The SaaS sector is ever changing, and with a new year comes a new trend: micro SaaS.
Micro SaaS is best described as a SaaS business that targets a niche market, is often run by just one person or a very small team, with small overhead costs. Everything about a micro SaaS is small, including its narrow focus, though with the right idea it can have a small but dedicated user base without any external funding. Ultimately, it’s these low overheads that are key to producing favorable margins with a much lower degree of risk.
Some say micro SaaS companies are the lifestyle business of the future. These small firms can benefit from the recurring revenue model of a traditional SaaS company without budgeting for renting an office space, managing a large team, and dealing with investors. Though, micro SaaS doesn’t necessarily mean micro profits.
Storemapper is a great example. It provides a very basic service to solve a clear problem. The app, which can be installed very quickly on a website to create a store locator service, requires no coding. It simply monitors which stores are getting the most traffic. In 2012, Tyler Tringas founded the company and by 2017, it was seeing $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue with a team of five.
Another great micro SaaS is Carrd, a company that provides simple, fully responsive one-page sites for almost anything. Carrd garnered popularity recently, as protests around the world for Black Lives Matter galvanized, many activists created Card pages to pool resources on mutual aids funds, bail funds, and educational materials. Every month, almost 20,000 new users sign up and create over 40,000 websites using Carrd.
Once the idea is there, building a micro SaaS company can be a fairly straightforward process as it involves fewer resources. People can also utilize SaaS App builders that speed up the process.
An example of an effective micro SaaS business idea is taking a large and lucrative category like CRM and creating a CRM platform for a specific industry, such as the wellness industry. There are many product and UI requirements unique to the industry, which calls for an appropriate niche solution.
These more niche, and smaller SaaS offerings could prove increasingly valuable to businesses across industries in 2021, which means we can all expect a host of fresh micro-SaaS innovations over the coming years.
