See also: Innovator’s Solution for SaaS Startups There’s a familiar path now to SaaS companies that start in the SMB (small-to-medium business) part of the market. Over time, they seem to inevitably begin serving larger customers. Box, Hubspot, Zendesk and among many others have exhibited this pattern. Why does this happen? I believe we’re seeing Clay Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma at play. In short, new startups leverage a distribution advantage to acquire SMB customers at scale.