talk about this a lot—go find the customers and their problems first. Then solve it with a product.
Not the other way around.
Tech Startup Idea #4: Tools to Host Virtual Events
More people are open to meeting virtually than ever before.
How can you make this a unique or more interesting experience?
And what kind of virtual events can you host?
What about virtual dating? It’s actually kind of cool. You could create a virtual bar where people can come and meet other different people online.
Or what about virtual conferences? I created a conference company called CommunityNext and ended up making over $200,000 when I was in my 20s organizing these conferences. It was also one of the best ways I’ve ever been able to connect with amazing people.
At the end of the day, when it comes to event stuff, all you have to do is create an event that YOU would be really excited to pay money for—because if you would go to it, there’ll be at least one happy customer there. And that makes it a lot easier to convince other people to join you.
Tech Startup Idea #5: SEO Tools
The SEO industry is worth over $80 billion.
That’s bonkers.
More and more companies are competing against each other to rank higher in Google search results for high-value keywords. So building SEO tools gives companies a significant upper hand, and can potentially make you rich for creating that software.
But there’s a lot of different types of SEO for different platforms now—so what could you be doing differently? Could you do SEO for YouTube ranking? For Instagram? For TikTok? For the AppSumo Marketplace? Or maybe even for the Shopify app store?
Tech Startup Idea #6: Sales Funnel Tools
Sales is probably one of the most important skills you can have in business (and probably in life). I use it almost every single day.
Sales funnels are the steps your customers take before they finally make a purchase. Anytime you can create a product that helps a company make more money, you’re gonna do well.
There’s a lot of sales funnels on different platforms. Like on Youtube, there’s a lot of places to link out to other websites. Same on Instagram. Same on TikTok. Maybe you could create a sales funnel tool for very specific content creators?
Product pages are also a huge part of sales funnels. I recently saw a company called Mutiny raise a lot of money, and they help super big companies develop their product pages so it becomes their #1 revenue channel.
But they’re doing it for super large companies—that means there’s a lot of other small companies that are available for you to help. You can even do it for content creators that have very specific verticals and a huge audience.
Tech Startup Idea #7: Third-Party Tools for Popular Website Builders
Websites are getting easier and easier to build.
There’s no HTML and Microsoft Front Page like we had to do back in the day. There’s WordPress, Shopify, and Webflow… WordPress alone runs 39% of the websites on the internet.
That’s freaking bonkers.
What’s interesting about all these popular website builders, is that they have marketplaces where you can actually sell tools to their audience.
Go build tools for them!
Build tools for WordPress or Webflow or Shopify users. Figure out where there’s a bunch of customers who have money and also need extra help.
The other thing you can do is take any of these sites and customize them for very specific verticals.
Maybe you could create a Webflow for bookstores or take WordPress and build it for auto body shops.
Figure out a vertical that actually has a big need and really go deep on making software around that.
Tech Startup Idea #8: Competitor Tracking Tools
One thing I always advise entrepreneurs is—you don’t have to be super innovative. Copy what already works (but add your own spin).
If you don’t know about Facebook Ads, go spy on other companies’ Facebook Ads in the Facebook Ads Library (seriously, check it out).
If you don’t know how to design a website that converts, you can go study websites that you’ve already purchased from and mirror a lot of things they’ve done in their own business.
Tracking data and analytics is already a popular niche that’s working—so what else would a company pay to track?
Maybe it’s other companies, email campaigns, who other companies are hiring… There’s a lot of different business ideas.
Key Takeaways
The biggest thing I want you to remember from these tech startup ideas is to find customers first.
Offer a service, then build the software. Not the other way around.
And make sure that you’re finding customers with a problem and creating a product to solve their problem—not building a product and then trying to find customers who want to buy it from you.
Try the customer-first approach and create a product that makes or saves people money, and your tech startup will be off to a great start.
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