I’ve spent the last 12 years building SaaS products—both at early-stage startups and inside large-scale enterprise platforms.
I’ve built from scratch, scaled features, wrestled with technical debt, fought UX battles, and sold into complex B2B orgs. And over time, one truth has become increasingly clear to me:
Enterprise software doesn’t win just because it’s good. It wins because people build their careers on it.
We all know the names: Salesforce. SAP. Oracle. ServiceNow. Workday.
Ask any user—or even many admins—and you’ll often hear the same complaints:
“It’s powerful, but clunky.”
“The UI is unintuitive.”
“It takes months to implement.”
“Support is slow, and the documentation is dense.”
And yet… these platforms continue to dominate.
Why?
The easy answers are familiar:
✅ High switching costs
✅ Deep integrations
✅ Custom workflows
✅ Long procurement cycles
But those are just symptoms. The deeper reason is this:
These products aren’t just tools. They’re ecosystems.
They’re industries within industries.
People don’t just use these platforms—they build their livelihoods around them.
- There are Salesforce Developers and ServiceNow Architects who have made entire careers mastering those platforms.
- There are certifications, training bootcamps, massive consulting firms, and marketplaces built around extending and implementing them.
- There are university programs that teach these systems.
- And there are thousands of job descriptions requiring deep expertise in a single SaaS product.
In many cases, the person responsible for choosing enterprise software—the CIO, VP of Ops, Head of Digital—grew up in that ecosystem. They’ve used it at 3 different companies. They know who to call for support, which partners to trust, and how to manage internal rollouts.
They don’t choose the best product. They choose the ecosystem they already trust.
The Ecosystem Flywheel
When a product becomes a career path, it creates a flywheel that’s hard to disrupt:
- People learn your product to get jobs
- Companies hire based on product certifications
- Decision-makers pick tools with an existing talent pool
- More people train on your platform to meet demand
Rinse and repeat.
Eventually, the platform becomes the default choice, not because it’s loved—but because it’s embedded in the organization’s operating system and talent pipeline.
What This Means for Builders
If you’re building a new SaaS product today—especially in B2B or enterprise—this is the uncomfortable truth:
Having the better product isn’t enough.
You need more than beautiful UI and fast onboarding.
To win long-term, you have to think like a platform:
- Are you building a product or an ecosystem?
- Can people build careers around your tool?
- Are you enabling a community, certification path, or implementation network?
- Can someone bet their resume on you?
Great products solve problems.
Great ecosystems create economies.
Final Thought
I’ve seen startups lose to worse products because they underestimated the power of ecosystem gravity.
I’ve also seen enterprise tools thrive—not because of innovation, but because they created a dependable, self-sustaining marketplace around their platform.
So the next time you marvel at how some legacy tool is still the market leader despite its UX, just remember:
People don’t leave ecosystems—they retire from them.
📌 If you’re building enterprise software, you’re not just designing screens.
You’re designing careers, consulting industries, and long-term power structures.
That’s the real moat.
