The $20,000 SaaS Hidden Problem How to Build the Unsexy Demo Tool Everyone Secretly Wants
It’s the simple, effective tool everyone wants but nobody thinks is fancy enough to build.
A sales engineer was in a jam. He had three weeks to find and master a tool to create automated product demos. One demo was for the sales team to use on live calls; the other was for prospects to click through on their own time.
His post in the r/salesengineers subreddit kicked off a firestorm of recommendations, frustrations, and hidden opportunities. Buried in that thread is a multi-million dollar SaaS idea waiting for someone to build it.
This playbook isn’t just about the idea itself. It’s about how to spot these opportunities by learning to read between the lines of customer complaints.
Would you like to read the reddit post? You can view it here.
The Evidence: Pain Is the Ultimate Market Signal
The comment section immediately turned into a battle of software recommendations. Navattic, Consensus, Storylane, Walnut, Supademo — the list goes on.
This is a crowded market, which is a good sign. It means people are spending a lot of money. But hidden in the sea of suggestions were two comments that revealed the real, unsolved problems.
First, the money shot:
Consensus is really awesome — Great analytics but they were the most expensive. They were 4x-5x more expensive than the other vendors we looked at (we evaluated 7).
This comment reveals The Price Pain. According to industry data and user reports, tools like Consensus and Walnut can easily run between $20,000 and $50,000 per year. They are priced for enterprise teams with enterprise budgets. The original poster was just one person trying to solve a problem quickly. They don’t have the authority to sign a five-figure annual contract.
Then came this gem:
im working for a small startup so im both the AE and SE and being able to pull from pre-created demo flows is awesome.
This highlights The Complexity Pain. This person is wearing multiple hats. They are the sales team and the tech expert. They don’t have time to become a certified expert in a complex demo platform. They need something that works right now so they can get back to their actual job.
The Opportunity: What if Demos Were Just… Easy?
The big players in this space sell power. They offer deep analytics, CRM integrations, complex branching logic, and AI-powered everything. According to a 2023 market analysis by G2, the average user of these platforms only utilizes about 40% of their features. (personally I think less)
But what if the real problem isn’t a lack of features? What if the problem is too many?
Let’s build DemoSlice.
DemoSlice is a Micro-SaaS that does one thing: it lets you create a simple, clickable, screenshot-based product tour in under five minutes. That’s it.
No video. No complex HTML capture. No integrations (at first).
Its one core function is to turn a folder of screenshots into a guided tour. You upload your images, draw clickable hotspots on them, and add short text bubbles. Click, click, done.
Why is this a perfect idea?
It’s buildable. You aren’t re-engineering a complex screen-capturing engine. You’re working with static images. This is a weekend project for a decent developer, not a year-long slog.
It’s maintainable. Fewer features mean fewer bugs and less customer support.
It’s marketable. Your marketing message is a direct attack on the competition’s complexity: “The 5-Minute Interactive Demo Builder. No training required.” 🎉
You’re not selling a replacement for Navattic. You’re selling an alternative for the person who’s about to give up and just make a PowerPoint.
The Actionable Playbook for Building DemoSlice
Building something is the easy part. Building the right something and getting people to pay for it is the real game.
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
To solve the core problem, you only need four features. Be ruthless here.
Screenshot Uploader: A simple drag-and-drop interface to upload and reorder a dozen or so images (PNG or JPG).
Hotspot Editor: An editor that lets you draw a rectangle over an area of an image. When you create a hotspot, you choose which other screenshot it links to.
Text Annotator: A way to add a simple text bubble next to a hotspot. For example: “Next, click on ‘Settings’ to configure your account.”
Public Share Link: A single button that generates a clean, shareable URL for your finished demo.
That’s your entire product. Don’t add user accounts, team features, or analytics. Not yet. The goal is to get from idea to a working prototype as fast as possible.
The Real Challenge: Positioning
Your main battle isn’t technical. It’s marketing and positioning.
Your biggest obstacle is convincing people that less is more. Customers are conditioned to look for long feature lists. Your list is short. You have to find the people who are so overwhelmed by the complex tools that your simple solution feels like a breath of fresh air.
You’re selling speed and simplicity, not power. Your target is the overworked sales engineer, the scrappy startup founder, and the marketing manager on a tight deadline.
You have to make them feel smart for choosing the simple tool, not cheap for avoiding the expensive one.
The “No-Brainer” Price
Forget complicated tiers. You need an impulse-buy price.
Free Plan: Create 1 DemoSlice. Includes a small “Made with DemoSlice” watermark.
Pro Plan: $19/month. Unlimited DemoSlices, no watermark.
That’s it. When a competitor costs thousands of dollars a year, $19 a month is a rounding error. You anchor the value against the user’s time. How much is one hour of a Sales Engineer’s time worth? $100? $200? If your tool saves them just one hour a month, it’s a massive win.
The Pre-Flight Check: Don’t Build a Thing… Yet
Before you write a single line of code, you need to validate that people actually want this. This is where you become a detective. 🕵️
Step 0: The “Fake It ’Til You Make It” Test
Open up Figma or Canva. Design a dead-simple interface for what DemoSlice would look like.
Create a clickable prototype that simulates creating a demo.
Record your screen with Loom for 60 seconds, walking through your prototype. Talk excitedly about how easy and fast it is.
Post that video on LinkedIn, Twitter, and back in the original
r/salesengineerssubreddit. Use a title like: “I’m tired of $20k/year demo tools, so I’m building one that takes 5 minutes to use. Is this crazy?”Link to a simple landing page with one headline (“Create interactive product demos in minutes”) and an email signup form (“Get notified on launch”).
The number of email signups is your first, most crucial signal. If you get 50+ signups in a week, you might be onto something. From there, email the first 20 people and ask for 15 minutes of their time. Listen for words like “complicated,” “expensive,” and “time-consuming.” Their pain is your roadmap.
Your New Pair of Glasses
People aren’t just complaining about the price of enterprise software. They’re complaining about the complexity, the learning curve, and the time it steals from their day.
The best opportunities often aren’t in creating the next big thing. They’re in creating the simple, focused, and affordable version of the big thing that already exists.