3 ms·

This is one example. There is one example of almost every niche that is really successful.

patio11 15y ago
Amy would know better than I do, but she says Freckle has at least three larger competitors. It is also something like 2.5 years old (i.e. it achieved success way after I though that market was saturated).
- ahoyhere 15y ago
  Here are some of the companies making much than us: Harvest (look at the size of their team; and for web apps, they are old!) Mite (the last time they posted about revenue, it was more than double ours, presumably that trend has continued) Freshbooks (they do more than just time tracking, but they are a chief "competitor" if you want to call it that… and they make bank) I strongly suspect that RescueTime and Intervals have greater revenue than us as well. …and probably many more… these are just the "cool" ones which I know about. I'm sure there are many tools for specific industries or who are otherwise entrenched who make ridiculous amounts of money. It is the easiest thing in the world to dismiss something by saying "nobody would pay for that" or "they must be unusual if they're making money" or "it must be because they're famous." None of these things are true. But they sure are easy to believe and even easier to say, discouraging yourself and others.
deleted 15y ago
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alexknowshtml 15y ago
I'm very close friends with Amy. We've collaborated on a number of things related to our businesses. Freckle is not the largest product in it's niche, nor the most successful (monetarily anyway. It creates tons of happiness for Amy, her husband, and their customers and I consider that a huge success). The secret to subscription revenue is that it doesn't need to be the most successful to still be really successful. Harvest might be the largest direct competitor with Freckle, but Amy could speak better to that. Seth Godin said: "Your goal is to be the 'best in the world'. But you get to pick the size of 'the world'." Perhaps he should have omitted the 'size' part and simply suggested that you should pick a world. Ideally a world where you can and will be the best. A big part of why Amy's successful in general is because she doesn't really play the "niche" game, she's very adept at playing the "worldview" game. With this, she's able to build tools that appeal to people who her competition wouldn't appeal to. To hear Amy and her customers talk about Freckle, you realize that the time tracker is a means to an end: Freckle is actually a tools for managing time more than it is for tracking it. This alternative view on the same product has smashed open the doors for potential customers, and I can tell you first hand that most of Freckle's customers absolutely LOVE using Freckle - not many "time trackers" can say that. On the same note, I work on Beanstalk and Postmark (both created by the same company, Wildbit). Both of our products are extremely successful and growing like crazy as well, not just because of our niche decisions, but our worldview-based decisions. [edits for clairty]

Amy would know better than I do, but she says Freckle has at least three larger competitors. It is also something like 2.5 years old (i.e. it achieved success way after I though that market was saturated).

ahoyhere 15y ago
Here are some of the companies making much than us: Harvest (look at the size of their team; and for web apps, they are old!) Mite (the last time they posted about revenue, it was more than double ours, presumably that trend has continued) Freshbooks (they do more than just time tracking, but they are a chief "competitor" if you want to call it that… and they make bank) I strongly suspect that RescueTime and Intervals have greater revenue than us as well. …and probably many more… these are just the "cool" ones which I know about. I'm sure there are many tools for specific industries or who are otherwise entrenched who make ridiculous amounts of money. It is the easiest thing in the world to dismiss something by saying "nobody would pay for that" or "they must be unusual if they're making money" or "it must be because they're famous." None of these things are true. But they sure are easy to believe and even easier to say, discouraging yourself and others.

deleted 15y ago

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alexknowshtml 15y ago

I'm very close friends with Amy. We've collaborated on a number of things related to our businesses. Freckle is not the largest product in it's niche, nor the most successful (monetarily anyway. It creates tons of happiness for Amy, her husband, and their customers and I consider that a huge success). The secret to subscription revenue is that it doesn't need to be the most successful to still be really successful. Harvest might be the largest direct competitor with Freckle, but Amy could speak better to that. Seth Godin said: "Your goal is to be the 'best in the world'. But you get to pick the size of 'the world'." Perhaps he should have omitted the 'size' part and simply suggested that you should pick a world. Ideally a world where you can and will be the best. A big part of why Amy's successful in general is because she doesn't really play the "niche" game, she's very adept at playing the "worldview" game. With this, she's able to build tools that appeal to people who her competition wouldn't appeal to. To hear Amy and her customers talk about Freckle, you realize that the time tracker is a means to an end: Freckle is actually a tools for managing time more than it is for tracking it. This alternative view on the same product has smashed open the doors for potential customers, and I can tell you first hand that most of Freckle's customers absolutely LOVE using Freckle - not many "time trackers" can say that. On the same note, I work on Beanstalk and Postmark (both created by the same company, Wildbit). Both of our products are extremely successful and growing like crazy as well, not just because of our niche decisions, but our worldview-based decisions. [edits for clairty]