[danjac]

The successful SME owners I've known have worked in an industry for some time, and have found (often by accident) a profitable niche or pain point. If they needed to build something they've done it themselves with a "For Dummies" book on their lap or hired a student or junior dev for peanuts, but the technical side is very much an afterthought. One or two I know started with just an Excel spreadsheet and a Rolodex of contacts (or the modern equivalents).

Sure their "solutions" were a pile of technical debt held together with duct tape and a prayer, but they got profitable to the point they could afford professional developers to build something more sustainable.

An experienced developer should be able to out-compete these guys out of the park - they would be able to build a solid solution, or at least an MVP with a good foundation, on day 1. But it's quite rare to find a developer with both coding experience and the insights and contacts in a specific industry. Often when I see a developer running a successful SAAS, here or on Indie Hackers, they tend to be selling pickaxes and shovels back to the developer industry such as web analytics, IDE plugins, books, etc. because that's what they know.