For most of the 2010s, the only software companies anyone talked about were the ones gunning for category dominance. Every pitch deck started with a $50 billion TAM. Every product was racing toward universality. The medium-good and the very-large was the only configuration that mattered.
Something is shifting. Not loudly — quietly. A growing number of teams are choosing to stay small on purpose. To serve a deliberately narrow audience. To charge fairly, ship slowly, and call it done.
This isn't lifestyle business cosplay. It's a real bet — one that I think will define the next decade of software.
Why now?
Three things have changed.
First, the tools got radically better. A solo developer in 2026 can ship what required a team of fifteen in 2015. The infrastructure layer is solved. Hosting is free or close to it. The economic floor for sustainable software has dropped through the floor.
Second, distribution got more interesting. Niche audiences are reachable now in ways they weren't. Newsletter, podcast, Discord, the long tail of vertical communities — each one has a thousand "small" markets nobody is competing for.
Third, the buyer changed. A generation that grew up with software is now in charge of choosing it. They are deeply allergic to bloat. They will pay a premium — actually pay! — for a tool that does one thing well and respects their time.
"The smallest viable audience is no longer a constraint. It's a strategy."
What small software looks like
If you've used these tools, you know the feeling:
- The settings page is short, not long.
- Onboarding is two screens or zero.
- The pricing page has one price.
- The release notes link to a human.
- Bug reports get answered the same day.
None of these are accidents. They're the natural output of a team that has decided their job is not to be everywhere. It's to be excellent somewhere specific.
The shape of the company
Small software companies tend to look like this:
- Two to ten people. Often fewer.
- Profitable from year one, or close to it.
- No outside investors. Or one early angel, paid back.
- One product, one segment, one price.
- A founder who is still in the code or the design file every week.
These companies don't show up on TechCrunch. They show up in your billing statement. They are the boring middle of the SaaS economy, and they are quietly thriving.
The bet
The bet, if you want to call it that, is this: the best software for the next decade will not be made by the biggest companies.
It will be made by teams who know their users by name. Who have the discipline to say no to feature requests. Who optimize for the second-decade outcome instead of the second-quarter outcome.
I am, in the most quiet way possible, betting on them.
Mira Solano writes about software, design and the future of work from her apartment in Mexico City. Get her weekly essay.
