Solve Your Own Problem First
How Angus Chang built a $40K/mo solo SaaS from a PDF-to-Excel problem
Angus Chang productized his own frustration of converting bank PDFs to Excel. The starting point was solving his own problem, not market research.
He launched a 1-week MVP, grew purely through organic traffic without ads, and reached ¥6M/month (97.5% margin) in 4 years.
The key is the digital product structure with zero inventory, employees, ads, or shipping costs.
Action Steps
Start from your own frustration — the key is "solve my problem → productize," not market research
Launch MVP within 1-2 weeks — perfect design, feature additions, 6-month dev cycles are mistakes. Market validation comes from post-launch data, not thinking
Don't rely on ads — if the product solves a problem, people will search for it. Just listen to complaints and improve the product
Product before social followers — the right order is ①problem-solving product → ②people start finding it → ③then social media
Persist for at least 2 years — target small markets VCs ignore, focus on "a simple service that perfectly solves one problem"
Pros
- ✓ Digital product with no inventory, employees, ads, or shipping — 97%+ margin achievable
- ✓ Starting from own problem means high domain knowledge and fast product direction decisions
- ✓ Less competition in niche markets VCs don't care about
- ✓ Grows through organic search so marketing cost is near zero
Cons
- ✗ First 2 years have almost no income, requiring patience (Angus was at ~$200/mo)
- ✗ Niche market may have a ceiling
- ✗ Solo operation means heavy customer support burden (late-night emails, etc.)