Scrolling through that Reddit thread feels like peeking into a hundred different garages, bedrooms, and co-working spaces where the future is being coded into existence. It's raw, it's real, and it's incredibly revealing. The post asked a simple question: "What are you building?" The answers—over 270 of them—paint a vivid picture of where independent software builders are placing their bets in 2026.
This isn't about venture-backed unicorns with massive marketing budgets. This is the grassroots layer of SaaS: the solo founders, the small teams, the indie hackers validating an idea before quitting their day jobs. Their projects reveal the immediate, practical problems people are willing to pay to solve right now. If you're thinking about building something, or just curious about where software is headed, this is your unfiltered roadmap. Let's break down what they're making, who they're making it for, and what you can learn from them.
The 2026 SaaS Landscape: More Niche, More AI, More Automation
Reading through the list, a few dominant themes scream for attention. The era of the monolithic, do-everything platform isn't dead, but it's certainly not where the action is for new builders. Instead, the focus has atomized. Founders are identifying hyper-specific friction points in existing workflows and building a scalpel, not a Swiss Army knife.
AI, unsurprisingly, is the common thread, but its application has matured. It's less about "AI-powered" as a buzzword and more about AI as a core utility—automating the tedious, parsing the unstructured, and predicting the next step. Think AI that reads your meeting transcripts and auto-generates project briefs, or an agent that monitors your cloud bills and suggests optimizations without you asking. Another huge trend is the "glue" layer. As the number of SaaS tools a business uses balloons (often into the dozens), there's immense value in tools that connect them, sync data between them, and create a unified dashboard. The builders are becoming the plumbers of the digital workspace.
Decoding the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): It's All About the Job Title
The original post mandated that each builder state their ICP, and this is where the gold is. In 2026, targeting "businesses" is a surefire way to fail. The successful builders are surgical. They're not selling to "companies"; they're selling to a specific person with a specific job and a specific headache.
You see patterns emerge: Revenue Operations (RevOps) Managers are a prime target for sales automation and CRM hygiene tools. Content Leads and SEO Managers are being courted by AI writing assistants and content planning platforms. Developers and Engineering Managers are inundated with tools for code review, infrastructure cost tracking, and developer onboarding. A standout example from the thread was a tool built specifically for Customer Success Managers at B2B SaaS companies with 50-200 employees—that's a beautifully narrow focus.
The lesson? Before you write a line of code, you must be able to describe your customer not by industry, but by their daily frustrations. What's the last thing they do before they log off, annoyed? That's your starting point.
Category Spotlight: The AI Agent Ecosystem Explodes
A significant chunk of the projects listed were various forms of AI agents. This has moved far beyond simple chatbots. Builders are creating autonomous agents that handle discrete business functions.
One builder mentioned an agent that acts as an AI Sales Development Representative (SDR). It scans LinkedIn and company websites, qualifies leads based on custom criteria, and drafts personalized outreach—all before a human gets involved. Another is building an AI Customer Support Triager that reads incoming tickets, categorizes them, pulls relevant help articles, and only escalates the complex issues to a human agent. There's even an agent designed to manage Google Ads campaigns, A/B testing ad copy and adjusting bids based on conversion data.
The infrastructure for these agents is still complex. Many builders mentioned the headache of managing context windows, tooling APIs, and orchestration logic. This is a prime example of a "pain point" that could spawn its own SaaS—a platform to build, test, and deploy AI agents more easily. If you're wrestling with this, you're not alone, and a solution that simplifies it would find a ready market.
The No-Code & Low-Code Enablers
Parallel to the AI boom is the continued rise of tools that empower non-developers. But the trend in 2026 is shifting from general-purpose no-code platforms (like Webflow or Bubble) to vertical-specific no-code solutions. Builders are creating tools that let marketers build complex lead-nurturing workflows without touching Zapier, or let HR managers create custom onboarding portals without IT.
One fascinating project from the thread is a no-code platform specifically for building internal tools. Think admin panels, data dashboards, and approval workflows that connect directly to a company's database. The ICP is clear: startup CTOs or product managers who need to ship internal tools fast and can't spare developer cycles. The value proposition isn't just "no code"; it's "save your expensive developers for product work."
This creates a fascinating ecosystem. The AI agents need to be managed, and the no-code tools need data sources. Savvy builders are creating the connectors and middleware that make all these specialized tools play nicely together. It's a reminder that sometimes the biggest opportunity isn't in the end-user application, but in the pipe that connects it.
From Idea to MVP: The 2026 Builder's Toolkit
How are these builders actually getting their products out the door? The thread was less explicit here, but the patterns from previous years have solidified. Next.js (or similar meta-frameworks) remains the dominant front-end choice for its full-stack capabilities. Vercel or Netlify handle deployment with almost zero config. For the backend, serverless platforms like Supabase or Firebase are the go-to for getting a database and auth up in minutes, not days.
But a new layer has been added: the AI infrastructure stack. Many builders mentioned using OpenAI's API (or competitors like Anthropic) for core models, but then relying on specialized services for embeddings, vector databases (like Pinecone or Weaviate), and agent orchestration frameworks. The complexity of managing this is non-trivial.
Here's a pro-tip echoed by several experienced builders in the comments: Do the manually painful thing first. Before you automate a process with an AI agent, do it yourself for 10 customers. Before you build a complex sync engine, use a spreadsheet and a web scraper like Apify to pull the data manually. You'll learn the real edge cases and nuances that your software must handle. It keeps you close to the problem.
Finding Your First Customers: Beyond Product Hunt
Launching on Product Hunt is still a rite of passage, but the builders in this discussion emphasized that it's just the starting pistol, not the finish line. The real work begins in community building. The most common piece of advice was to find where your ICP already hangs out online and provide genuine value.
Are you building for Shopify store owners? Spend time in r/ecommerce or relevant Discord servers. Building for developers? Engage on Twitter (or X) and Hacker News, but don't just promote—answer questions, share insights. One founder shared how they got their first 50 paying customers by writing detailed, helpful comments on LinkedIn posts about the specific problem they solved. They became a known expert before they ever pitched their tool.
Another underrated tactic: manual outbound, but make it hyper-personal. Use the tool yourself for a prospect before you even email them. "Hey [Name], I was looking at your website and noticed [specific observation]. I used my tool to run a quick analysis, and here's a free report showing [valuable insight]. If you'd like to run this automatically every week, my tool can do that." This takes effort, but for your first 10 customers, it's unbeatable.
Common Pitfalls & The One Question You Must Answer
Reading between the lines of the comments, several recurring mistakes emerged. The biggest? Building in stealth mode for too long. The fear of someone stealing your idea is vastly outweighed by the risk of building something nobody wants. Share your idea early, get brutal feedback, and iterate.
The second pitfall is over-engineering the V1. You don't need a multi-tenant architecture, a perfect design system, or every single feature on your roadmap for launch. You need a single, clear value proposition that works for one type of user. As one commenter bluntly put it, "If you're not embarrassed by your first release, you launched too late."
Finally, there's the trap of ignoring distribution during development. You can't build a brilliant product and then ask, "Now how do I sell it?" Your marketing channel should influence your product decisions. If you plan to grow through content, build features that are inherently interesting to write about. If you plan on a sales-led model, build in hooks for demos and clear ROI tracking.
So, the one question to answer before you start: "Who has a burning problem that they will pay $50/month to solve today?" Not tomorrow, not when you have more features. Today. If you can't name that person and that problem, keep digging.
Your Next Step: Listen, Then Build
The collective energy in that Reddit thread is palpable. It's a snapshot of ambition, frustration, and raw creativity. The landscape in 2026 is rich with opportunity, but it's crowded. Success won't come from a slightly better generic tool; it will come from a deep, almost obsessive understanding of a niche audience's workflow.
Use this insight as a filter for your own ideas. Look at the categories thriving—AI automation, vertical no-code, workflow glue. Listen to the specific job titles being targeted. Most importantly, embrace the mindset of these builders: start small, talk to users relentlessly, and solve a real, painful problem. The tools to build have never been more powerful. The difference between a side project and a real business will always be the clarity of your "who" and your "why." Now, what are you building?
Want to dive deeper? Many builders mentioned specific books and resources that shaped their thinking. For a foundational understanding of the "jobs to be done" framework critical to defining your ICP, check out Competing Against Luck by Clayton Christensen. And if you need specific skills to bring your idea to life—like UI/UX design or copywriting—remember that you don't have to do it all alone. You can often find excellent freelance talent on platforms like Fiverr to complement your own skills and speed up your journey to MVP.
