I think you're right in the sense that there is such a thing as too niche, and "don't be too niche" is both true & a
tautology.
But "don't be niche, fish where fish are, target big broad markets with obvious customers" is IMO bad advice for starting bootstrappers
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I'd broadly agree with Kevin Kelly and Naval who articulates this with "escape competition through authenticity" https://overcast.fm/+Q4m4jr2YQ/35:08 … Starting in a niche where you can build the absolute best product for a defined reachable market (even if small) is a good strategy.
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Basically "the myth of the niche internet business" is true, not a myth, and broadly good advice, especially when first starting.
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W odpowiedzi do @tylertringas @mubashariqbal
Guess we disagree! All the successful companies I’ve seen have targeted large niches (millions of potential customers, or 100s of millions potential revenue). The reason: even a great company will only be able to capture a fraction of their niche.
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W odpowiedzi do @mijustin @tylertringas
Yes, but who starts by targeting millions of customers? Every successful company starts small and grows from there. Facebook started with elite colleges. AirBnB started with couch surfers, etc.
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W odpowiedzi do @mubashariqbal @tylertringas
Like I said: For bootstrappers, you need to target a market that’s total size is in the millions, or, is worth 10s of millions. Zen Planner targets the fitness training market: 60,704 businesses, worth $10 billion. WPengine targets WordPress sites: 37,500,000 potential sites.
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Why though? If you want to start a business that makes, say $300k ARR, you probably need to target a market w/ total revenues of >$100million But I don't see it's important whether that's 5 customers or 50'000 --> *unless* the founder isn't good at aligning solution w/ pain...
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Certainly, founders can do whatever they'd like.
But:
"Bootstrapping is already hard, don't make it harder!" – Jason Cohen
5 customers is inherently more risky (and generally not a good fit for bootstrappers).
A company with 5 customers is probably an enterprise play.1 odpowiedź 0 podanych dalej 0 polubionych -
You may think that's harder. In my experience it's easier. 5 customers *may* be a bit extreme, but 50, 100, 500... that's an awesome market size (assuming they have $ and are similar enough to be able to reach them w/ same language). Why do you think it's not a good fit?
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W odpowiedzi do to @louisnicholls_@mijustin i jeszcze
I agree. It can really be all over the board but low customer counts can work well. I’ve been a part of or currently running 3 bootstrapped SaaS businesses. Here’s the spread: ~$5mm ARR: 225 customers >$100k ARR: 25 customers <$100k ARR: 40 customers
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Even niche SaaS businesses that service small markets (like Moraware) generally need more than 500 customers to achieve profitability. https://www.tedpitts.com/the-most-important-saas-metric-nobody-talks-about/ …pic.twitter.com/hSSfrIHLrL
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W odpowiedzi do to @mijustin@LandonB32 i jeszcze
Again, I can't comment on moraware, maybe they did need 500+ customers to be profitable. But that's just one company. *In general* you don't need 500+ customers to be profitable. You probably need 10+ of the right customers who have the right
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W odpowiedzi do to @louisnicholls_@mijustin i jeszcze
Not saying it's *bad* to have 500+ customers. Some pains/markets need that. But by no means all of them. Choosing a product that needs that isn't a clever decision in most cases, it's a suboptimal business decision to focus on a low-dollar-value pain.
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