Micro SaaS: Do inferior products ever win?
Compare Carrd vs. Wix, Squarespace, or virtually any other website builder.
Carrd has fewer features... it's not even close.
And... that's a great thing. Here's why:
Carrd is disruptive in the exact way Clay Christenson talked about "low-end disruption". It's found an overserved market segment and delivered the perfect inferior product.
Let's break that down:
- Overserved market segment: I don't need 95% of the features premium website builders offer. And I have zero interest in spending $10+ per month to build a 1-page website with a zillion customization options I'll never use. So, I'm overserved.
- The perfect inferior product: Carrd doesn't have the features I don't care about. Which means they're able to focus on the features I do care about. And because they haven't spent a ton of money building out features I don't care about, they can charge $20 per year instead of $20 per month.
The beauty of low-end disruption: It's a clear path to a sustainable Micro SaaS business.
Bigger SaaS companies will tend to focus on their bigger, more profitable customers. Not on jerks like me who buy their lowest tier & quickly churn. They'll be happy to get rid of unprofitable low-end customers. And that's an opportunity for you.
Micro-SaaS companies have a sustainably lower cost structure than the bigger players. Which means:
- Like Carrd, you can charge virtually nothing for your service and still be profitable.
- You can target customer segments that would be unprofitable for bigger companies to serve.
- Your lack of resources forces you to build a simpler, perfectly inferior initial product.
In short, this:
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