HN Explorer

What's the smallest market size you see a company sucessfully exlore?

1 points by drivingsouth ↗ HN
I am considering one business idea but the potential market is small. Even if the price per client can be high, I'm having troubles figuring out a reasonable business model based on SaaS.

How niche can a company be in the software industry? Examples are appreciated :)

4 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 20.7 ms ] thread
ubudesign
I've seen many small niche companies in healthcare. An example is a software designed for IRB's another is a company that develops software for Homehealth agencies. (they sell the license at around $2500 per quarter per user seat.) I think the smaller the niche the better. Generaly if you are developing for a small market you MUST be an expert in that market too. It's better to become the primary software for an industry then yet another new addition

what industry will this be in?

run4yourlives
income - expenses = profit.

As long as profit > 0, it doesn't matter how big the niche is.

If you have only a single client with a custom solution, that could work. (I wouldn't advise that personally, though). If you're asking which niches could be profitable, I think the answer depends mostly on the "Expenses" part of the equation, provided income is not 0.

drivingsouth
what about NPV of different ideas? Different ideas and only 24 hours a day (for most of people) means that you'll have to consider them and go for the one that gives you more (whatever). profit 1 doesn't mean that is good enough, specially if compared with other ideas so your question was kinda dumb as did not added sh$%#t
run4yourlives
I think you insulted me, but I'm not sure. I'll respond regardless.

You didn't ask about how to judge the value of different ideas, you asked how big a niche market had to be for SaaS to work. The answer is that there is no pre-defined minimum niche size, so long as you can be profitable. The key part of being profitable, assuming you're bringing in any income at all, is managing expenses.

It is completely irrelevant and next to impossible to gauge whether one idea is more or less profitable than another. Some comparisons may be obvious, but spending too long figuring out what idea stands the chance of making you the most money is wasting your time.

Find the one you think might be the best, and built the thing. Rinse and repeat until profit > 0.