Out of 20m global software developers, very few have built a profitable SaaS business.
Out of 20m global software developers, very few have built a profitable SaaS business.
To give some context, consider “software developers” as a group, have built 4m mobile apps, but only 10k SaaS businesses.
This is very strange, given that $0.99 is too "expensive" for many buyers in a mobile marketplace... yet SaaS apps can charge substantial monthly fees and create life changing revenue streams.
The idea of having to market something scares off most developers.
What they usually miss is that while marketing can be hard (or not want they want to spend time on), on the open web, it is at least an option. In the walled gardens of the app stores, you have few choices and all of them can be taken away at a moments notice.
When I first started @KickoffLabs, I had a long list of 'apps' I wanted to build. But for each app, I always hit a roadblock of how do I reach enough people that are willing to pay enough a month to make it a viable business.
I think it's also quite easy - the promise of releasing the app to the market and getting installs without real need of marketing, social media, SEO and ad buys is tempting (of course you still need to do this, but some apps can become quite successful even without it).
This makes things easy - build a product and release it. Then build a new product.
With SAAS there is build a product, release it, promote it, find places where your potential customers hang, fight for them etc.
Additionally, mobile app looks really good in portfolio CV, with SAAS app you will get fewer job offers (potential employer want's one knows all, and mobile app means you can program, you can build mobile apps).
And third - you can build mobile apps mainly for yourself. If someone wants an app for himself I think he will mostly make a mobile one (so he can use it when on the run), the other people installing/donating/paying is just a bonus. I doubt many people will build SAAS to scratch their own itch without wanting other people to use it...
Yep, that's one of the key issues, agree completely.
I think there's a pretty simple explanation.
Writing code is the least important part of building a business.
Building a business != building a product.
It's much more important to identify who your customer is, what they need, how they buy and how to reach them (not to mention handling investors, recruiting, etc etc).
Technical types don't necessarily get this - hence why you so many people on Reddit/HN looking down on Twitter as "something a first year could throw together in the weekend". It completely misses the point about why a relatively "simple" platform (technically speaking) managed to become so huge.
The way your linking SaaS to the number of Developers is something I can't understand.
SaaS has nothing to with number of the developer. Each SaaS business is a problem which people think is worth paying for. One SaaS start up can have 1000's of developer or only 1.
Where did you get the 10k number? It sounds really low to me.
I forget I actually wrote that piece a year ago. Here's one source: https://www.quora.com/How-Many-SaaS-Companies-are-there-globally.
I would edit the main post and add (stat may be out of date, but there isn't a way to edit it!)
awesome, thanks!
This comment was deleted 8 years ago