Introduction to the Word Search Maker
The inspiration behind creating a word search maker was Patrick McKenzie’s success with Bingo Card Creator. In brief summary, he scaled a website that made bingo cards to $40,000 in revenue per year over the last few years. Pairing that seed of thought with my newly found interest in the Google Keyword Tool, I started to brainstorm. A key factor of the commercial indicator is the word “creator”, so the brainstorming focused on products that could be made or created via software. It was also important to create something that could be sold upfront immediately (no email-lead gen or long-term drip marketing, the target is to find interested customers right away).
List of potential ideas that led to Word Search Maker
The screenshot shows that I searched for the words [creator] and [maker], which force an “exact match type” which means the words in the results are the exact terms searched. Results are sorted by “Local Monthly Searches” which in this case means searches within the US. Google Keyword Tool is an important topic all to itself and will be covered in another post.
Here’s my gut-check reaction to those results (or skip below for the analysis):
1. Collage Maker – Massive volume, significant competition. Could be a fun hackathon project.
2. Windows Movie Maker – Nope.
3. Crossword Puzzle Maker – Sounds a LOT like bingo card creator. I like this.
4. Graffiti Creator – Creating graphics can get icky. Not a market I want to enter.
5. Movie Maker – Probaly related to Windows Movie Maker. Not a market I want to enter.
6. Word Search Maker – Sounds a lot like the Crossword Puzzle Maker. This is good.
7. Logo Maker – Sounds complex, would be difficult to make a graphics-generating software.
8. PDF Creator – PDF standards are really complex, not worth entering.
9. Family Tree Maker – This looks really interesting, not sure if people would pay for it though.
10. Photo Collage Maker – Overlaps with Collage Maker.
11. Meme Creator – Might be a reference to the site.
12. Makers Mark – I think this is a brand.
13. Puzzle Maker – Overlaps with Crossword Puzzle Maker.
14. Picture Collage Maker – Overlaps with Collage Maker.
15. Ringtone Maker – Potential copyright issues, audio/graphic/video software can get really tricky.
16. Free Logo Maker – Contains word free so nope, also overlaps with logo maker.
17. Logo creator – Overlaps with Logo Maker.
18. Graph Maker – Sounds like something students need for homework, lack of commercial intent.
19. Timeline Maker – I have no idea what this is.
20. Game Maker – Sounds complex.
21. Beat Maker – audio can be hard to deal with, sounds tricky.
22. Free Collage Maker – Overlaps with Collage Maker, contains word free.
23. Yugioh Card MAker – Copyright issues although a card maker might be interesting.
24. Resume Maker – This looks fantastic. Primarily deals with text, and people have a business need for it.
25. Banner Maker – Unsure if this is referring to website banners.
26. Label Maker – this could be interesting, sounds like significant commerical interest if it’s for wine bottling. Could also be for CD’s.
Analysis and Refinement
So out of these 26 results, I found six niches that make interesting business ideas: Crossword Puzzle Maker, Word Search Maker, Family Tree Maker, Puzzle Maker, Resume Maker, and Label Maker.
Some of these niches are more broad and undefined than others. For example, if I were to move forward with Label Maker I’d have to figure out what kind of Label Maker I’d be focusing on. Thankfully, Word Search Maker seems straightforward in comparison. I believe that there is only one kind of word search, which is like a grid of letters with hidden words inside of it.
It’s time to define a vision around this word search maker. I’m writing this post in retrospect after doing the Context Analysis already, but now would be a good time to go and do market research for your own niche. Understanding the trends within the word search “industry” will help nail the specifics down.
Defining the Word Search Maker
This screenshot shows a mockup of what a word search looks like. The final product will need to deliver the major aspects of this to the user.
The goal is to create a website-based (webapp) Word Search Creator where users can come to the site, give it a list of words, and have it hide those words into a user defined NxM block of characters. There can be various options for up/down/diagonal/overlapping characters as additional features. This result will be presented to the user in image or text format (further research needed) but all of the processing should be done server side.
The glaring business models here are either providing unlimited word searches for a monthly/yearly subscription, or charging per word search created. Due to user experience, billing ease, revenue estimation, SAAS perks, and overall simplicity I am leaning towards the monthly-unlimited model.
Next:
Word Search Maker Part 2: Context Analysis
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Business Opportunity Analysis Framework
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