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Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

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Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#381

Post by TheArcane »

_bxg1 wrote: post #7

I remember reading this article about SAP a few months ago, and it just blew my mind: https://retool.com/blog/erp-for-engineers/ Here was an entire market segment I'd never heard of, and just the market leader is worth $163B . And on top of that, the technology is so totally alien to anything I'd ever heard of before. It's like an alternate-history kind of thing. Like if we discovered a continent somewhere in the Pac…

> Oracle and SAP are so dominant that even Microsoft uses SAP instead of their own ERP offering, Microsoft Dynamics.

This is insane. If it's hard for a company like Microsoft to move away from SAP and shift to their own solution (hence saving face in addition to the $$$), I can't imagine anyone switches software in the ERP world

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#382

Post by noch »

When talking about the size of an economy, it's more useful to give actual statistical calculations indicating hypothesised/alluded size than to offer anecdotes. Has anyone actually studied this and mathematised their thinking? One can't/shouldn't make business decisions based on anecdotes or bromides.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#383

Post by ProZsolt »

RickS wrote: post #57
Kinrany wrote: post #26

This thread seems to suggest that there are heaps of 20$ bills lying all over the world and accessible to any software engineer. That they are not being picked up suggests that there's some other constraint. Either extracting this value is not really worth one's time, or the bottleneck is not the ability to automate things but some other rare skill.

For software people, the missing link is knowledge of a domain. Not domain expertise , the rare part is merely knowing that domains even exist to be searched for $20 bills. The article mentions actuarial software for funeral homes. In retrospect, of course that's a thing, but asked to name low-hanging domains for lifestyle software businesses, few of us would ever arrive at that answer, let alone in the first 500 gue…

I really like that XKCD strip. A problem that was once hard now can be solved by a teenager with Tensorflow and a bunch of pictures.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#384

Post by gknoy »

MattGaiser wrote: post #118
pascalxus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but how do you find these small businesses that need these types of things?

Lots of cases really are obvious. One of my friends lives in a rural area where most businesses never got beyond the Church bulletin board and the phone book. Suddenly they became cottage country and none of the local businesses were getting any business as they wanted to see websites or at least written down phone numbers and they don't use phonebook. Take a walk through the small business section of your town and s…

> If they have a website, try to get them on Shopify

So ... they then pay you for helping them get on Shopify? I can see how one might be able to convince a business owner that they could benefit from using Shopify, but is there room in there for a third party to sell configuration services?

Please forgive my being a noob with regard to Shopify. Their "getting started" page makes it seem like it's something the business owner just does on their own, so how does one come across as a _useful_ helper for that process?

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#385

Post by lowdose »

economicslol wrote: post #335
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't need sexy VC capital if you can build a business that runs a good profit. Honestly I'm getting more and more cynical of the SF bubble that doesn't seem to be about making great software, but about getting a lot of investor money and going public - prioritizing short-term profits at the expense of the consumer and employees.

But my Blockchain Deep Learning Dog Walking app is going to change the world!! I went to Stanford so I must be right! /s

Dog walking is not a viable matchmaking platform business model because successful matches cut out the matchmaker, you didn't get the memo?

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#387

Post by jimnotgym »

deng wrote: post #156
_bxg1 wrote: post #7

I remember reading this article about SAP a few months ago, and it just blew my mind: https://retool.com/blog/erp-for-engineers/ Here was an entire market segment I'd never heard of, and just the market leader is worth $163B . And on top of that, the technology is so totally alien to anything I'd ever heard of before. It's like an alternate-history kind of thing. Like if we discovered a continent somewhere in the Pac…

I'm in Germany and of course everyone here has at least heard of SAP and knows it's huge, but I guess not many people know just how huge. SAP consultancy is a big market here with lots and lots of job openings. I knew a few people who did that, it's usually a very well paid job, but it's well paid because otherwise no one in his right mind would do it. From what I heard, it's incredibly boring while at the same time…

I liked SAP, especially compared to what I have used since. We have never met, so your point is still true! It might be some time before Germany lets us English types in again!

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#388

Post by jimnotgym »

tomnipotent wrote: post #362
fovc wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from the opposite direction (mgmt consulting for big corps -> startup), I was very familiar with the ERP concept, but am still super confused by the ERP market. Every so often I look for an ERP for our company, but am always disappointed by the options. It seems there's an uncanny valley between Quickbooks and SAP, but maybe the issue is just one of discoverability. We've slowly stitched together an assortment…

Quickbooks will do you fine up to $100M in revenue or 8-10+ years in operation. When you cross either of those bridges, you should think about implementing a "real" ERP. But this doesn't happen until your team (accounting/finance/CEO/CFO) start running into roadblocks in either piecing together financial statements, or the month close process starts taking weeks of manual labor, or there's a HUGE accounting issue and…

>Quickbooks will do you fine up to $100M in revenue or 8-10+ years in operation. When you cross either of those bridges, you should think about implementing a "real" ERP.

I think that very much depends on what market you are in. Sure if you are a Saas, but not if you are a European distributor with stock in two countries with different currencies. Stock adds massive complexity. You might be reaching for a lower end ERP at $5m of turnover.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#389

Post by jimnotgym »

TheArcane wrote: post #381
_bxg1 wrote: post #7

I remember reading this article about SAP a few months ago, and it just blew my mind: https://retool.com/blog/erp-for-engineers/ Here was an entire market segment I'd never heard of, and just the market leader is worth $163B . And on top of that, the technology is so totally alien to anything I'd ever heard of before. It's like an alternate-history kind of thing. Like if we discovered a continent somewhere in the Pac…

> Oracle and SAP are so dominant that even Microsoft uses SAP instead of their own ERP offering, Microsoft Dynamics. This is insane. If it's hard for a company like Microsoft to move away from SAP and shift to their own solution (hence saving face in addition to the $$$), I can't imagine anyone switches software in the ERP world

Not so mad, MS Dynamics GP and Nav don't play in the same league as SAP/Oracle. AX is closer, but not there.

Re: Patio11's Law: The software economy is bigger than you think

#390

Post by astine »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #39
_bxg1 wrote: post #7

I remember reading this article about SAP a few months ago, and it just blew my mind: https://retool.com/blog/erp-for-engineers/ Here was an entire market segment I'd never heard of, and just the market leader is worth $163B . And on top of that, the technology is so totally alien to anything I'd ever heard of before. It's like an alternate-history kind of thing. Like if we discovered a continent somewhere in the Pac…

Why would you use ERP instead of a regular SQL database? edit Got a lot of vote downs. This was a genuine question from someone completely ignorant on what ERP is. Not trying to say that SQL is better, but I'm asking this because I'm ignorant of what ERP is and the description makes it appear as if it's a database. What's the difference? would be better wording I guess.

I don't know about SAP in particular, but ERP solutions frequently use SQL on the backend. I work with Microsoft Dynamics and it's just a SQL database with a special front-end for constructing workflows. I suspect Oracle ERP would be similar and have Oracle on the backend as well.
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