What I'd like to see in the Top 100 web apps

Ross Dawson's list of the Top 100 web apps got me thinking about how many of them I'd actually be willing to invest in if I had the money. I'd be curious to see some of the business plans and the assumptions they're based on. Looking down the list it's not immediately clear how any of them plan to make money other than through advertising. I'm not a big gambler so I'd want to see some pretty firm cashflow projections. I'm not talking about becoming a multimillion dollar company either, I'm just talking about covering costs and making a modest return.

One thing I've learnt from reading a bit about value investing is to always look for the really simple boring business models. Looking down the list of Top 100 web apps I couldn't find many really boring companies. They all look fairly interesting. (Number 50 is fairly boring but it's also dead).

So what kind of companies am I talking about? I have been an accountant now for 6 years and in that time I have been into at least a couple of hundred businesses in all industries. One of the things which has struck me in that time is just how poor a lot of traditional enterprise software actually is. Not only is it poor but it's often very expensive especially when it needs to be customised. Companies are often slaves to their CRM providers. These software providers are in turn slaves to legacy code (is that the right jargon?) which they'd love to put behind them but for various reasons aren't able to.

Enterprise software often has to be localised because of local laws and regulations which means that it's harder for multinationals to get in without putting a presence on the ground. One of the leading online bookkeeping programmes, Netsuite, can't do Australian payroll. Until it can it is going to struggle to win over a lot of small companies. The same goes for Quickbooks online.

I recently stumbled on Clever Books which is a simple Australian online bookkeeping programme comparable to MYOB. Cleverbooks is about half the price of an MYOB subscription by my reckoning. Now this is a company that I'd be willing to invest in. The business model is so simple. The measures of success are so clear. The cashflows are so real!

MYOB is obviously a big player but there are lots of other smaller, niche players who Web 2.0 entrpreneurs can set their sights on. How about creating niche Web 2.0 apps for funeral homes or language schools or truck drivers or law firms? There are many niches to attack. The more boring the industry the better in my opinion. Just look at the results of a search for 'funeral home software'. The top results look shoddy to say the least.

My challenge to the Australian Web 2.0 scene: give up on the wacky social apps; pick a really niche industry and nail it. Next year I want the Top 100 list to be so boring that I fall asleep before I get to 50.