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The truth is that many of these companies can be run with fewer and fewer people as abstractions in technology become higher-level. Software takes a lot of effo

The truth is that many of these companies can be run with fewer and fewer people as abstractions in technology become higher-level. Software takes a lot of effort to write, and much less to maintain. We just went through an era of effectively no software, to one with a large saturation of software that fills many niches. In the 2010's there was no competition for the majority of these businesses as VC capital tended to move towards new ideas, rather than directly competing with existing ventures. All of that is changing. The world will continue to need new and improving software, but the value provided by a single engineer continues to trend higher, and fewer and fewer developers will be needed to create these systems. Some SaaS has high costs of switching and a defensible moat, but many do not and are easily replicated. Existing players may even be at a disadvantage to competitors due to existing architectures using old patterns that require more manual labor/cost to maintain. e.g. Something like DocuSign is a good example of a low moat SaaS. Database systems are a good example of large moat (high cost of switching, even if better tech comes out)

moneywoes 4y ago
Given that info, does it even make sense to try and build a SaaS these days? especially as someone bootstrapping, is there even possible to build software with a moat? like building a database isn’t easy
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  It's worth competing in any industry if the numbers work out. My main point was that the extremely high margin and lack of competition in SaaS is not likely to persist over time (without a defensible moat/high cost of switching). It's a better time than ever to create a SaaS with low cost overhead. If you leverage serverless and strong design, you can build extremely useful and far-reaching products with a handful of people. No longer do you need hundreds or thousands of people to do this. Then operational cost is low, and revenue required for breakeven/profit is low too.
americafun 4y ago
> Software takes a lot of effort to write, and much less to maintain. ahahahahahahhahaaha Have you even written a line of code in your life ??? This is the most brazenly wrong statement I've heard on this website. We are in dire need of a correction ...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

moneywoes 4y ago

Given that info, does it even make sense to try and build a SaaS these days? especially as someone bootstrapping, is there even possible to build software with a moat? like building a database isn’t easy

adam_arthur 4y ago
It's worth competing in any industry if the numbers work out. My main point was that the extremely high margin and lack of competition in SaaS is not likely to persist over time (without a defensible moat/high cost of switching). It's a better time than ever to create a SaaS with low cost overhead. If you leverage serverless and strong design, you can build extremely useful and far-reaching products with a handful of people. No longer do you need hundreds or thousands of people to do this. Then operational cost is low, and revenue required for breakeven/profit is low too.

americafun 4y ago

> Software takes a lot of effort to write, and much less to maintain. ahahahahahahhahaaha Have you even written a line of code in your life ??? This is the most brazenly wrong statement I've heard on this website. We are in dire need of a correction ...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]