In some ways it's easier than ever before, and in others it's much harder than it was 10 or 15 years ago, depending on your industry. For software, the barriers to entry have been decimated. Modern frameworks, libraries, PAAS, and now generative AI etc massively boost dev productivity. It's viable to build an MVP as a solo dev in weeks or months that used to take years.
However, it's easier for everyone else too, and the market is now so flooded with B2B SAAS apps that it's extremely difficult to find an untargeted niche, or even one with incompetent competition, and it's even worse in the B2C space. All the low hanging fruit has been picked.
I started my own company Grizzly Bulls (https://grizzlybulls.com), an algotrading platform, two years ago and the experience has highlighted the difficulty of the non tech aspects of running the business -> marketing, sales, support, etc. It's highly niche and my indicators and models and therefor value prop are entirely unique and unclonable, but the hardest part is reaching new audience. As a freemium SAAS, we have very strong free to paid conversion and even lower premium churn so customers must be content with the product and results, but I've found it very difficult to grow the top of the funnel exposure.
No, even with all that you mention, it's still fairly difficult to make an actually good website, regardless of the amount of AI you throw at it. In contrast, the marketing side is still within how it was before, simply because devs know nothing about marketing, generally speaking.
Frankly, I'm still very much trying to figure out viable and efficient marketing strategies myself. A large portion of my current users have come from somewhat viral posts/comments on HN, reddit and other investing forums. I also have social media accounts with automated model performance updates and free signals, but I don't have a ton of followers.
I've tried blogging and that's hit some decent results, particularly some of my technical blogs directly related to building algorithmic trading systems, but blogging is very time consuming, so I'm unsure the $/hour really pays off in such a niche space. I even wrote a book on the topic, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SB2LDG, but also that was a lot of work that I'm not sure was worth it.
So, best of luck! Marketing a very niche product/service is way harder than I originally anticipated. I'm now brainstorming how to pivot marketing towards a more mainstream audience. Really the market for investing with alpha and generating higher long term returns than the market should appeal to just about anyone with a disposable income, but building a level of trust and understanding is key.
I feel like your grizzlybulls.com site is quite nice & loads very quickly for being under the load of HN visitors. The idea of democratizing algo trading for the masses is appealing, but there is that trust factor even for mere trading signals, let alone automated trading. You may have to provide more rationale on your site for what (and which) algos can do for the everyday trader.
I think I'd give consideration to changing the name since I'm not sure the name speaks directly enough to the idea of algo trading. I'd work on finding a better one.
Your book looks interesting & I'll have to consider buying it. Good luck to you.
Thanks, really appreciate the feedback! I thought of the name Grizzly Bulls as kind of catchy since the goal is periodically hedging market downturns and so somewhat oscillating from (grizzly) bearish to bullish in macro outlook, but agree that it definitely does not feel directly connected to algotrading. I'll give it some more thought.
However, it's easier for everyone else too, and the market is now so flooded with B2B SAAS apps that it's extremely difficult to find an untargeted niche, or even one with incompetent competition, and it's even worse in the B2C space. All the low hanging fruit has been picked.
I started my own company Grizzly Bulls (https://grizzlybulls.com), an algotrading platform, two years ago and the experience has highlighted the difficulty of the non tech aspects of running the business -> marketing, sales, support, etc. It's highly niche and my indicators and models and therefor value prop are entirely unique and unclonable, but the hardest part is reaching new audience. As a freemium SAAS, we have very strong free to paid conversion and even lower premium churn so customers must be content with the product and results, but I've found it very difficult to grow the top of the funnel exposure.