You Could Ship This vs. BigIdeasDB

BigIdeasDB is a cool product. They scrape Reddit, G2, Capterra, and other sources to find problems people are complaining about, then package those complaints into potential business ideas. It's particularly focused on SaaS and web-based businesses.

We do something similar in spirit, but the execution is completely different. We analyze the iOS App Store directly: ratings, reviews, revenue, abandonment signals. And we're focused exclusively on mobile app opportunities.

The question is: are you building a SaaS product or an iOS app? Because the answer to that determines which one is more useful to you.

Reddit complaints vs. App Store reviews

BigIdeasDB's main data source is Reddit. Someone complains about a problem in r/smallbusiness or r/startups, and BigIdeasDB captures that as a potential idea. It's clever, and it works for finding SaaS-shaped problems.

But Reddit complaints have a blind spot. Someone saying "I wish there was a better tool for X" on Reddit is interesting signal, but it doesn't tell you:

• How many people actually have this problem (just this one Reddit poster? or thousands?)
• Whether they'd pay for a solution
• Whether someone already built the solution
• How much money is currently being spent on bad solutions

App Store reviews don't have this problem. When an app has 5,000 ratings and a 2.0-star average, you know thousands of people have the problem. When it charges $4.99 and it's on the charts, you know they'll pay. When you search the category and find no well-rated alternatives, you know the gap is real.

Reddit gives you signals. The App Store gives you receipts.

Side by side

The "proven demand" difference

This is the biggest distinction, and it's worth spelling out.

With BigIdeasDB, you find a Reddit thread where people are complaining about a problem. That's a starting point. But you still need to validate whether enough people have this problem, whether they'll pay for a solution, and whether the market is big enough to matter. That's work you do after you pick the idea.

With our dataset, the validation already happened. The app has 5,000 ratings (demand is confirmed). It charges $4.99 and people are paying (willingness to pay is confirmed). It's on the charts (market size is confirmed). The reviews spell out exactly what's wrong (the feature spec is confirmed).

You're not starting with a hypothesis. You're starting with evidence.

When BigIdeasDB makes more sense

If you're looking to build a SaaS product, a web app, or a business that isn't a mobile app, BigIdeasDB is more relevant. They cover a broader range of business types and their Reddit-based approach works well for finding pain points in workflows, B2B processes, and online services.

Their free tools are also solid. The business idea generator, burn rate calculators, and SaaS valuation tools are worth checking out even if you end up using our dataset for the app idea itself.

When we make more sense

If you write Swift, if you know your way around Xcode, if you want to ship something to the App Store specifically, then you want data from the App Store. Not Reddit.

• You're a mobile developer (or want to become one)
• You want to build iOS apps specifically
• You want demand that's already proven by real download numbers and revenue
• You want user complaints already extracted and summarized (not raw Reddit threads to sift through)
• You want each opportunity scored, tiered, and ready to evaluate in 10 minutes

BigIdeasDB gives you a broad net across the entire startup world. We give you a very specific, very detailed list of iOS apps that are broken and waiting for someone to build the replacement. Different tools for different builders.