You know, it’s tough. We don’t know this guy’s backstory, but we do live in a society where there are rules. His decision will have personal repercussions. Unfortunately that’s the way things are. And yes, other people steal too but never so much see a fine or jail time, but that’s the way the world works.
More of a specialty shop, not a one-size-fits-all RingCentral competitor. Targeting specific industries with use case specific solutions (ie. going after car dealerships with overhead paging, DECT wireless handsets, etc.) -- yes, they can get all this with RingCentral or 8x8 or anyone else -- but your positioning, marketing, and niche expertise is what will win the deal. Can also offer more of a white-glove service, on-site install, etc. that the big guys simply don't offer. You don't even need to have local presence - just find good folks on FieldNation that can perform the job and pay them for 3-4 hours of work. $500 to secure a $18K contract is a no-brainer.
Overall RingCentral and the other top-10 providers are shifting their focus away from SMBs to large enterprises. There is a big hole to fill. They are losing customers as fast as they gain new ones. This is a huge opportunity for smaller operators.
If you get just one 20-person office customer per week (or multiple small ones adding up to 20 users total), after 1 year you are at ~$22K MRC at standard prices. And this is the bare minimum that you will be getting with bare minimum effort... people don't realize how big the opportunity is in this double digit billion dollar market.
I do use it on a consistent basis, after my MacBook had keyboard issues in May. I forced myself to create an entire web app on it over the course of 1 month to see how it felt.
Surprisingly, it was quite a pleasure to work with. There are certainly small little quirks that takes some getting used to and some keyboard short cuts that aren’t present from my Mac setup. Nonetheless, WSL is good enough that I would happily recommend it to colleagues.
As a bootstrapper, I see the point of what this article is trying to say. It's been increasingly difficult to create products that can find product market fit/validation and reach a scale where the income justifies the effort. And to top it off, the MVPs are becoming much more full product than simple landing page MVPs of years past -- and all of this requires a lot of capital (time, money, connections, volunteers, etc).
As more entrepreneurs enter the space, competition will only become more fierce. Even selling the tools to the gold rush has become commoditized with the choices available.
You still need to pay for marketing, sales, some administrative work (accounting, legal...) Maybe you need help outside of your expertise (graphic design, UX...) There is a lot that goes into a startup on top of just building the product.
I was delivering reliable SaaS applications in 1999, and by that time I was already behind the pioneers by 5+ years. So that's not anything new, and on balance I don't think the demands are any higher. Some things have become harder, others easier.
What I found interesting in Apple’s earnings is how little money they need to pour into R&D and operating expenses. This leaves a huge retained earnings which has resulted in them having so much cash left over. It’s super easy for Cooke to indulge himself and enter new markets, but he’s an operations guy and it’s nice to see he’s sticking to his core competency. I’d be a bit nervous to see another CEO come along and try to be the next Steve Jobs (with a high chance of failing at that) and burning through billions of dollars.
