How big is the risk of some competitor just copying with business with 10x the engineers and taking your customers?
10+ engineers is also 3 designers, 2 online marketeer, 2 managers, etc. They would need so much more revenue than a solo dev.
How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
71–79 of 79 posts
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#72I find it amusing that this article has reached the front page with quite a positive vote count yet just about every comment I've read is quite negative about it.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#73If you want to compete with the big players, you have to solve the most important pain point and work upward from that small use base. My case: I work on https://hanami.run (will soon move to https://mailwip.com due to hanamirb.org conflict) and email forwarding is very competitive. Big and old players are all over the place because at the end of day, setting up email forwarding isn't hard and many open source projec…
Hi. Good to see you kicking around. I’m a happy customer that had trouble with those big providers. Lately I haven’t even thought about your service (it’s just working).
Hey,
Thanks for your kind words Codazoda. Much appreciate :-)
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
pg has an excellent essay on how to fine niches or startup ideas in general. My thumbrule: 1. Pick a market that already has money-making companies. If you can beat them by price & quality, even after considering the first-mover advantage - go for it. 2. [From pg's essay] Just experiene more in life, with different people facing different kinds of problems from different sectors. That's a sure shot way to eventually…
Can you link the essay? Or even expand on what is pg?
A few relevant essays of pg (Paul Graham):
- http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#75I find it amusing that this article has reached the front page with quite a positive vote count yet just about every comment I've read is quite negative about it.
It's actually one of the best SaaS startup overviews I've seen. The nice menu idea by team is the first time I've seen that focused on.
The negative comments are from programmers thinking from a builder perspective, rather than as a SaaS businessperson.
An article doesn't owe anybody a startup idea, or how to differentiate that idea from existing businesses.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#76How big is the risk of some competitor just copying with business with 10x the engineers and taking your customers?
low? lets use Zoom as an example. its competitors already doing exactly what Zoom does and yet they lost customers given they were in the market much much longer than Zoom.
> lets use Zoom as an example. its competitor
Zoom was started with over 40 ex-Cisco Webex managers and employees.
So not only did Zoom have a remarkable expertise base (and significant investment), they gutted Cisco of talent on the same product.
But it gets worse. I talked to an early Webex engineer, and he said that Cisco threw out their original roadmap after the takeover.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what if I am a… Why does advice have to apply to every scenario ? What if you are a paraguayan field worker and this is not actionable for you ? Anyways, I’d suggest you talk to others around you and see if you spot the pain points in their day
>Anyways, I’d suggest you talk to others around you and see if you spot the pain points in their day This is not a predictable tactic that would yield a viable SaaS idea, this is a gamble "go dive into the ocean, maybe you will find treasure"
If there IS no predictable tactic, and anything is going to depend on the skills, connections, and approach you bring to the job, then saying 'go dive in the ocean' will at least help someone find treasure, compared to saying nothing, or something so vague no one could be sure if it even applied?
It's up to the recipient if they find it useful or not.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Anyways, I’d suggest you talk to others around you and see if you spot the pain points in their day This is not a predictable tactic that would yield a viable SaaS idea, this is a gamble "go dive into the ocean, maybe you will find treasure"
Are you expecting a predictable formula for starting a successful business?
There are some folks selling some, only $499.95 up front, hah.
Re: How to Create a SaaS and Compete with the Big Players as a Solo Founder
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here’s a midly annoying problem I’m currently facing with Slack. Getting annoyed of jumping between DM’s and channels where I end up losing track of a channel I may have needed open or was going through. I feel like having tabs in slack would fix this? Not sure if it makes sense for the app to have this feature but something I’ve been thinking about.
I encourage people to move to email. I know people hate it, but I'm serious. Threading suddenly works in a non-stupid way, search suddenly works, and you can manage your own windows.
We're working on task management + email, I kept your comment [1] from awhile ago. I don't see any way to contact you in your profile, are you interested in trying an alpha? Email me at garrett at twobird.com