> Most founders aren't doing the sort of cutting-edge development that no one has seen before; they're making a SaaS app that boils down to a few CRUD forms in a browser and some nice design
They should probably ask themselves what sort of defensible competitive advantage they're building, though.
With many founders I know, the answer is "none". This is probably necessary in the very early seed stage - it's hard to build something unique and difficult and still get to market - but it's disturbing how many companies end up with $50M in funding and the answer is still "none". Probably a good indicator of a shake-out in the SaaS world in the near future.
The competitive advantage those companies have is typically two-fold: knowledge and brand.
Knowledge is the very detailed and insightful understanding of what their industry needs at the moment, and where it needs to move to in the longer term. Founders who build those businesses are typically experienced in their industry and are solving a pain they've seen firsthand. That is exceptionally hard to compete with if they're good. Just because that knowledge can be codified in a 'simple' CRUD app doesn't make it any less valuable.
The brand advantage is comes from being the first mover. If the industry knows your company, trusts that you've proven to have an impact on their bottom line (or their competitors bottom line), then you're probably in a good position to retain customers and build a market. Competition is not a problem for a business that's intent on making a market $100m bigger rather than trying to take $100m of business from someone else.
They should probably ask themselves what sort of defensible competitive advantage they're building, though.
With many founders I know, the answer is "none". This is probably necessary in the very early seed stage - it's hard to build something unique and difficult and still get to market - but it's disturbing how many companies end up with $50M in funding and the answer is still "none". Probably a good indicator of a shake-out in the SaaS world in the near future.