Small-Audience Software is software built for a tiny, specific group (sometimes just one person) where the goal is usefulness and taste, not scale. It becomes viable because implementation costs have collapsed, making “small but delighted” a valid target.

This aligns with two adjacent ideas:

  • “1,000 True Fans”: a small, devoted audience can sustain a creator.
  • “Smallest Viable Audience”: focus on the minimum group that would truly value the work.

Why it matters

  • Economics shifted: AI makes building cheap, so distribution and clarity of intent matter more than scale.
  • Taste wins: small audience software can encode personal taste and constraints without compromise.
  • Speed over polish: iteration is fast; the product can be cut down to the few features that matter.

Characteristics

  • Built for a specific person or micro‑community
  • Opinionated: defaults reflect the builder’s taste, not mass appeal
  • Disposable or regenerable: replace rather than maintain when messy
  • Low‑stakes infra: minimal onboarding, minimal ops

Tradeoffs

  • Pros: fast feedback, deep fit, low overhead, high joy
  • Cons: limited distribution, unclear monetization, can be brittle without specs

Common failure modes

  • Accidental mass‑market: sanding off edges destroys the unique value
  • Overbuilding: too many features before the core loop is proven
  • No retention mechanic: small audiences still need a reason to return

References