Category Guides

Parallel Infrastructures: Building Alternative Corporate Networks

1. TL;DR & Definition Parallel Infrastructures are alternative B2B networks—payment rails, compute environments, or compliance layers—built to bypass legacy gatekeepers. Instead of building software on top of existing, slow, and rent-seeking systems (like the SWIFT banking network, traditional credit bureaus,…

Backdoor Channels: Entering the Market via Developers

1. TL;DR & Definition Backdoor Channels are go-to-market (GTM) motions that bypass traditional enterprise procurement, IT approvals, and executive buy-in by targeting the end-user (usually developers or individual contributors) directly. Instead of selling top-down to the VP of Engineering, you…

Invisible Transactions: B2B Deals Off the Radar

1. TL;DR & Definition Invisible Transactions are B2B value exchanges that occur entirely outside of standard pricing pages, formal invoicing, or direct monetary exchange. These involve trading API access, proprietary data, ecosystem distribution, or co-marketing leverage. For SaaS founders, an…

White Space Mapping: Finding Gaps in Competitor Maps

1. TL;DR & Definition White Space Mapping is the analytical process of identifying market positions that incumbents mathematically, structurally, or culturally cannot occupy without destroying their existing business models. It is not about finding places where competitors aren't; it's about…

Niche Monopolies: Owning 90% of a Tiny Market

1. TL;DR & Definition A Niche Monopoly is a GTM strategy where a SaaS company ignores massive Total Addressable Markets (TAM) to intensely focus on a microscopic vertical, aiming to capture 80-90% market share. By completely dominating a highly specific,…

Ghost Competitors: Non-Software Threats in SaaS

1. TL;DR & Definition Ghost Competitors are the invisible alternatives to your SaaS product that don't look like software companies. They are spreadsheets, whiteboards, internal interns, paper processes, or simple apathy (doing nothing). For a B2B SaaS founder, ghost competitors…

Bypass Markets: Skipping Enterprise Sales Processes

1. TL;DR & Definition Bypass Markets refer to a go-to-market (GTM) strategy where a B2B SaaS intentionally circumvents traditional IT procurement, CFO approvals, and top-down sales cycles by selling directly to the end-user or mid-level manager. This is achieved by…

Friction Arbitrage: Profiting Where Competitors Fail

1. TL;DR & Definition Friction Arbitrage is the strategic act of identifying a high-friction, convoluted, or painful workflow within an incumbent's software ecosystem, and building a narrowly scoped SaaS that executes that single workflow flawlessly. You aren't building a better…