Porter's Five Forces

Porter's Five Forces analyzes the attractiveness of an industry by examining: the threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitutes, and rivalry among existing competitors. Each force either adds or removes profit potential from the category, and the combined picture explains why some industries are structurally more lucrative than others.

For SaaS, the framework is still useful but needs translation. "Supplier power" often becomes cloud infra and talent; "substitutes" includes spreadsheets, internal tools, and status quo inertia; "new entrants" is the AI-era realization that a well-funded team can ship a clone in months. Used well, Five Forces is a diagnostic lens, not a checklist — it tells you where your profit pool is most at risk.