Given that info, does it even make sense to try and build a SaaS these days?
especially as someone bootstrapping, is there even possible to build software with a moat? like building a database isn’t easy
Re:Twilio is firing 17% of workforce
by adam_arthur on Monday February 13, 2023 @03:32PM
(#34779956)
It's worth competing in any industry if the numbers work out. My main point was that the extremely high margin and lack of competition in SaaS is not likely to persist over time (without a defensible moat/high cost of switching).
It's a better time than ever to create a SaaS with low cost overhead. If you leverage serverless and strong design, you can build extremely useful and far-reaching products with a handful of people. No longer do you need hundreds or thousands of people to do this.
Then operational cost is low, and revenue required for breakeven/profit is low too.
Re:Twilio is firing 17% of workforce
by americafun on Monday February 13, 2023 @05:11PM
(#34781501)
> Software takes a lot of effort to write, and much less to maintain.
ahahahahahahhahaaha
Have you even written a line of code in your life ???
This is the most brazenly wrong statement I've heard on this website. We are in dire need of a correction ...
We just went through an era of effectively no software, to one with a large saturation of software that fills many niches. In the 2010's there was no competition for the majority of these businesses as VC capital tended to move towards new ideas, rather than directly competing with existing ventures.
All of that is changing. The world will continue to need new and improving software, but the value provided by a single engineer continues to trend higher, and fewer and fewer developers will be needed to create these systems.
Some SaaS has high costs of switching and a defensible moat, but many do not and are easily replicated. Existing players may even be at a disadvantage to competitors due to existing architectures using old patterns that require more manual labor/cost to maintain. e.g. Something like DocuSign is a good example of a low moat SaaS. Database systems are a good example of large moat (high cost of switching, even if better tech comes out)