4 ms·

>Just go sell $2-4k/mo SaaS to a medium sized traditional industry that has ancient, crummy software with a target customer employee size of 50 - 1,000 people.

by jf22 2y ago

>Just go sell $2-4k/mo SaaS to a medium sized traditional industry that has ancient, crummy software with a target customer employee size of 50 - 1,000 people. As if that is easy.

brabel 2y ago
The guy is so out of touch it's like a cartoon. Like, right, why did they think of that?! Just create something that's worth several thousands a month instead of a small value product!!! And get all the big companies who can actually afford that kind of thing to buy your product!!! How hard can that be?
- morkalork 2y ago
  The only times I've seen anything remotely like that work, it's a situation like this: Two engineers work together at company A, become friends and gain experience in the domain. Both move on, progress in their careers and work other companies in the same domain. They meet for coffee and person 1 says: "hey remember that problem we had at A? I see it again at B", person 2: "me too and I've been working on a side project to fix it, you should totally buy the solution from me". And voilà. Could a kid right out of school build the same thing? Sure. Would it have ever succeeded? No. They lack the domain experience and the social connections to do it.
  - jf22 2y ago
    I've heard this story dozens of times now.
    - brabel 2y ago
      And that's almost exactly how the company I work for started.
- mediaman 2y ago
  I didn't say it's easy, and it's probably not the right fit for you. But it's at least a plan with a good end-game, which a lot of $10/mo online only business models simply cannot turn into something viable. 50-1,000 person companies aren't actually that big. You can get to know the decision makers and it's not like navigating 20,000 person corporate mazes (also possible if you have the stomach for it). It does seriously benefit from industry knowledge though. The reason so many people think it's a ridiculous pipedream is because they have no industry experience outside of tech, and that's a big problem -- a solvable one, but most people will never do what it takes to solve it and instead say that it's not possible. It takes a lot of willingness to do non-tech things though. You can't just set up an online marketing funnel and watch the cash come in. It's relationship driven. The advantage of going after a vertical is that the relationships start feeding each other -- you get social proof within the niche industry. And you don't compete with VC-backed software companies as much because they much prefer horizontal solutions (which can get bigger and achieve bigger exits) versus vertical solutions.

by jf22 2y ago

>Just go sell $2-4k/mo SaaS to a medium sized traditional industry that has ancient, crummy software with a target customer employee size of 50 - 1,000 people. As if that is easy.

brabel 2y ago

The guy is so out of touch it's like a cartoon. Like, right, why did they think of that?! Just create something that's worth several thousands a month instead of a small value product!!! And get all the big companies who can actually afford that kind of thing to buy your product!!! How hard can that be?

morkalork 2y ago
The only times I've seen anything remotely like that work, it's a situation like this: Two engineers work together at company A, become friends and gain experience in the domain. Both move on, progress in their careers and work other companies in the same domain. They meet for coffee and person 1 says: "hey remember that problem we had at A? I see it again at B", person 2: "me too and I've been working on a side project to fix it, you should totally buy the solution from me". And voilà. Could a kid right out of school build the same thing? Sure. Would it have ever succeeded? No. They lack the domain experience and the social connections to do it.
- jf22 2y ago
  I've heard this story dozens of times now.
  - brabel 2y ago
    And that's almost exactly how the company I work for started.
mediaman 2y ago
I didn't say it's easy, and it's probably not the right fit for you. But it's at least a plan with a good end-game, which a lot of $10/mo online only business models simply cannot turn into something viable. 50-1,000 person companies aren't actually that big. You can get to know the decision makers and it's not like navigating 20,000 person corporate mazes (also possible if you have the stomach for it). It does seriously benefit from industry knowledge though. The reason so many people think it's a ridiculous pipedream is because they have no industry experience outside of tech, and that's a big problem -- a solvable one, but most people will never do what it takes to solve it and instead say that it's not possible. It takes a lot of willingness to do non-tech things though. You can't just set up an online marketing funnel and watch the cash come in. It's relationship driven. The advantage of going after a vertical is that the relationships start feeding each other -- you get social proof within the niche industry. And you don't compete with VC-backed software companies as much because they much prefer horizontal solutions (which can get bigger and achieve bigger exits) versus vertical solutions.