How do you know if your software idea is big enough?

When I was in a previous role I was part of the team that supported the acceleration of sales of products the company had acquired into the Europe, Middle-East and Africa region. I got to meet some super smart enterprise software business leaders as a result, but my favourite was a guy called Michael Wolfe who now seems to live on Quora.

He recently wrote a post on there called “How do I know if my software idea is big enough?” which is worth reading a few times.

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I think for most microisv/bootstrapped businesses the problem is picking a market that is small enough. See also:

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I’ve been following Michael Wolfe on Quora as well, he posts some interesting answers. For smaller bootstrapped companies, the good info is at the end of Michael’s post, he makes three points that are worth remembering:

  • A small market does not mean low R&D costs
  • A small market does not mean low customer acquisition costs
  • Small market does not mean easy market.

Choosing a smaller market might mean a well defined audience, but it might also mean limiting the scope of your business to something that ultimately isn’t viable.