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

I want to build a crm 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: Competitive Terrain

While there's clear interest in your idea, the market is saturated with similar offerings. To succeed, your product needs to stand out by offering something unique that competitors aren't providing. The challenge here isn’t whether there’s demand, but how you can capture attention and keep it.

Should You Build It?

Not before thinking deeply about differentiation.

Your are here

You're stepping into a busy arena with your CRM SaaS idea, especially given its focus on e-commerce. There are a number of similar products already out there. This means you've got a proven market, but you also need to be very clear on how you'll stand out. Building with Golang and aiming for a headless, simple UI is a good starting point, but it's not enough on its own. High engagement around similar products suggests people are actively looking for and discussing CRM solutions. Your success hinges on pinpointing unmet needs or pain points within the existing landscape and offering a superior solution. In particular, similar products show an extremely high buy signal which is amazing, meaning people are willing to pay for a SaaS CRM. The challenge will be to make them choose yours among the others.

Recommendations

  1. Start with extremely focused market research. Delve deep into existing e-commerce CRM solutions. Don't just look at features; analyze user reviews, identify common complaints, and understand where these CRMs fall short. Use the criticism summary of similar products (e.g. lack of integrations, confusing UIs) to guide your research.
  2. Based on your research, carve out a niche. Don't try to be everything to everyone. Focus on a specific type of e-commerce business (e.g., subscription-based services, dropshipping, B2B e-commerce) or a particular pain point (e.g., customer retention, personalized marketing). This targeted approach will make it easier to differentiate and attract your ideal customers.
  3. Prioritize a seamless user experience with your simple UI. Given you're building headless, invest in a well-documented API and SDK to allow for maximum flexibility for users who want to build custom frontends. Pay close attention to the user onboarding process, making it intuitive and efficient. The Attio launch highlighted the importance of a clean UI/UX. Avoid feature bloat. Focus on core e-commerce CRM functionality, such as customer segmentation, order tracking, and automated email marketing. Only add features that directly address the needs of your target niche.
  4. Leverage the speed and efficiency of Golang to your advantage. Ensure your CRM is lightning-fast, even with large datasets. Optimize for scalability so you can handle growing e-commerce businesses without performance degradation. Communicate the performance benefits of your Golang backend in your marketing materials.
  5. Develop a robust go-to-market strategy focused on content and community. Create valuable content (blog posts, case studies, webinars) that addresses the pain points of your target niche. Participate in relevant e-commerce communities and forums. Offer free trials or freemium plans to get users hooked on your CRM. Given that some waitlist items end up in spam as it happened with CRMFusion, ensure email deliverability.
  6. Implement a feedback loop from day one. Actively solicit feedback from your early users and iterate quickly based on their suggestions. Use surveys, in-app feedback forms, and user interviews to gather insights. Publicly acknowledge and address user feedback to show that you're listening and committed to improvement.
  7. Carefully consider integrations. While you don't need to integrate with every platform, focus on the ones that are most essential for your target niche. Prioritize integrations with popular e-commerce platforms (e.g., Shopify, WooCommerce), payment gateways (e.g., Stripe, PayPal), and email marketing services (e.g., Mailchimp, Klaviyo). Attio users requested integrations with WhatsApp, sales engagement tools, and VOIP services, so ensure this is not the case for your CRM.
  8. Prepare a competitive analysis page that transparently addresses how your CRM is different from major competitors such as Salesforce and Hubspot. Attio's Product Hunt launch received overwhelmingly positive feedback, but still faced some criticism for not being as robust as a full sales engagement platform.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs or pain points within the e-commerce CRM landscape will your SaaS address, and how will your unique feature set directly solve them for your target niche?
  2. Given the crowded market, what concrete, measurable actions will you take to build a strong brand and generate initial traction, ensuring your CRM stands out from the competition and attracts early adopters?
  3. How will you balance the desire for a simple UI with the need for robust functionality and customization options to cater to the diverse needs of e-commerce businesses, without overwhelming users with unnecessary features?

Your are here

You're stepping into a busy arena with your CRM SaaS idea, especially given its focus on e-commerce. There are a number of similar products already out there. This means you've got a proven market, but you also need to be very clear on how you'll stand out. Building with Golang and aiming for a headless, simple UI is a good starting point, but it's not enough on its own. High engagement around similar products suggests people are actively looking for and discussing CRM solutions. Your success hinges on pinpointing unmet needs or pain points within the existing landscape and offering a superior solution. In particular, similar products show an extremely high buy signal which is amazing, meaning people are willing to pay for a SaaS CRM. The challenge will be to make them choose yours among the others.

Recommendations

  1. Start with extremely focused market research. Delve deep into existing e-commerce CRM solutions. Don't just look at features; analyze user reviews, identify common complaints, and understand where these CRMs fall short. Use the criticism summary of similar products (e.g. lack of integrations, confusing UIs) to guide your research.
  2. Based on your research, carve out a niche. Don't try to be everything to everyone. Focus on a specific type of e-commerce business (e.g., subscription-based services, dropshipping, B2B e-commerce) or a particular pain point (e.g., customer retention, personalized marketing). This targeted approach will make it easier to differentiate and attract your ideal customers.
  3. Prioritize a seamless user experience with your simple UI. Given you're building headless, invest in a well-documented API and SDK to allow for maximum flexibility for users who want to build custom frontends. Pay close attention to the user onboarding process, making it intuitive and efficient. The Attio launch highlighted the importance of a clean UI/UX. Avoid feature bloat. Focus on core e-commerce CRM functionality, such as customer segmentation, order tracking, and automated email marketing. Only add features that directly address the needs of your target niche.
  4. Leverage the speed and efficiency of Golang to your advantage. Ensure your CRM is lightning-fast, even with large datasets. Optimize for scalability so you can handle growing e-commerce businesses without performance degradation. Communicate the performance benefits of your Golang backend in your marketing materials.
  5. Develop a robust go-to-market strategy focused on content and community. Create valuable content (blog posts, case studies, webinars) that addresses the pain points of your target niche. Participate in relevant e-commerce communities and forums. Offer free trials or freemium plans to get users hooked on your CRM. Given that some waitlist items end up in spam as it happened with CRMFusion, ensure email deliverability.
  6. Implement a feedback loop from day one. Actively solicit feedback from your early users and iterate quickly based on their suggestions. Use surveys, in-app feedback forms, and user interviews to gather insights. Publicly acknowledge and address user feedback to show that you're listening and committed to improvement.
  7. Carefully consider integrations. While you don't need to integrate with every platform, focus on the ones that are most essential for your target niche. Prioritize integrations with popular e-commerce platforms (e.g., Shopify, WooCommerce), payment gateways (e.g., Stripe, PayPal), and email marketing services (e.g., Mailchimp, Klaviyo). Attio users requested integrations with WhatsApp, sales engagement tools, and VOIP services, so ensure this is not the case for your CRM.
  8. Prepare a competitive analysis page that transparently addresses how your CRM is different from major competitors such as Salesforce and Hubspot. Attio's Product Hunt launch received overwhelmingly positive feedback, but still faced some criticism for not being as robust as a full sales engagement platform.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs or pain points within the e-commerce CRM landscape will your SaaS address, and how will your unique feature set directly solve them for your target niche?
  2. Given the crowded market, what concrete, measurable actions will you take to build a strong brand and generate initial traction, ensuring your CRM stands out from the competition and attracts early adopters?
  3. How will you balance the desire for a simple UI with the need for robust functionality and customization options to cater to the diverse needs of e-commerce businesses, without overwhelming users with unnecessary features?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 11
  • Engagement: High
    • Average number of comments: 18
  • Net use signal: 14.5%
    • Positive use signal: 17.4%
    • Negative use signal: 2.9%
  • Net buy signal: 1.1%
    • Positive buy signal: 2.7%
    • Negative buy signal: 1.6%

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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Attio gives you all the tools you need to build the perfect CRM for your team.🔗 Sync your email & calendar and build a CRM in minutes⚒️ Build unique workflows exactly to your business needs⚖️ Iterate & scale easily with integrations and enriched data

Attio's Product Hunt launch received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with users praising its clean UI/UX, flexibility, customization, ease of use, and speed. Many highlighted its potential as a modern alternative to Salesforce and Hubspot, particularly for its onboarding, workflows, and real-time collaboration. Users across various sectors, including VC funds and consulting, recommended Attio. Some users requested additional features like sales engagement platform integrations, automatic data import, and a comparison page with other CRMs. There were suggestions for account categorization and multi-contact email capabilities. Overall, users expressed excitement for Attio's future and congratulated the team.

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Built Tretta, a simpler CRM solution.

Seeking feedback to improve MVP.

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Users criticized the product for being too opinionated on frameworks, misleading branding, and lack of support for vanilla JS and multiple backend languages. The bespoke language requirement, poor code aesthetics, and outdated elements were also noted. Concerns about scalability, monetization, and originality were raised, alongside specific technical issues like concurrency handling and lack of webcomponents understanding. The product's marketing and FAQ placement were also questioned.

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