Should I Build It Should I Build It
14 Apr 2025
SaaS

safe way to print documents at public places by making the document ...

...available through the platform rather than sending it to someone

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

Your idea for a secure public printing platform falls into a crowded space where previous solutions haven't quite hit the mark. The 'Swamp' category indicates that numerous similar products exist, but none have achieved widespread adoption or significant user love. With 9 similar products already out there, the competition is considerable. The engagement with these existing solutions is low, with an average of only 2 comments per product. This suggests that users aren't particularly excited or invested in the current offerings, highlighting the need for a truly differentiated approach if you choose to proceed. Based on this, I would not recommend you build this.

Recommendations

  1. Given the crowded market and the 'Swamp' category designation, your first step should be thorough research. Dig into why existing public printing solutions haven't resonated with users. Identify their pain points and unmet needs. Understanding these shortcomings is crucial before investing any further effort into your idea.
  2. If, after your research, you remain convinced of your idea's potential, focus on identifying a specific niche or underserved group within the public printing market. Are you targeting students, travelers, or small businesses? Tailoring your solution to a specific audience can significantly increase its chances of success. For example, NeverPrinter users expected more of an 'Uber for printers'. Can you apply some of those lessons?
  3. Instead of directly competing with existing printing services, consider building tools or integrations for them. This could involve developing a secure document management system that integrates with popular printing platforms or creating a specialized printer driver for public use. This approach allows you to add value to the existing ecosystem rather than trying to replace it.
  4. Explore adjacent problems that might be more promising than secure public printing. Could you, for example, focus on document security and privacy solutions for businesses, or develop a platform for managing digital signatures and approvals? Expanding your focus can open up new opportunities and potentially lead to a more viable business model.
  5. Based on the competitive landscape and the challenges faced by existing solutions, seriously consider whether this is the best use of your time and resources. It might be more prudent to save your energy for a different idea with a higher potential for success. The 'Swamp' category suggests that breaking through in this market will be exceptionally difficult.
  6. Focus your efforts on understanding security concerns related to public printing. Prioritize features that ensure document confidentiality and prevent unauthorized access. Consider implementing encryption, access controls, and audit trails to build trust with users.
  7. Explore partnerships with public libraries, universities, and coworking spaces to provide your printing services. These locations already have a need for public printing and can serve as valuable distribution channels.

Questions

  1. What specific security measures will your platform employ to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive documents during the printing process, and how will you communicate these measures to users to build trust?
  2. Given the existing solutions in the public printing market, what is your unique value proposition that will differentiate your platform and attract users, and how will you measure its effectiveness?
  3. Considering the low engagement with similar products, what innovative marketing and outreach strategies will you use to generate initial interest and build a loyal user base for your platform?

Your are here

Your idea for a secure public printing platform falls into a crowded space where previous solutions haven't quite hit the mark. The 'Swamp' category indicates that numerous similar products exist, but none have achieved widespread adoption or significant user love. With 9 similar products already out there, the competition is considerable. The engagement with these existing solutions is low, with an average of only 2 comments per product. This suggests that users aren't particularly excited or invested in the current offerings, highlighting the need for a truly differentiated approach if you choose to proceed. Based on this, I would not recommend you build this.

Recommendations

  1. Given the crowded market and the 'Swamp' category designation, your first step should be thorough research. Dig into why existing public printing solutions haven't resonated with users. Identify their pain points and unmet needs. Understanding these shortcomings is crucial before investing any further effort into your idea.
  2. If, after your research, you remain convinced of your idea's potential, focus on identifying a specific niche or underserved group within the public printing market. Are you targeting students, travelers, or small businesses? Tailoring your solution to a specific audience can significantly increase its chances of success. For example, NeverPrinter users expected more of an 'Uber for printers'. Can you apply some of those lessons?
  3. Instead of directly competing with existing printing services, consider building tools or integrations for them. This could involve developing a secure document management system that integrates with popular printing platforms or creating a specialized printer driver for public use. This approach allows you to add value to the existing ecosystem rather than trying to replace it.
  4. Explore adjacent problems that might be more promising than secure public printing. Could you, for example, focus on document security and privacy solutions for businesses, or develop a platform for managing digital signatures and approvals? Expanding your focus can open up new opportunities and potentially lead to a more viable business model.
  5. Based on the competitive landscape and the challenges faced by existing solutions, seriously consider whether this is the best use of your time and resources. It might be more prudent to save your energy for a different idea with a higher potential for success. The 'Swamp' category suggests that breaking through in this market will be exceptionally difficult.
  6. Focus your efforts on understanding security concerns related to public printing. Prioritize features that ensure document confidentiality and prevent unauthorized access. Consider implementing encryption, access controls, and audit trails to build trust with users.
  7. Explore partnerships with public libraries, universities, and coworking spaces to provide your printing services. These locations already have a need for public printing and can serve as valuable distribution channels.

Questions

  1. What specific security measures will your platform employ to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive documents during the printing process, and how will you communicate these measures to users to build trust?
  2. Given the existing solutions in the public printing market, what is your unique value proposition that will differentiate your platform and attract users, and how will you measure its effectiveness?
  3. Considering the low engagement with similar products, what innovative marketing and outreach strategies will you use to generate initial interest and build a loyal user base for your platform?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 9
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 2
  • Net use signal: -7.5%
    • Positive use signal: 8.3%
    • Negative use signal: 15.8%
  • Net buy signal: -15.8%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 15.8%

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.

Similar products

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Hi all,My friends and I have created a Chrome extension and we are looking for feedback on whether people find it useful or not.The extension is intended to serve as a home printer substitute for people (like us) who don't want or need their own printer at home. It makes it easy to send documents to nearby office supply / shipping stores for printing and pickup.Installing the extension adds a printer named NeverPrinter to your list of available printers in Chrome. When you print a document with NeverPrinter, a new tab opens allowing you to select which nearby store you want to send the document to.This is the latest iteration in an ongoing project my friends and I have been working on. We would love to hear any positive or negative feedback.You can get the extension by going to the Chrome Web Store and searching for "NeverPrinter." Or you can visit https://neverprinter.com, which will redirect you there.

Users expected the product to offer peer-to-peer printing services, akin to an 'Uber for printers', with a community-based approach. There was anticipation for the ability to print to random network printers. Concerns were raised about the ink cost for home printers potentially being uneconomical. The use of a Kinkos printer driver was noted for easy document printing. Some speculated that printer manufacturers like Brother and HP might sell fewer printers as a result of this service.

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28 Jun 2023 Productivity

This website allows you to print and mail a document to any US address, including to yourself.I made it for people like me who lack a printer and/or envelopes/stamps.I mainly use it to print stuff out for myself, send forms that have to be mailed (insurance claims, government forms, etc.) as well as save money / time vs. going to a print shop.I apologize for the need to setup an account - given the need to upload docs, I felt this was important. If there's sufficient interest, I can setup a logged out flow.I would love to hear feedback. Thanks for taking a look!

Users find traditional mail slow and expensive, and while emails are not always ideal, some prefer using local print shops for instant service.

The main criticisms are that the mail service is slow and expensive, and it is not based in the US.

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I built BotArchive (https://www.botarchive.com) to make it easy to save content to cloud storage: you connect it to your Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox or Box, and then anything you send to it gets automatically saved in the attached storage location.I'd originally built it for Telegram and Slack, but I've been long interested in doing things with print: printing has long felt like one of the biggest underutilized output processes out there. Almost every piece of software has print integration, the output format is usually legible and for things like receipts I always find myself printing them out, and then copying them to Google Drive.So I built a custom IPP printer: no drivers needed on Windows, OSX or Android (haven't tried iOS yet but I assume its the same), easy configuration and prints PDFs that appear right in your cloud storage location of choice (handy replacement for the missing Google Cloud Print feature). Future work includes parsing the printed PDFs for things like conversion into a Kindle book, or extracting financial data.Feedback welcome!

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