_jdams

I've been reading a lot on Indie Hackers lately about SaaS businesses, typically smaller "micro-saas" which serve some hyper-specific features/business model until there are opportunities to expand. Is it possible to piece a SaaS together by combining a website framework such as Wordpress with payment processing from Stripe, and maybe a few other services, without having to re-invent the wheel or learn full-on development?

To be honest I haven't even come up with an idea yet, so I'm not ready to start, but I'm doing a weekend of research to determine feasibility of getting the barebones of a SaaS started while leaving me with an opportunity to seek contracted/outsourced help for small tasks as opposed to developing everything myself. Any experience in this area? I'll also be digging through IndieHackers interviews to see if I can find others who have shared similar experiences with little custom development work (until it was needed).

I've read "Do things that don't scale" and "Ideas are worthless; execution is everything", so I'm putting this out there to hopefully obtain some good feedback and direction.

I want to create an art marketplace that sells original works. Signed or unsigned, the work would be original and potentially from a set (limited number), authenticated by myself with the support of the original artist. No prints or mass reproductions.

In Model 1, the artist would hold the item, but have an agreement with me to place the product on the marketplace. At time of sale, I would be responsible for (somehow) transferring profit to the artist, and the artist would be responsible for packaging and shipping the product. Pros: I'm not touching inventory. Cons: I lose control of photos, which provide the consistent "look and feel" of product listings. I would also rely on artist to ship timely.

Model 2 - have agreement with the artist and list the product. The seller would ship the product to me. When sold, I would provide payment to the seller, and ship the product. Pros: I would have full control of the product photos, and timeliness of shipping. Cons: I'm responsible for storage of all inventory. I'm responsible for taking all photos (lots of work). I'm responsible for product damages before consistent photos of the product, but would need to store the product until it sells. If it doesn't sell, I have to ship it back.

On the topic of doing things that don't scale, a small marketplace that will at first suffer from the classic "chicken and egg" problem will be manageable for me, but I'm not sure about the logistics of the two models. I would prefer to never touch inventory.

Will Shopify support what I'm trying to do? I know marketplaces are tough, but people have been able to achieve it in the past. I want to execute on the idea but do it smartly and obtain feedback from everyone here.

Lately I've been reading the very well known Four Hour Work Week ("4HWW") book by Timothy Ferriss and have been inspired by some of the startup stories from Indie Hackers, specifically the clever business called Instapainting started by Chris Chen (https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/instapainting).

I know the 4HWW philosophy DOES NOT actually suggest you should start a business by outsourcing everything, but if you took that mindset from the get-go, could it produce good results?

For example, I'll make up a business similar to Instapainting: [BUSINESS PROPOSITION]: Upload a photo and get it custom printed onto a cell phone case and shipped direct to your door. If you took a moment to read about Instapainting in the link above, you'll notice slight differences, in that the people 'producing the product' were actually artists themselves and were fully capable of painting the reproduction. My example is a bit different in that it's someone requiring the equipment to produce the product... probably not the best example but I hope you can see where I was going with it.

For this example, a few things are needed: A simple photo uploader + payment processor attached to the form, and a person on your staff that can take the image, create the case, and ship it (or ship to you, and then you ship it [longer delivery time]).

I suppose the main point of this post, and the questions I would most appreciate receiving some info/feedback on are:

1) What is the best way to go about finding outsourced staff that I can bring on to do the hypothetical case creation for me?

2) Where should I be looking to find them?