Hacker Playbooks / Hackers / Arvid Kahl Do not pick a niche from a list. Embed in a community, listen until the software they hate is obvious, then build that. The audience is research, distribution, and the first invoice.
The best marketing is being the person they already trust when the tool appears.
Model Audience → SaaS
Engine Community
Stance Belong first Products
FeedbackPanda SaaS for ESL teachers, born inside that world The Embedded Entrepreneur The method, written down Podcast / writing The ongoing room Across the five stages
How they actually operate. 01
A community you could message tonight without sounding like a vendor. Vertical SaaS works when you are not a tourist.
01 Inventory groups where you already have jokes and trust.02 Listen for the software they resent.03 Confirm they have a budget, not just a complaint.04 Refuse 'SMBs in general' as a niche.02
Concierge the workflow. Productize only the part they already pay time for. Scope is whatever the community will recognize in one screenshot.
01 Do the job manually for a few teachers (or peers) first.02 Charge during the ugly phase.03 Let vocabulary from the community write the UI.04 Do not add features that would impress Twitter more than the room.03
Write in public for that community. The waitlist is a set of names you can picture.
01 Publish as a peer, not as a brand entering a market.02 Collect email from the people who already reply.03 Show the workflow in their context — their tabs, their students, their night.04 Ask who wants in, then actually onboard them.04
Launch into the room, not into the void. The first customers should feel like they co-authored it.
01 Tell the story as 'we got tired of X' — accurate, not cute.02 Give founding users a way to be proud of helping.03 Keep support extremely close. These people talk to each other.04 Skip channels that would attract the wrong vertical.05
Stay in the community even after the sale. The book, the podcast, the next product all use the same trust.
01 Keep teaching the craft, not just the tool.02 Let churn interviews happen in the same voice as the marketing.03 If you leave the community, the moat leaves with you.04 Document the method — it becomes a second product and a magnet.