At least in China a lot of software developers are now struggling.
I think for a lot of type of software we have now reached peak employment.
Someone payed a few k just for a normal website.
At least in China a lot of software developers are now struggling.
I think for a lot of type of software we have now reached peak employment.
Someone payed a few k just for a normal website.
> At least in China a lot of software developers are now struggling.
Do you think that Chinese software industry is that relevant to the kind of software market talked about on HN? I.e. lots of enterprise b2b and infra companies.
Chinese companies have always had a very low willingness to pay for software which kinda breaks the flywheel of B2B SaaS companies and companies to service those companies all the way down.
Its a signal. They were earning well and AI crashed the market in China.
China is in a very different economic state to the West (broadly construed).
They have had real issues with deflation rather than the inflation most Western countries have seen over the past five years.
> Chinese companies have always had a very low willingness to pay for software
Are we still left with this mindset? Maybe once upon a time but it has definitely been changing.
There's plenty of B2B and enterprise SaaS companies in China serving the Chinese market. Maybe not as many, but no longer the very low of the past.
I also would not say enterprise were not willing to pay, even many years ago. It's the SME that refused to pay. Large CRM, ERPs etc have always existed.
I would say I'm still in this mindset. Numbers are hard to come by but analysts optimistically put Chinese SaaS market at ~10% of the size of the US. Also I see that the gross margin for public Chinese SaaS is around 50% vs 80% for the US reflecting that SaaS in China is much more services and implementation heavy. So it feels like the direct to business SaaS's like Salesforce aren't really there and then then the selling to SaaS titans like Datadog have a much smaller flywheel to work in.
Happy to be wrong though if I'm missing something.
> I would say I'm still in this mindset. Numbers are hard to come by but analysts optimistically put Chinese SaaS market at ~10% of the size of the US.
Exactly it's mindset. I used pulled up 1st result when I used Google [0][1] and it is ~20%. It also forecasts huge growth potential.
[0]: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/horizon/outlook/software-a...
[1]: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/horizon/outlook/software-a...
> reflecting that SaaS in China is much more services and implementation heavy
I wouldn't read into it too much. There's creative accounting and other things involved. Also what is services and not e.g. "premium support"?
> So it feels like the direct to business SaaS's like Salesforce aren't really there and then then the selling to SaaS titans like Datadog have a much smaller flywheel to work in.
US companies struggle for many other reasons that I rather not go into but definitely not a SaaS nor China issue. I mean yes it is a China issue as in businesses need to adapt to different cultures rather than 1 size fit all but that applies everywhere.