and the distribution of digital products.
To Sell Software in 2025, Devs Must Think Like Marketers
Five years ago, software entrepreneurship was simpler—code hard, market minimally, profit. Today, the game has changed: Distribution has become the new moat.
The Landscape Five Years Ago5 years ago I sold my WordPress plugin business to Automattic, and back then the landscape of software entrepreneurship was markedly different than it is today.
\ You could spend 75% of your time focused on the code. Bouncing between Github and your IDE, you could work on bugs, features, and enhancements for most of the week, then do an intense push on marketing for a day or so and make decent money.
\ Marketing back then was a simpler task. I used to share product updates, work on SEO, sponsor WordCamps, write guest posts, and fill out our knowledgebase.
\ That was it.
\ It felt like there were far fewer players in the game. Big software companies hired a lot of engineers, but the rest of the playing field was wide open for entrepreneurial software engineers. When I started ZBS CRM (which became Jetpack CRM) there was only 1 other CRM-like product intertwined in the WordPress ecosystem.
\ Now a wordpress.org search for ‘crm’ suggests 834 plugins.
\ Many of these are noise, and that’s just a tiny little niche compared to the app market and SaaS as a whole.
The Wild Ride of the Last Five YearsSo what’s happened in the last 5 years in software startups? So. Much.
\ COVID-19 reshaped everything.
\ Working from home became a necessity and so budgets opened up across the board. Whole industries formed, and many others benefitted.
\ Covid has now passed from the general consciousness, but its effects on software have been transformative. There remains an increased demand for work-from-home software, and an increase in people starting apps for profit to escape the 9-5.
\ AI changed all the rules.
\ With cheap access to fairly code-literate software engineering AI models, we’ve seen a rise across the board of people trying to make their living with software. The tech news is full of stories of teens breaking $1m MRR with an AI-built app.
\ It’s a compelling narrative - David (with an AI sling) slaying software Goliath’s (50-500 deep in engineers).
\
\ We’re only going to hear more of this as this new super-power gets further adopted and refined.
\ In a way this is great, it levels the playing field and increases the utility of tech manyfold for the average human. For the software entrepreneur, though, it dials the complexity up tenfold.
Where we are today—developing software for profitThese days, building software to serve a customer is, in some ways, easier than ever. AI code-generating tools can produce software to a decent standard—though it often feels a bit bland and clunky. The tools of the trade have matured, working reliably right out of the box. Code generation, GitHub, one-click hosting, and an endless supply of open-source libraries are all readily available—and often, completely free.
\ Selling it though, from my perspective, is more complex. A new generation of social media platforms allows for meteoric growth but requires new skills to capitalize on.
\ Bandwidths have ballooned, so a 4k over-the-shoulder stream of your day’s engineering is commonplace.
\
\ The marketplace is frothy. There are many new market participants. AI is exploding in all directions. It’s easy to be bewildered by the rate of change.
\ Should we do SEO or will the SERPs be eaten alive by AI assistants? Is there value in investing in UGC for growth when we’re on the edge of a cliff of AI-generated content?
\ That old tennent of 75/25 engineering/marketing is dead. It’s becoming clear that Distribution is the new moat.
\ This means that being a software entrepreneur in 2025 will likely involve being a public personality, (except perhaps when selling in an ecosystem like the Shopify app store).
\ This is a big change, and one I personally was knocked back by. Part of writing craft software, for me, was being able to genuinely make something that made people's lives better. The focus was on the product.
\ Perhaps stellar software will still rise to the top by way of reviews and word of mouth. It’s less clear to me today where that’s still true.
Opportunities for Solopreneur Devs in 2025All that being said, I think it’s still a great time to make software for profit.
\ Those who embrace AI and the way it’s changed the workflow can make superb products in a fraction of the time.
\ Those who manage to adapt to the frothy marketplace and find a way to get their creations in front of their audience can profit faster than ever.
\ Here are my tips for starting a software business in 2025:
Embrace AI selectively - Focus on your intuitive craft and make software with a soul, but use AI wherever possible to speed up the process.
\
Experiment widely with marketing channels - Frothy markets mean plenty of money on the table, but a bit of a scramble to get the attention of your potential audience. We must approach marketing even more experimentally.
\
Own your distribution - Once you find an audience, deplatform them regularly. Distribution is the new moat, so don’t rely on showing up in people's feeds for your inbound funnel.
\
Expect to be cloned - AI tools make cloning anything you make easier. Pop-up competitors are going to become an everyday part of the gig. Focus on the aspects of what you make that are uniquely yours, and invest hard in distribution.
\
Keep up to date with AI - We’re early on in the AI revolution. The whole landscape is in flux as we all learn to use these new tools and find ways to capitalize on LLMs. Continue to invest in yourself; keep up to date with AI growth. Small evolutions in technology will completely remake tomorrow's market.
Among all this disruption, let’s not lose sight of the art of software. Engineering is more than utility—it’s a craft. While AI might commoditize code, there’s still space for software refined by human hands and intuition.
\ The challenge? Prices may drop, profit margins may shrink, and some will pivot away from engineering careers. But for those who embrace and persist, there’s a chance to stand out with thoughtful, enduring products that reflect their creators' vision.
\ To me, engineering will remain an art, and my primary craft. I will continue to make software for humans in 2025.
What’s Your Take?So what do you think? What is your experience of software entrepreneurship in 2025; what do you see as the key changes in the past years?
\ Is there a future for craft software? What new skills will we need to embrace to reach the humans we’re trying to serve in making it?
\