Featured This Reddit Rant is a Masterclass in Finding SaaS Ideas

“My literal job description has evolved into ‘professional nagger’…”

I stumbled on this raw, unfiltered rant from a project manager who is just… done.

It comes from the r/projectmanagement subreddit, a place filled with professionals trying to keep the trains running on time. Here’s a piece of it:

“My literal job description has evolved into ‘professional nagger’ because apparently clicking ‘complete’ is too complex for these people who can somehow manage to book vacations, raise children, and operate vehicles.”

The full post can be read here. Let’s break down why this isn’t just a rant, but a business plan.

Signal #1: Finding a Market in Shared Pain The reaction in the comments was almost unanimous. Other Project managers (PMs) jumped in, saying, “I feel you,” “This is my life,” and “Welcome to the club.” This shared pain is signal number one. When this many people have the exact same problem, a market exists.

But two comments really showed us both sides of the coin.

First, a user gave the perspective of the person who isn’t updating their tasks:

“Checking a box doesn’t accomplish anything besides tell my babysitter I did something. It doesn’t get me closer to finishing the project or add anything of value… At the end of the day, my manager cares about finishing the project, not checking off some line item on the PM’s Asana list.”

This is the reality. It tells us the core problem isn’t just laziness. The team members see task updates as pointless administrative work that only benefits the PM. It’s a chore with no personal upside. They’d rather do real work. I try to stay unbiased, but as a developer sometimes I feel the exact same thing.

“I just share a dashboard showing ‘not started’ and ‘almost overdue’ and overdue tasks to the project team and everyone’s line managers weekly. I raise project risks for schedule slippage… and let them battle it out.”

This comment reveals the PM’s true goal: accountability and visibility. They need the data from Asana to be accurate so they can report on project health. They don’t want to nag; they are forced to because it’s the only way to get the data.

So, the problem is clear:

Team members see updating tasks as a low-value chore. PMs see it as a critical part of their job. This gap is where our opportunity lives.

The Glorified Babysitter Bot Let’s stop trying to change human behavior. People won’t magically start loving Asana. Instead, let’s build a tool that works the way they do.

Meet CheckIn.

CheckIn is a simple Micro-SaaS that acts as a friendly assistant to the project manager. It has one job: get task updates from the team without anyone having to log into the project management tool.

Here’s the magic: CheckIn connects to Asana (or Jira, Trello, etc.) and the team’s Slack. Once a day, it looks for tasks that are due soon or overdue. Then, it sends a friendly, direct message to the person responsible in Slack.

Something like: “Hey Jane 👋 Quick check-in on ‘Design new homepage mockups.’ Any updates? Just reply here and I’ll post it to Asana for you.”

Jane can just type, “Almost done, should be ready for review tomorrow morning.”

Boom. CheckIn takes her reply, posts it as a comment on the correct Asana task, and the PM is updated. No nagging. No logging in. Jane spent 10 seconds in a tool she already has open all day (Slack), and the PM gets the data they need.

Your Weekend To-Do List: The 4-Step MVP Let’s list the absolute bare minimum to solve the core pain. Here’s your feature list:

Authentication: Let a PM connect their Asana account and their Slack workspace. Start with just these two.
Project Selection: A simple dashboard where the PM can choose which Asana projects to monitor.
The Bot Logic: A script that runs daily. It fetches tasks from the Asana API, finds the assignees, and sends a pre-written message via the Slack API as a direct message.
The Reply Catcher: When a user replies, the bot grabs that text and uses the Asana API to post it as a comment on the corresponding task.

That’s it. No fancy AI, no complex dashboards. Just a simple, effective workflow.

The Real Challenge (It’s Not the Code) The hard part isn’t connecting APIs. Zapier and n8n have made that easier than ever.

The real challenge is trust and messaging.

PMs might be hesitant to let a bot talk to their team. What if it’s annoying? What if it misses something? You have to prove your bot is a helpful assistant, not just automated nagging.

Your main boss battle is proving that this little bot saves hours of a PM’s time and removes social friction from the team.

Pricing (The “No-Brainer” Offer) Keep it simple. Don’t charge per user, as that gets messy.

Charge per project manager. A simple plan: $19/month per PM.

Why this price? A project manager’s time is expensive. If they spend even two hours a month chasing people down, your tool has already paid for itself multiple times over. Frame it like this: “For less than a dollar a day, you can stop being a professional nagger and focus on moving the project forward.” It’s an easy expense for a company to approve.

The Pre-Flight Check (Don’t Build a Thing… Yet) Before you write a single line of code, let’s make sure people actually want this. This is the fun part where you get to be a detective. 🎉

Step 0: The “Fake It ’Til You Make It” Test

Become the bot. Seriously.

Find one project manager (maybe the original poster on Reddit!) and offer to do this for them manually for a week. Charge them $10 for the “concierge service.”

Here’s the plan:

Get access to their Asana project.
Every morning, you check for overdue tasks.
You personally send Slack DMs to the team members. “Hey, I’m helping [PM’s Name] with Asana updates. Any news on task XYZ?”
You copy their replies and paste them into Asana comments.

This will do two things:

Prove if the result is valuable enough for someone to pay for.
Give you priceless feedback on what messages work, how people respond, and what edge cases you didn’t consider.

Next Steps If your manual test works, here are a few more validation steps:

Build a Landing Page: Use Carrd or Webflow to create a simple one-page site. The headline: “Stop chasing your team for Asana updates.” Explain how CheckIn works and add an email signup form to “Get early access.”
Return to the Scene of the Crime: Go back to the original Reddit thread. Post a comment like, “This thread inspired me. I’m thinking of building a simple bot that DMs people on Slack for updates and syncs them to Asana automatically. Would anyone here actually use that?” Gauge the reaction.
Do 5 “Mom Test” Calls: Find PMs on LinkedIn. Ask for 15 minutes of their time to learn about their workflow. Do not pitch your idea. Ask questions like, “What’s the most annoying part of your day?” and “How do you currently get status updates from your team?” Listen for the pain. If they describe the problem you’re solving without you mentioning it, you’re on to something.

✋Wait — don’t build this blind. This article covers the concept, but the difference between a fun side project and a profitable SaaS is the data.

I’m currently compiling a Deep-Dive Blueprint series for this type of Micro-SaaS ideas. It will include:

🚦 The Success Score: A calculated probability of success for this specific niche.

🔍 The Search Volume: Actual keyword data to see how many people are searching for this solution right now.

⚔️ The Competitor Breakdown: A deep look at who else is doing this and where they are failing.

… and many other goodies.

Read the full article here: https://medium.com/the-micro-saas-corner/this-reddit-rant-is-a-masterclass-in-finding-saas-ideas-7f3deec5e320