Build for communities you already belong to - existing membership provides distribution and validation advantages
Insight from Kaia Colban
When to use
When choosing which market or niche to target
Don't do this
Targeting too broad a market without clear differentiation
5 Founders Who Did This
Filtered Micro Acquire for SaaS businesses in web scraping, a domain where he had 3 years experience and existing code from previous projects.
Built marketplace for Gumroad sellers and affiliates without knowing the Gumroad market or affiliation business, had no distribution plan
Knew Product Hunt, indie hackers community, launch platforms deeply; had distribution channel via Twitter following; belonged to the indie hacker community
Immerses himself in subreddits and online communities to identify product opportunities, treating existing membership as both distribution and validation advantage
Pat was an active Indie Hackers reader and aspiring founder himself. He built Starter Story as the version of IH for non-technical founders, a community he belonged to as an aspiring entrepreneur.