Whenever I think of a new business idea, it starts as a math equation:
Hot industry + people willing to pay = business
This isn’t the only pathway to a successful business, but it’s one of the cheat codes that I’ve used to grow our AppSumo Originals products from zero to 1M+ users (including three products that have generated over $1M in revenue each).
If there’s a crowded market with a lot of noise, most people see think the signal is to avoid.
But I think the opposite.
Our most popular product ever, TidyCal, came from a realization that a lot of people use calendar tools. And I believed if I could find an angle and get a small percentage of people switch from Calendly and other calendar tools, it could grow into a successful business.
And it worked.
Four years later, with 300K+ users and 5.2M+ events booked and millions in revenue generated, it’s our most successful product ever.
Earlier this year, I took that same mindset into another crowded industry: The job market.
I noticed a lot of people were looking for jobs. I’ve been through long job searches before, and I know how stressful it can be. I wanted to see if I could help people find a job, and eventually turn that into a business.
Here’s the story of how I tried, and failed, to launch ReferCareers.
