If your dream is to make millions through a sustainable enterprise, then small business software is awesome.
I'm currently scoping a small - medium enterprise concept with a very concrete set of paying first customers, but thinking ahead this looming uncertainty really bothers me.
Small niche software doesn't suck : if you love that niche, if you can create something that that niche loves and that what you create is difficult for others to replicate.
I have small business with small client base that will forever remain small. ~ 140 clients. A couple of staff members now days.
Cost of acquisition is high. I need to retain a client for 2 years to achieve ROI. That bit is hard work. But you structure things accordingly. From the clients perspective, changing competitors products is very disruptive so I need to make sure I create something that makes it worth their while. The product itself and its capabilities compared to competitors, where the product is headed, support etc around that product and whether or not their is a genuine need for the product.
Making good money. Now bringing home more than market salary, but only after many years of sitting under so probably not at net break even just yet. In a few years all going well I'll sell out and will live very comfortably in retirement off what I expect to be able to sell for.
Fairly happy with my lifestyle. Flexible and generally a little less hours than full time. Can be pressured/stressful at times but no more than I remember when I worked for others.
I'll never be Peter Thiel wealthy but I am on track to achieve my financial goals.
Sometimes the market is too small or costs too much to reach.
Users might legitimately want something, but not enough to pay the price required to sustain a business.
What if the acquisition cost could be made low? Doesn't patio11's appointment reminder app fall into this category?
https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-i-grew-my-appoint...
I stand about as much chance of becoming the next YouTube/Insta star.
It could very well be that acquisition cost was quite reasonable, and he may have talked about this elsewhere. I just don't think the IH interview tells us enough to know for sure one way or the other.
I say that with the greatest amount of respect for the man by the way, he's super super smart and I love his writing.
It just doesn't lend itself to the "do a business that sells $10 dollar bills for $5 funded by VC money until it has enough eyeballs to start selling ads".
Because the author prefers filthy greed and the creation of yet another corporate behemoth over creating something decent, charging people for it, and making a living from that?
Plus, I don't see Basecamp or Panic or Bare Bones or whatever paying less to their devs. And less compared to what?
Behemoths are usually in SV or a few constrained places, and have the usual SV culture (including ageism etc).
Small niche business are anywhere, in places with much smaller costs of living, better work-life balance, and more kid-friendly environments. Heck, Procreate (frequently top of the App Store and Award Winning) is in Tazmania.
I think Basecamp is not targeting niche small businesses; they're a general purpose project management/team collaboration software, used by many businesses. It happens to be used by some small niche businesses, but in the same way a business checking account is used by many small niche businesses.
To me, niche small business software evokes more "software to automate inventory in a small machine shop", "landscape sprinkler system installation planning software", "antique shop inventory management software", "beekeeper scheduling software", etc.
In consumer software, customer acquisition cost is low and development costs can be spread over millions of people, so there is a big profit potential even though the price is low. For large enterprises, the customer acquisition cost is high (lots of meetings with suits), but the payout is high (millions of dollars is good value for software that is going to be deployed at 20,000 locations and serve millions of customers). For a small business, customer acquisition is still expensive (sales and support done personally), but the price is still pretty low.
The book cured me of mumbling "I could make software better than that in a week" every time I saw a receptionist at a small office struggling with a bad app.