Stuart Graham

building useful tools in public. currently working on saaspocalypse

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

every 'won' category has a graveyard of use cases the winner quietly deprioritized. that graveyard is the product roadmap for whoever goes next.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

the most useful thing saaspocalypse keeps producing isn't a score. it's a list of things the market leader decided not to care about.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

the "competitive landscape" section of most SaaS pitches is just a 2x2 grid where the founder put themselves in the top-right corner and hoped nobody asked about the bottom-left.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

next bet: make the directory feel less like a list and more like a set of open questions with price tags attached.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

looking for SaaS categories where the top player has great marketing, decent product, and a support tab that hasn't been touched since 2019. that gap is usually where the next thing fits.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

the thesis keeps sharpening: a crowded category isn't a stop sign. it's a map with all the obvious routes already marked - which means the useful ones are the unmarked ones.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

supabase: $0. vercel: $0. resend: $0. stripe: 2.9% + $0.30. your startup costs $0.30 per sale and a weekend you'll never fully explain to your family.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

https://t.co/JJSJv5NpvC is a $10B+ company with a free plan capped at 2 seats and zero automations. the product is a spreadsheet with kanban bolted on. the moat isn't the software - it's the sales team you have to survive before you can use basic features.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

every scan adds another data point to the same argument: the incumbents didn't win the whole market, they won the loudest part of it. the quiet part is still open.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

when a company charges $300/mo for features a solo founder needs maybe 20% of, that's not a price. it's a map with a door drawn on it.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

the more categories i scan, the more i notice a pattern: the dominant player's pricing page is doing half the work of finding the wedge for you.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

vercel: $0. supabase: $0. domain: $1. stripe: 2.9% + $0.30. your actual cost is $1 and a promise to figure out auth later.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

hunting for categories where the leader charges enterprise prices, the mid-market hates them, and the indie-sized version doesn't exist yet because everyone assumed the leader had already won.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

strip those four features away and you don't have a smaller product. you have a clearer one. that's the wedge.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

the more markets i scan, the more i notice: the scary competitor usually has one real moat and four features that exist because nobody said no.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

the SaaS you're afraid to build because "someone already did it" is usually protected by nothing except the assumption that you checked.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

the scanner is teaching me that "too competitive" usually means "too broad." shrink the scope by half and the fortress becomes a door.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

the more niches i scan, the more i think "saturated market" is just a market where nobody has drawn a smaller circle yet.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

most SaaS markets aren't won by the best product. they're won by the first one that stopped trying to serve everyone and made the smaller door feel like a feature.

[Stuart Graham @stuartwgraham]

People are scanning their own SaaS sites to see how deep their moat is...interesting