Since joining @airtable as PM of our ecosystem, I've become convinced we're in the middle of another "app gold-rush" - instead of mobile apps, it's apps built on top of enterprise SaaS platforms and sold to SMBs and enterprise customers.

Remember 2010, when everyone and their crazy uncle had an idea for the next hit iPhone app?

And there were all those stories of solo developers who built an app, and a few months later were making $$$?

We're there again. Except it's apps the average consumer will never see.

With the rise of broadly-useful, API-forward, enterprise-focused SaaS startups like @airtable, Shopify, Slack, Asana, Monday, etc., a solo developer can now build an enterprise-focused piece of software and sell directly into enterprises, at-scale.

Of course, this is old news. Salesforce AppExchange first launched in 2005. Shopify launched their app store in 2009. Multiple-billions-of-dollars worth of bootstrapped businesses have been built on these platforms for over a decade.

This new wave of SaaS platforms though presents a new opportunity for a few reasons:
1) Development is increasingly democratized. npm, open-source JS frameworks, Jamstack, @stripe, etc. all make it faster and lower-cost to build these apps than ever before, with minimal sysadmin

2) Consumer and enterprise lines are blurring. You'd never use Salesforce in your personal life. You might use Notion though. We're accustomed to installing 3rd-party apps on our phones - why not on our work tools too?

3) Enterprise IT is adapting from a locked-down, on-prem paradigm to a distributed, cloud-based world. Where it would once be unthinkable to trust a random 3P developer, the "Enterprise IT Overton window" is shifting. (Note: it's incumbent on SaaS platforms to earn this trust.)

4) The current Venture Capital money-grab-booth^w"model" tends to shy away from companies that are entirely beholden to a platform that they don't control. But for solo devs and small shops, this can be more of a benefit than a curse, and diversification is an option too.

5) Low-code/no-code software needs strong ecosystems. The less a piece of software can obviously do out-of-the-box, the more it requires an ecosystem of experts showing users what it *can* do. And users are now used to looking at how good an app store is before buying software.

I'm admittedly way late to the game here - folks like @csallen with https://www.indiehackers.com/  have been doing amazing work engaging with and facilitating a community of devs who have been building things like these apps for years now.

I'm incredibly excited to see what becomes of this indie-SaaS-developer ecosystem - and not just in my professional capacity with @airtable. This trend delivers on what I think the true power of tech should be - empowering the Davids to go up against (or...sell to?) the Goliaths