[HN Gopher] Show HN: Micro-SaaS Alternatives to BigTech/VC
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       Show HN: Micro-SaaS Alternatives to BigTech/VC
        
       Hi HN  I started this crowdsourced list to find small internet
       products made by solo developers (or tiny teams) that can be used
       as alternatives to BigTech/VC-funded startups.  E.g. you can use
       Tally (by two devs, $14K MRR) instead of Typeform ($190M funding,
       600+ employees)  or Plausible (by two devs, $83K MRR) instead of
       Google Analytics.  I added a link to a form where you can send me
       suggestions to alternatives, happy to add to the site!  Thanks,
       Rauno
        
       Author : raunometsa
       Score  : 104 points
       Date   : 2022-08-07 14:19 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (microfounder.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (microfounder.com)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | spaceman_2020 wrote:
       | Appreciate the site, but I don't see the point of including their
       | revenue. On the contrary, lower revenue would make me want to
       | choose the higher revenue option - being able to make money is a
       | sign of competence after all.
       | 
       | Team size and age of the startup are better metrics imo.
        
         | shreyshnaccount wrote:
         | no, it's a sign on product market fit at best and being good at
         | marketing at worst.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | cercatrova wrote:
       | See also the IndieHackers list of products sorted by revenue:
       | https://www.indiehackers.com/products?sorting=highest-revenu...
        
       | jwithington wrote:
       | Why are there so few competitors to Zendesk I wonder?
        
         | PainfullyNormal wrote:
         | There are more. It's not a complete list. Heck, one Zendesk
         | alternative was created because of a comment here on HN.
         | 
         | https://freshdesk.com/general/the-freshdesk-story-blog/
        
       | asim wrote:
       | Micro Services - https://m3o.com
        
         | adamckay wrote:
         | I don't think microservices are relevant here. This is about
         | "micro companies" -- organisations with a very small team and
         | (typically) bootstrapped by their founders rather than large
         | organisations with VC funding.
        
       | intelVISA wrote:
       | "Get MicroFounder OS to see the full list
       | 
       | A developer's operating system to becoming a microfounder"
       | 
       | Vexing parse
        
       | endisneigh wrote:
       | What's the rationale to use stuff by a smaller organization?
        
         | kirubakaran wrote:
         | People love underdogs. Plus smaller orgs are typically more
         | responsive to your needs. They are less likely to kill your
         | account with impunity.
        
         | iasay wrote:
         | I never got this.
         | 
         | I only ever want stuff I can limp along standalone with until
         | we find something to replace it with. I got seriously burned by
         | a small SaaS help desk app about 15 years ago. Turns out they
         | had three customers, no investors and were burning $20k a month
         | on operational expenditure
        
       | PaywallBuster wrote:
       | The alternatives may be too small
       | 
       | Who's gonna pick (gamble on) a SaaS that's doing < 500$??
        
         | djbusby wrote:
         | That's exactly the kind of thing an early adopter would choose
         | - provided the benefit-set of the product made sense.
         | 
         | IMO this list should focus on the differentiator rather than
         | team-size or MRR.
        
           | PaywallBuster wrote:
           | I'd be happy to push a "micro" SaaS doing 100k a month built
           | by a small team as an alternative to BigTech/VC for projects
           | I may be involved with, not so much a 500$ month PoC
        
       | notlukesky wrote:
       | This would be a list by many buyers, especially in the
       | enterprise, of companies to avoid. If you want to help the indie
       | startup it is probably better to remove their revenue numbers.
       | Most buyers are concerned if the product they invested in will be
       | around in a couple of years.
        
         | alberth wrote:
         | It appears these business owners speak publicly about their
         | revenues.
         | 
         | So they clearly want people to know.
         | 
         | (But totally agree on your point)
        
       | iamandras wrote:
       | Good site and this is a good page to see alternatives. How many
       | new startups do you add to your site monthly?
        
       | open-source-ux wrote:
       | Nice page! A small suggestion: use section or category names.
       | 
       | For example, instead of 'Buffer', the category or section could
       | be called 'Social media tools'. Same for the other sections e.g.
       | 'Analytics', 'Cold email tools', and so on.
       | 
       | Also, Zendesk and Freshdesk are both in the same category of help
       | desk software but are listed separated on the page.
        
       | Pandabob wrote:
       | Thank's for this! I've been building a list of bootstrappers to
       | follow on Twitter and added a bunch of these folks to said list
       | [0].
       | 
       | [0]: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1553077166270709760
        
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       (page generated 2022-08-07 23:00 UTC)