[morkalork]

Google/MS make generic software for businesses and developers. They don't really get involved in specific verticals (aside from obvious ones like cloud, gaming, marketing). Successful start-ups will be the ones taking models from big tech cos and bringing them to the boring verticals those companies have no interest in.

[varjag]

Then one day Google tweaks their model in an unfortunate way and you fall all the way down that vertical.

[pydry]

Just build a product that is even slightly reliant upon customer service. They won't know how to compete.

[cbreezyyall]

This comment isn't getting the recognition it deserves.

[morkalork]

The same can be said of any of their service offerings. You could build a business around something MS/Oracle/Google provides and they could one day decide to deprecate it.

[varjag]

Anything a SaaS platform provides can be replicated in-house. The same can't be said for a bleeding-edge 10 billion dimensional model.

[erispoe]

Can you give an example?

[damascus]

A large majority of SaaS businesses can be done for free with an Excel spreadsheet, but many of them are still making millions a year.

[taqticsai]

Interesting. Such as?

[maximus-decimus]

YNAB, the budgeting app is a good example. Having it as an online app means you can use it from many computers or a phone, but at its core it's really just a spreadsheet.