I worked at a startup that pivoted away from this product so have the same question. We found that people wouldn’t pay for our product that showed financial projections based on current data.
I would be really interested to hear how this product is different - maybe there’s a different monetization strategy or a different marketing strategy?
So far I've just been building what I really wanted to exist for my own planning purposes combined with the best ideas from early adopters, and then I've posted in a few places and gotten a little traction here and there. I can see how it might be difficult to build and sustain a real startup around this kind of product; it does feel a bit niche, and I haven't tried ads but I've always imagined that the target audience would probably be especially hostile towards them.
A startup pivoting away can mean a few different things, but one thing it doesn’t mean is this couldn’t turn into something big for a long-term-focused solo dev!
> I can see how it might be difficult to build and sustain a real startup around this kind of product
Yes, I think the most important difference is that, as far as I can tell, you're looking for a bit of side income rather than trying to jump start a whole company.
What direction did that startup take their product out of curiosity? Did they ditch the projection/forecasting element altogether or still keep a vestige of it?
Pivoted to a B2B API in the same sector but fairly unrelated features-wise.
Basically they had a few B2C customers who had a more pressing problem than forecasting, and the company provides an API for other companies to solve that problem for consumers as a feature.
I would be really interested to hear how this product is different - maybe there’s a different monetization strategy or a different marketing strategy?