You see, there are levels to this. First of all, you should not target huge businesses when you are creating a micro SaaS . One of the biggest reason is, they are bigger established players and they know what the options available are. When you are going after smaller businesses, they are so drowned out in their own work that they don’t have time to explore the options. Whatever comes up before them as the most convenient thing, they will try to sort it out. So, that’s the first thing. And another thing is, it’s a small business. So, the cost centers are usually run by them and there aren’t much cost anyways. They have their runway for next year or two. So, they are not very worried about the cost centers. Like, oh no, what am I going to do about HR department or things like that. They can do it on their own. They will just go on and handle the hiring, firing, the pay slips and all on their own. With whatever tools they have.

But, they started a business. They are hopeful, right? They want to earn money, that’s the whole point of them starting the business. So, what they would really love to spend more on revenue generating things. So, what you should be focusing on is software that helps their revenue center. Revenue centers basically, all in all, tie in with whatever helps with sales. So, it’s leads generation, sales journey, sales, payments, that sort of thing. Because, costs are really not something for which you can sell some fancy software to them. They have the runway. But, the revenue is what they are here for. They started the business. They want to grow. So, you should help them in the revenue center. Rehabs are a smaller industry than addictions and scams. Easier to sell the idea of more of gain and pleasures than to sell the idea of less of bad. Its hard to contextualize how less of bad is good. Plus its also about the mindset of the owner. They started the whole deal with the objective of growth and earning money. Getting cost low and all was a second thought if at all. And to make cost reductions as the primary pitch is not wise if you are targeting this segment.

If you are a micro SaaS and you want to have many clients, all you should do is target small and medium-sized businesses initially, and you should help them solve revenue center problems.

The huge businesses, they have expectations from board members that hey, you should use that you should use software with xyz certifications and n+ years of experience only. There’s expectation of using established players and you can observe opposite of this phenomenon in small companies. For example when you go to a washroom in a big corporation, you will see all high end, high luxury plumbing and sinks etc, While if you go to some small or medium business you will see some local stuff made by regional players getting the job done. The small and medium sized businesses are the ones who are willing to try options as long as they work. They don’t care about the optics because they don’t have a facade to play or optics to maintain.

Big established companies or players backed by VCs? They want to reduce their risk associated with bad procurements or onboarding of bad partner firms because even the founder is at the end at the accountable to VCs. So he would want to make the safest bet when comes to business partners for software or hardware. But on the other hand, small and medium businesses whose proprietor is running the show are way more open to just get the thing done. SMBs value plug-and-play solutions that don’t require extensive setup or training.

If you wondering which problems to solve for SMBs then read this