Steal These 12 SaaS Ideas from Competitors' Feature Requests

The best saas ideas aren't hiding in brainstorming sessions or trend reports. They're sitting in plain sight on your competitors' feature request boards, buried in "coming soon" roadmaps, and scattered across "we don't support that yet" support tickets.

While established SaaS companies debate whether to build certain features—weighing technical debt, strategic fit, and resource allocation—you can launch an entire product around that single capability. This is how some of the most successful micro-SaaS products get built: by doing one thing exceptionally well that larger competitors can't justify prioritizing.

This article shows you exactly how to mine competitor feature requests for validated saas ideas that already have proven demand, identified buyers, and clear market positioning.

Why Competitor Feature Requests Are Gold Mines for SaaS Ideas

When someone requests a feature from existing software, they're telling you three critical things:

1. They have the problem right now (not hypothetically)
2. They're already paying for software (proven buyer)
3. The current solution isn't meeting their needs (market gap)

This is validation you can't buy. These aren't theoretical pain points from surveys—they're real frustrations from people actively using and paying for software in your target category.

Better yet, larger SaaS companies often ignore these requests for strategic reasons. They might:

• Consider the feature too niche for their broad user base
• Lack the technical architecture to implement it easily
• View it as outside their core product vision
• Have competing priorities from enterprise customers
• Want to avoid feature bloat

Every ignored feature request represents a potential standalone product. As we covered in What Makes a SaaS Idea Actually Profitable in 2025?, the best opportunities often live in the gaps between what large companies offer and what specific user segments actually need.

The 5-Step Process for Finding SaaS Ideas in Feature Requests

Step 1: Identify High-Traffic SaaS Products in Your Domain

Start with successful SaaS products that have:

• Public feature request boards or roadmaps
• Active user communities
• 10,000+ users (large enough for segmentation opportunities)
• Multiple pricing tiers (indicates diverse user needs)

Tools to find these:

• G2 and Capterra: Browse categories, filter by user count
• Product Hunt: Look at highly-upvoted products from 2-5 years ago
• Indie Hackers: Check "successful" filter for transparent revenue numbers
• SaaS directories: Micro-SaaS.io, BetaList, SaaSHub

Focus on categories where you have domain knowledge or existing connections. Your data-driven approach to finding profitable SaaS ideas should always start with markets you understand.

Step 2: Locate Their Feature Request Channels

Most SaaS companies collect feature requests through:

• Public roadmap tools: Canny, ProductBoard, Upvoty, Trello boards
• Community forums: Discourse, Circle, dedicated forum software
• Support documentation: "Planned features" or "Coming soon" pages
• Social media: Twitter replies, LinkedIn comments, Facebook groups
• Review sites: G2, Capterra, Trustpilot (check negative reviews)

Pro tip: Search Google for "[product name]" + "feature request" or "[product name]" + "roadmap" to find public boards.

Many companies make their feature request boards public to show transparency and gather feedback. This is your goldmine.

Step 3: Analyze Request Patterns and Voting Data

Look for requests that show:

High demand signals:

• 50+ upvotes or comments
• Repeated requests over 6+ months
• Detailed use cases in comments
• Multiple users describing similar workflows
• Business impact descriptions ("this would save us X hours")

Strategic neglect signals:

• Marked "under consideration" for 12+ months
• Company responses like "not on our roadmap"
• "This doesn't fit our current direction"
• Closed as "won't implement"
• Redirected to workarounds or integrations

The sweet spot is features with strong user demand but clear signals the company won't build them. These represent genuine market needs without direct competitive response.

Step 4: Validate the Opportunity

Before committing to building, verify:

Market size:

• How many users of the parent product would need this?
• How many similar products have the same gap?
• What's the total addressable market beyond this one product?

Willingness to pay:

• Are requesters describing business problems or nice-to-haves?
• Do comments mention budget or pricing expectations?
• Would this save time, money, or reduce risk?

Technical feasibility:

• Can you build an MVP in 2-4 weeks?
• Does it require complex integrations?
• Are APIs available for necessary connections?

Use the framework from The 30-Minute SaaS Idea Scoring System to objectively evaluate each opportunity.

Step 5: Position as a Specialized Solution

Your micro-SaaS shouldn't just replicate the requested feature. Position it as:

• More powerful: Deeper functionality than a feature could provide
• More flexible: Customization the parent product can't offer
• Better integrated: Works with multiple tools, not just one
• More focused: Solves the specific use case perfectly

This positioning matters. You're not competing with the large SaaS—you're complementing it. Many users will happily pay for both.

12 Real SaaS Ideas Extracted from Competitor Feature Requests

1. Advanced Scheduling Rules for Calendly

The Request: Users repeatedly ask Calendly for complex scheduling logic—round-robin with skill-based routing, weighted distribution, timezone-optimized assignment, and backup assignees.

Why Calendly Won't Build It: These features serve enterprise teams but add complexity most users don't need.

Your Opportunity: Build a scheduling router that sits on top of Calendly (and similar tools). It receives booking requests, applies sophisticated routing logic, then creates the appointment in the appropriate calendar.

Target Market: Sales teams, customer success teams, healthcare practices

Validation Signal: 200+ upvotes on Calendly's feature board, marked "under consideration" for 3+ years

2. Notion Database Query Builder

The Request: Notion users want advanced filtering, cross-database queries, and automated views that update based on complex conditions.

Why Notion Won't Build It: Notion prioritizes simplicity and broad usability over power-user features.

Your Opportunity: Create a query layer for Notion databases that provides SQL-like functionality, saved complex filters, and automated view generation.

Target Market: Product teams, project managers, data-driven operators

Validation Signal: Consistently top-requested feature, multiple workarounds shared in communities

3. Slack Message Scheduler with Templates

The Request: Users want to schedule messages with variable substitution, recurring message templates, and conditional sending based on channel activity.

Why Slack Won't Build It: Basic scheduling exists; advanced features risk feature bloat.

Your Opportunity: Build a Slack app focused entirely on sophisticated message scheduling—templates, variables, conditions, analytics on scheduled message performance.

Target Market: Remote teams, community managers, internal communications teams

Validation Signal: Existing basic scheduling feature proves demand; comments show need for more power

4. Stripe Subscription Dunning Optimizer

The Request: Stripe users want smarter retry logic, personalized dunning emails, and ML-based prediction of which failed payments to prioritize.

Why Stripe Won't Build It: Stripe provides basic dunning; advanced optimization requires customer-specific data and strategy.

Your Opportunity: Analyze subscription payment patterns, optimize retry timing, personalize recovery emails, and provide recovery rate benchmarking.

Target Market: SaaS companies with 100+ subscribers, subscription box services

Validation Signal: Churn reduction is universal priority; existing dunning tools charge premium prices

This aligns perfectly with opportunities we identified in SaaS Ideas That Actually Make Money: 15 Proven Niches with Real Revenue Data.

5. Figma Design System Documentation Generator

The Request: Designers want automated documentation that extracts component properties, generates usage guidelines, and keeps design system docs in sync with actual files.

Why Figma Won't Build It: Documentation needs vary wildly by team; hard to create one-size-fits-all solution.

Your Opportunity: Build a Figma plugin that automatically generates and updates design system documentation, with customizable templates and export options.

Target Market: Design teams at product companies, design agencies, design system maintainers

Validation Signal: Multiple plugins attempt this partially; none solve it comprehensively

6. Google Sheets Advanced Conditional Formatting

The Request: Users want conditional formatting based on other sheets, complex formulas, and dynamic ranges that standard Google Sheets can't handle.

Why Google Won't Build It: Edge case for most users; conflicts with simplicity goals.

Your Opportunity: Create a Google Sheets add-on that provides advanced conditional formatting with cross-sheet references, formula-based rules, and preset templates.

Target Market: Financial analysts, operations teams, reporting specialists

Validation Signal: Consistent requests on Google support forums, multiple incomplete workarounds

7. Zoom Recording Auto-Editor

The Request: Zoom users want automatic editing—removing silence, filler words, and non-speaking sections from recordings.

Why Zoom Won't Build It: Video editing isn't core competency; partnerships preferred over building.

Your Opportunity: Build post-processing for Zoom recordings that automatically edits based on audio analysis, generates chapters, and creates highlight reels.

Target Market: Content creators, online educators, corporate training teams

Validation Signal: Third-party tools charge $20-50/month for this; strong demand proven

8. Mailchimp Segment Intelligence

The Request: Users want AI-powered segment suggestions, automatic list cleaning based on engagement patterns, and predictive segments.

Why Mailchimp Won't Build It: Basic segmentation serves most users; advanced features risk overwhelming interface.

Your Opportunity: Analyze Mailchimp lists and suggest optimal segments, predict which subscribers will engage, and automate list hygiene.

Target Market: E-commerce brands, email marketers, agencies managing multiple clients

Validation Signal: Engagement optimization is constant pain point; existing solutions incomplete

For more ideas in this space, check out SaaS Ideas for Specific Industries: 40 Vertical Markets Desperate for Solutions.

9. Asana Advanced Dependencies

The Request: Project managers want complex dependency chains, resource-based scheduling, and critical path visualization.

Why Asana Won't Build It: Serves broad market; enterprise PM features risk alienating small teams.

Your Opportunity: Build an Asana overlay that provides Gantt charts, resource allocation, and critical path analysis for power users.

Target Market: Construction project managers, software development teams, agencies

Validation Signal: Users consistently mention moving to MS Project for these features

10. Shopify Inventory Forecasting

The Request: Store owners want predictive inventory management based on sales trends, seasonality, and marketing campaigns.

Why Shopify Won't Build It: Basic inventory management suffices for most; advanced forecasting requires sophisticated algorithms.

Your Opportunity: Analyze Shopify sales data to predict inventory needs, suggest reorder points, and alert to potential stockouts.

Target Market: E-commerce brands with 50+ SKUs, seasonal businesses, growing DTC brands

Validation Signal: Inventory issues are top reason for negative reviews; existing apps have 1000+ users

11. HubSpot Custom Reporting Builder

The Request: Marketing teams want drag-and-drop custom report builders with cross-object queries and scheduled automated delivery.

Why HubSpot Won't Build It: Custom reporting exists in enterprise tier; making it accessible to all users cannibalizes upsells.

Your Opportunity: Create a reporting layer for HubSpot that provides advanced reporting capabilities at lower price points.

Target Market: Marketing agencies, small marketing teams, operations analysts

Validation Signal: Reporting limitations are common complaint in mid-tier HubSpot plans

12. Webflow CMS Bulk Operations

The Request: Developers want bulk editing, CSV import/export, and programmatic CMS updates beyond API capabilities.

Why Webflow Won't Build It: Serves designers primarily; developer power tools are secondary priority.

Your Opportunity: Build a Webflow CMS management tool for bulk operations, migrations, and programmatic updates.

Target Market: Webflow agencies, developers managing multiple sites, content teams

Validation Signal: Multiple forum threads with hundreds of replies seeking these capabilities

These opportunities align with the patterns we've identified in SaaS Ideas Nobody Is Building Yet: 30 Untapped Opportunities.

How to Research Feature Requests Systematically

Create Your Monitoring System

Set up a systematic approach to continuously discover opportunities:

Weekly review routine:

• Check 10 SaaS feature request boards in your target categories
• Sort by "most requested" and "recently active"
• Note patterns across multiple products
• Track which requests get marked "won't implement"

Tools to automate monitoring:

• RSS feeds for public roadmap updates
• Google Alerts for "[product] feature request"
• Social listening tools for feature complaints
• Zapier workflows to aggregate new requests

This systematic approach mirrors the methodology in The Weekly SaaS Idea Discovery Routine: 5 Hours to Find Your Next Product.

Document Your Findings

For each promising feature request, record:

• Source: Which product(s) and specific URL
• Demand indicators: Upvotes, comments, timeframe
• User quotes: Specific pain point descriptions
• Company response: Official stance on building it
• Workarounds: What users currently do instead
• Competition: Who else might build this
• Market size estimate: Potential users and revenue

Use the templates from The Micro-SaaS Idea Starter Kit to organize your research.

Identify Cross-Product Patterns

The most valuable insights come from seeing the same request across multiple products:

• If 5 different project management tools get requests for time tracking, that's a strong signal
• If 3 email platforms get requests for send-time optimization, there's a market
• If multiple CRMs get requests for LinkedIn integration, someone should build it

Cross-product patterns indicate category-wide gaps, not just single-product limitations.

Common Mistakes When Building from Feature Requests

Mistake 1: Building Exactly What Was Requested

Feature requests describe symptoms, not always the underlying problem. Users might request "bulk editing" when they really need "faster workflow completion."

Better approach: Interview requesters to understand the root problem. Your solution might look different than the literal request.

Mistake 2: Ignoring Why the Company Won't Build It

If a company explicitly won't build something due to technical limitations, you'll face the same challenges. If they won't build it due to strategic fit, that's your opportunity.

Better approach: Understand the stated reason for not building. Technical reasons require innovation; strategic reasons represent clear lanes.

Mistake 3: Targeting Only Users of One Product

Building exclusively for Notion users or only Slack users limits your market unnecessarily.

Better approach: Solve the underlying need across multiple platforms. "Advanced scheduling" works for Calendly, Acuity, and Cal.com users.

Mistake 4: Underestimating Integration Complexity

Building on top of other platforms means depending on their APIs, rate limits, and webhook reliability.

Better approach: Validate API capabilities before committing. Build proof-of-concept integrations early. Have backup plans for API limitations.

Learn from others' mistakes in SaaS Ideas That Failed (And What Winners Did Differently).

How to Validate Before Building

Direct Outreach to Requesters

The people who requested the feature are your ideal early customers:

1. Find their contact info (often public on profiles)
2. Send personalized message: "I saw your request for [feature]. I'm building a standalone tool that does this. Would you be interested in early access?"
3. Offer free beta access in exchange for feedback
4. Ask about their specific use case and willingness to pay

Response rate is typically 10-20% for well-targeted outreach. Even 5 interested users validates demand.

Landing Page Pre-Sale Test

Before building anything:

1. Create landing page describing the solution
2. Include pricing and "Get early access" CTA
3. Run small ad campaign targeting users of the parent product
4. Measure conversion to email signup or pre-purchase

If you can't get 50 email signups with $200 in ads, the opportunity might not be strong enough.

Community Validation

Post in communities where the parent product's users hang out:

• "I noticed many people requesting [feature] in [product]. Would a standalone tool that does this be valuable?"
• Share your approach and ask for feedback
• Gauge interest through upvotes, comments, and DMs

Authentic community engagement often surfaces concerns you hadn't considered and validates (or invalidates) assumptions quickly.

For a comprehensive validation approach, use The SaaS Idea Validation Checklist: 25 Questions to Ask Before Building.

Positioning Your Solution Against the Parent Product

Your micro-SaaS isn't competing with the established product—it's complementing it.

Partnership Positioning

Messaging that works:

• "Supercharge [Product] with advanced [capability]"
• "The [feature] tool that [Product] users have been requesting"
• "Built specifically for [Product] power users"

Messaging to avoid:

• "Better than [Product]"
• "What [Product] should have built"
• "Replace [Product] with..."

You want users of the parent product to view you as an enhancement, not a replacement.

Integration-First Strategy

Make integration seamless:

• One-click OAuth connection
• Automatic sync with parent product
• Familiar UI patterns from parent product
• Data flows back to parent product when possible

The easier you make it to add your tool to their existing workflow, the lower the adoption friction.

Community Presence

Be active where users of the parent product congregate:

• Answer questions in their forums (helpfully, not promotionally)
• Create content about power-user workflows
• Sponsor community events or newsletters
• Partner with educators and influencers in that ecosystem

Becoming known as an expert in the parent product's ecosystem builds trust and distribution channels.

Real Success Stories: Products Built from Feature Requests

Superhuman (Email Power Features)

Gmail users requested keyboard shortcuts, send later, read receipts, and follow-up reminders for years. Superhuman built an entire product around power-user email features Gmail wouldn't prioritize.

Result: $30M ARR, $300/year price point, 100,000+ users

Zapier (Integration Requests)

Every SaaS product got feature requests for integrations with other tools. Building and maintaining integrations wasn't core business for any of them.

Result: $5B valuation by solving the integration problem universally

Calendly Routing (Advanced Scheduling)

Multiple calendar tools got requests for intelligent routing, but Calendly users especially wanted round-robin and skill-based assignment. Third-party tools emerged to fill this gap.

Result: Multiple profitable micro-SaaS products serving this specific need

Notion Enhancers

Notion users requested dozens of features—better tables, advanced databases, custom views. Multiple micro-SaaS products emerged: Notion Charts, Notion Forms, Notion Automations.

Result: Entire ecosystem of Notion-enhancement tools, many profitable

These patterns repeat across categories. Feature requests create proven opportunities.

Your Action Plan: Finding Your First Opportunity

Week 1: Research Phase

Day 1-2: Identify 20 SaaS products in categories you understand

• Use G2, Product Hunt, Indie Hackers
• Focus on products with public roadmaps
• Prioritize B2B tools with clear monetization

Day 3-4: Find and analyze their feature request boards

• Locate public roadmaps and forums
• Export top 50 requests from each product
• Note patterns across products

Day 5-7: Score opportunities

• Apply validation framework
• Identify top 5 opportunities
• Research existing competition

Week 2: Validation Phase

Day 1-3: Direct outreach

• Contact 20 people who requested the feature
• Ask about their specific use case
• Gauge willingness to pay

Day 4-5: Landing page test

• Create simple landing page
• Run small ad campaign
• Measure conversion rates

Day 6-7: Technical validation

• Test API access and capabilities
• Build proof-of-concept integration
• Estimate development timeline

Week 3-4: Decision and MVP

Day 1-2: Make the call

• Review all validation data
• Choose one opportunity
• Define MVP scope

Day 3-14: Build MVP

• Focus on core use case only
• Prioritize integration quality
• Get feedback from early contacts

This timeline gets you from research to MVP in 30 days. Many successful micro-SaaS products started exactly this way.

Tools and Resources for Feature Request Mining

Aggregation Tools

FeatureBase: Monitors multiple feature request boards, aggregates data

Canny: Many companies use this; you can browse public boards

ProductBoard: Some companies make their boards public

Trello: Search for "[product] roadmap" to find public boards

Analysis Tools

Export tools: Browser extensions to scrape feature requests

Spreadsheet templates: Track requests, votes, and patterns

Sentiment analysis: Tools to gauge urgency and pain level from comments

Community Monitoring

Reddit: Subreddits for specific products surface feature requests

Twitter: Advanced search for "[product] + wish" or "[product] + needs"

Discord/Slack: Public communities often have feature-request channels

Product Hunt: Comments on launches reveal missing features

For additional research methods, explore Where Do the Best SaaS Ideas Come From? 7 Proven Sources.

Why This Strategy Works in 2025

The feature request mining strategy is more effective now than ever:

Transparency trend: More companies make roadmaps public for trust and feedback

Specialization demand: Users increasingly prefer best-in-class point solutions over all-in-one platforms

Integration maturity: APIs and integration platforms make it easier to build complementary tools

AI development tools: Claude, Cursor, and v0 make it faster to build integrations and specialized features

Micro-SaaS acceptance: Buyers are comfortable paying for multiple specialized tools

The market has shifted to favor exactly this approach: find a specific need, build a focused solution, integrate seamlessly.

Start Mining for Your SaaS Idea Today

Competitor feature requests represent the most validated saas ideas you can find. Every request is proof that:

• Real users have the problem
• They're actively seeking solutions
• Existing tools aren't meeting the need
• There's willingness to pay for better solutions

You don't need to guess at product-market fit or wonder if anyone will buy. The demand is documented, the users are identified, and the market gap is clear.

Start with one SaaS product you use or understand deeply. Find their feature request board. Identify the most-requested features they won't build. That's your opportunity.

The best micro saas ideas aren't revolutionary—they're solutions to known problems that established companies can't or won't prioritize. Your advantage is focus: you can build one thing exceptionally well while they're managing thousands of features for millions of users.

Ready to find your validated SaaS opportunity? Visit SaasOpportunities.com to explore curated opportunities, get access to our research tools, and join founders who are building profitable micro-SaaS products using exactly these strategies.

The feature requests are already there. The validation is done. All that's left is building.