Should I Build It Should I Build It
23 Apr 2025
SaaS

I want to build a cms saas with Golang as backend and headless, but ...

...with a simple ui with e-commerce

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Freemium

People love using similar products but resist paying. You’ll need to either find who will pay or create additional value that’s worth paying for.

Should You Build It?

Build but think about differentiation and monetization.

Your are here

You're entering the freemium headless CMS market with a Go backend and e-commerce focus. With 10 similar products already out there, competition is significant. The core challenge in this space, as indicated by the 'Freemium' idea category, is that users often enjoy the free aspects but are hesitant to pay. This means you'll need to be strategic about how you monetize your CMS. You need to carefully balance the features you offer for free versus those you reserve for paying customers, and also think about differentiating your offer. The average engagement for similar products is moderate, meaning there's interest, but you'll need to actively cultivate a community and gather feedback to improve.

Recommendations

  1. Focus on a specific niche within e-commerce to differentiate your CMS. For example, you could target small businesses, artists, or a specific product type. This will allow you to tailor your features and marketing efforts, standing out from the generic CMS solutions.
  2. Identify the 'power users' of your free version. Understand which users derive the most significant value from your free offering. Then, design premium features that specifically cater to their needs, offering them even more efficiency, scalability, or advanced customization. You need to find who will pay or create additional value that’s worth paying for. Make sure they can't live without the paid version.
  3. Given the developer-centric nature of headless CMS, consider offering premium features that enhance developer workflows. This might include advanced API integrations, custom field types, or priority support. The discussion summary from "TerminusCMS" highlights the importance of integrating with Git workflows, so consider making that a premium feature.
  4. Explore charging teams rather than individuals. Large organizations are much more likely to pay. Offer team collaboration features and tiered pricing based on the number of users or projects. This aligns with the need to find a sustainable monetization strategy, especially given the freemium nature of the market.
  5. Offer personalized support, consulting, or onboarding services as a premium add-on. Many users, especially those less technically inclined, are willing to pay for hands-on assistance. Make sure to emphasize that this is not only support, but also guidance, and expertise that will help them achieve their goals.
  6. Given the criticism around Google tracking in the "Weightless CMS" product, emphasize your commitment to privacy and data security. This can be a significant differentiator, especially for users concerned about GDPR and other privacy regulations. Consider offering options for self-hosting or data residency to further alleviate these concerns.
  7. Test different pricing models and feature sets with small groups of users before a full launch. Gather feedback on what they value most and what they're willing to pay for. Iterate based on this feedback to optimize your monetization strategy. Collect both quantitative and qualitative data to inform your decisions. Do not be afraid to increase the pricing in the early stages, as your product grows.
  8. Carefully craft your go-to-market messaging. Focus on the benefits of your CMS for e-commerce specifically. Highlight the speed, scalability, and flexibility offered by your Go backend. Address the common pain points of e-commerce businesses, such as managing product catalogs, processing payments, and optimizing for conversions. Given the comments on "DeploySolo", make sure you have a working demo and clear screenshots to showcase the value proposition.

Questions

  1. What specific e-commerce niches are underserved by existing headless CMS solutions, and how can your CMS uniquely address their needs?
  2. How will you balance providing a valuable free version with incentivizing users to upgrade to a paid plan, without crippling the free experience?
  3. Given the criticism of complex syntax and compatibility issues in similar products (like "htmgo"), how will you ensure your UI/UX is intuitive and easy to use, even for non-technical users?

Your are here

You're entering the freemium headless CMS market with a Go backend and e-commerce focus. With 10 similar products already out there, competition is significant. The core challenge in this space, as indicated by the 'Freemium' idea category, is that users often enjoy the free aspects but are hesitant to pay. This means you'll need to be strategic about how you monetize your CMS. You need to carefully balance the features you offer for free versus those you reserve for paying customers, and also think about differentiating your offer. The average engagement for similar products is moderate, meaning there's interest, but you'll need to actively cultivate a community and gather feedback to improve.

Recommendations

  1. Focus on a specific niche within e-commerce to differentiate your CMS. For example, you could target small businesses, artists, or a specific product type. This will allow you to tailor your features and marketing efforts, standing out from the generic CMS solutions.
  2. Identify the 'power users' of your free version. Understand which users derive the most significant value from your free offering. Then, design premium features that specifically cater to their needs, offering them even more efficiency, scalability, or advanced customization. You need to find who will pay or create additional value that’s worth paying for. Make sure they can't live without the paid version.
  3. Given the developer-centric nature of headless CMS, consider offering premium features that enhance developer workflows. This might include advanced API integrations, custom field types, or priority support. The discussion summary from "TerminusCMS" highlights the importance of integrating with Git workflows, so consider making that a premium feature.
  4. Explore charging teams rather than individuals. Large organizations are much more likely to pay. Offer team collaboration features and tiered pricing based on the number of users or projects. This aligns with the need to find a sustainable monetization strategy, especially given the freemium nature of the market.
  5. Offer personalized support, consulting, or onboarding services as a premium add-on. Many users, especially those less technically inclined, are willing to pay for hands-on assistance. Make sure to emphasize that this is not only support, but also guidance, and expertise that will help them achieve their goals.
  6. Given the criticism around Google tracking in the "Weightless CMS" product, emphasize your commitment to privacy and data security. This can be a significant differentiator, especially for users concerned about GDPR and other privacy regulations. Consider offering options for self-hosting or data residency to further alleviate these concerns.
  7. Test different pricing models and feature sets with small groups of users before a full launch. Gather feedback on what they value most and what they're willing to pay for. Iterate based on this feedback to optimize your monetization strategy. Collect both quantitative and qualitative data to inform your decisions. Do not be afraid to increase the pricing in the early stages, as your product grows.
  8. Carefully craft your go-to-market messaging. Focus on the benefits of your CMS for e-commerce specifically. Highlight the speed, scalability, and flexibility offered by your Go backend. Address the common pain points of e-commerce businesses, such as managing product catalogs, processing payments, and optimizing for conversions. Given the comments on "DeploySolo", make sure you have a working demo and clear screenshots to showcase the value proposition.

Questions

  1. What specific e-commerce niches are underserved by existing headless CMS solutions, and how can your CMS uniquely address their needs?
  2. How will you balance providing a valuable free version with incentivizing users to upgrade to a paid plan, without crippling the free experience?
  3. Given the criticism of complex syntax and compatibility issues in similar products (like "htmgo"), how will you ensure your UI/UX is intuitive and easy to use, even for non-technical users?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 10
  • Engagement: Medium
    • Average number of comments: 8
  • Net use signal: 5.2%
    • Positive use signal: 12.9%
    • Negative use signal: 7.8%
  • Net buy signal: -2.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 1.5%
    • Negative buy signal: 3.5%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

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