<!-- Source: Lumotia Master Brief — Part 2: The 9-Pattern Micro-SaaS Playbook -->

# PART 2: THE 9-PATTERN MICRO-SAAS PLAYBOOK

**Reference.** Distilled from 30+ Starter Story case studies, founder interviews (Tibo, Mike Hill, Kleo/Lara), and cross-referenced with 4,400+ written case studies. Each pattern is mapped to Lumotia's current position with specific next actions.

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## Pattern 1: Scratch Your Own Itch

**The principle:** The most consistent origin story across successful micro-SaaS. The founder was the customer first. Prerender.io, Kleo, Analyzify, Refiner — all built by people solving their own problem.

**Lumotia's position: ✅ Strong.**
Jake has executive dysfunction. He searched for an offline-first, voice-driven productivity tool for neurodivergent users, couldn't find one that wasn't cloud-dependent or iOS-exclusive, and started building Lumotia for himself. This is the textbook origin story.

**Next action:** Make this the centrepiece of every piece of marketing. "I'm neurodivergent. I built this because nothing else worked for me." Authenticity is the single most powerful distribution asset in neurodivergent communities.

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## Pattern 2: Validate by Finding Bad Incumbents

**The principle:** Find products already making money despite having terrible UX or obvious gaps. If people pay for something broken, the market is proven — you just build better. Mike Hill's entire philosophy.

**Lumotia's position: ✅ Strong.**
- **Tiimo:** iPhone App of the Year 2025, $200K/month revenue. iOS-only, no Android, no native desktop, cloud-dependent, no voice transcription, subscription-only (removed lifetime option to community backlash), aggressive review prompts.
- **WhisperFlow and similar:** Cloud-dependent, premium pricing, no task management integration.
- **Todoist, Notion, etc.:** Not designed for neurodivergent brains, subscription-heavy, cognitively overwhelming.

The market is proven. People are paying. The incumbents have obvious, exploitable weaknesses.

**Next action:** Build a "Love/Hate/Want" spreadsheet from Tiimo's App Store reviews. Categorise every review into what users love (visual planning, gentle reminders), what they hate (no Android, subscription removal, bugs logging them out, aggressive prompts), and what they want (lifetime pricing, desktop app, offline mode). This directly informs feature priority and marketing copy.

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## Pattern 3: Boring, Narrow Niches

**The principle:** Pick a niche so narrow that big players ignore it, then own it completely. Email signature generators, WhatsApp plugins for Shopify, digital signage for cafes. The narrower the niche, the less competition and the higher the conversion rate.

**Lumotia's position: ✅ Strong.**
"Voice-first, local-only productivity app for neurodivergent people with executive dysfunction" is extremely narrow. No big player is going to build this. Tiimo is the closest and they're a 40-person VC-funded Copenhagen team that still can't get Android working.

**Next action:** Resist the temptation to broaden. "Productivity for everyone" is how you become invisible. Stay locked on neurodivergent users until you hit £2K MRR. The TTRPG and B2B angles can wait.

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## Pattern 4: Ship Fast, Iterate Later

**The principle:** "Shipped in 12 hours and now makes $15K/month." Validation speed matters more than product perfection. Pre-sell first, build second (Gil's model). Revenue before polish.

**Lumotia's position: ✅ Strong.**
MVP is nearly ready. Jake can rebuild from scratch in a day. Tauri/Svelte/Rust stack enables rapid iteration. Beta testers this weekend.

**Next action:** Ship the beta this weekend. Don't polish — test. The goal is not "is it beautiful" but "does the brain dump → task list flow actually work?" If the core loop works, everything else is iteration.

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## Pattern 5: Distribution Beats Product

**The principle:** The loudest message across all 30 videos. Most builders skip distribution because it means doing "the hard thing" — talking to people. A great product with no distribution dies. A decent product with great distribution wins.

**Lumotia's position: ⚠️ Critical gap.**
Zero distribution infrastructure. No landing page, no waitlist, no domain, no social presence for Lumotia. Nobody outside Jake's immediate circle has seen it.

**Next actions (in order):**
1. Register domain this week (lumotia.app or getmagnotia.app).
2. One-page landing page with waitlist signup live by Monday.
3. Roo's nonprofit network gets the link first.
4. Reddit posts in r/ADHD, r/adhdwomen, r/ADHD_Programmers, r/autism — authentic, not salesy.
5. One short-form video per week once beta feedback validates the core loop.

This is the make-or-break pattern. Everything else is in place. Distribution is the bottleneck.

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## Pattern 6: Audience-First Launches

**The principle:** Kleo's playbook — don't launch publicly. Build a waitlist using content, run mini-launches to waitlist subscribers only, create FOMO through scarcity ("you can't buy this, you need to join the waitlist"), and hit £30K MRR in four days. Lara took info-product launch tactics (webinars, email sequences, urgency) and applied them to SaaS.

**Lumotia's position: ⚠️ Planned but not yet started.**
Jake intends to do an invite-only beta to create scarcity and mystique. The instinct is right — this maps directly to Kleo's playbook.

**Next actions:**
1. Waitlist is the foundation. Every Reddit post, every video, every conversation should drive to the waitlist.
2. Beta invites go out in small waves, not all at once. "Wave 1: 15 people. Wave 2: 50 people." Creates natural FOMO.
3. Ask beta testers to share the waitlist link if they like the product. Word-of-mouth in neurodivergent communities is extremely powerful — these are tight-knit groups that actively share tools that work.
4. Collect testimonials during beta. Even one "this genuinely changed how I manage my day" quote is worth more than any feature list.

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## Pattern 7: Design as a Moat

**The principle:** Mike Hill is emphatic — every one of his founding teams has a designer. Good design sells. Target incumbents with bad UX. When your product looks and feels better, it becomes self-selling.

**Lumotia's position: ✅ Strong.**
Tauri/Svelte produces a native, fast UI. The design brief includes research-backed neurodivergent-specific design principles: Lexend/Atkinson Hyperlegible typography, sensory colour zoning, no halation, progressive disclosure, literal labels, motion control, forgiving interaction patterns. This level of design intentionality is a genuine moat — Tiimo is good but Lumotia's design spec is more deeply grounded in the research.

**Next action:** Make the design visible in marketing. Screenshots, screen recordings, and side-by-side comparisons with competitors. "Here's what Tiimo looks like. Here's what Lumotia looks like. Notice the difference." Let the design sell itself.

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## Pattern 8: Bootstrap and Extract

**The principle:** Almost universally, successful micro-SaaS founders are bootstrapped. Mike Hill's model: 4 co-founders, 25% equity each, grow to £10K MRR to cover costs, then split profits as salary. No VC, no bloated teams. His explicit quote: "these businesses are about bigger salaries, not big exits."

**Lumotia's position: ✅ Strong.**
Solo founder. No VC. No team overhead. Near-zero infrastructure costs (local-first means no servers for the base product). Lifetime pricing + optional cloud subscription. Revenue goes directly to Jake.

**Next action:** Set a clear personal revenue target. What number makes this worth maintaining? £500/month covers costs and proves viability. £2K/month funds CORBEL growth. £5K/month is a genuine second income stream. Know your number so you can measure against it.

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## Pattern 9: Portfolio Approach

**The principle:** The highest earners aren't running one product — they're running five or six. Tibo has five apps (combined £700K/month). Mike Hill has five (combined £200K/month). Risk distribution: if one stalls, others keep growing. Each new product follows the same repeatable playbook.

**Lumotia's position: ⏳ Not relevant yet.**
This is product #1. The playbook only applies once Lumotia is generating revenue and the system is proven. Then Jake can ask: "What's the next niche I can apply this exact process to?"

**Next action:** None right now. Focus entirely on Lumotia. But document everything — what worked, what didn't, what you'd do differently. When the time comes for product #2, you'll have a personal playbook to run again.

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### Playbook Summary: Where Lumotia Stands

| Pattern | Status | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Scratch your own itch | ✅ Strong | Leverage in marketing |
| 2. Bad incumbents identified | ✅ Strong | Build Love/Hate/Want spreadsheet from Tiimo reviews |
| 3. Narrow niche | ✅ Strong | Don't broaden until £2K MRR |
| 4. Ship fast | ✅ Strong | Beta this weekend |
| 5. Distribution | ⚠️ Critical gap | Domain + landing page + waitlist THIS WEEK |
| 6. Audience-first launch | ⚠️ Planned not started | Waitlist → invite waves → testimonials |
| 7. Design as moat | ✅ Strong | Make it visible in marketing |
| 8. Bootstrap and extract | ✅ Strong | Set personal revenue target |
| 9. Portfolio approach | ⏳ Not yet | Document everything for future products |

**The single most important thing to do right now:** Solve pattern 5. Get distribution infrastructure live. Everything else is in place or on track.
