Why Entrio Chose Not to Compete in SaaS Management: A Lesson in Category Creation

Most enterprise software startups choose the path of least resistance: find an existing category and compete there. Entrio took a riskier route, creating a new “tech adoption” category rather than joining the crowded SaaS management space.

The decision came from a simple market reality. “SaaS represents a very small portion of their technology stack. So at least 75 or 80% of their technology stack is still either on prem or is being delivered in a different way,” explains Avi Cohen in a recent Category Visionaries episode.

For financial institutions, the problem wasn’t just managing SaaS applications – it was managing their entire technology landscape. “You’re talking about thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of applications running inside the organization, alongside open source, alongside in house development,” Avi notes.

This complexity created unique challenges. One bank they encountered had “20 different local no code solutions internally.” Traditional SaaS management tools couldn’t help because they only addressed a fraction of the problem.

Instead of forcing their solution into an ill-fitting category, Entrio created a new one focused on tech adoption. “We decided to go and kind of help the organizations become more efficient and be more conscious about the technologies that they have,” Avi shares.

This meant building something fundamentally different. Rather than just tracking SaaS spend, they created “a data engine that really tried to, at the very minimum, tries to help the organization make sense of what they have before we apply any application layer that helps them to optimize and manage their technology stack.”

The strategy required patience. As Avi explains, “We wanted to reach a phase where we had enough traction and feedback from customers that we can really go out to investors and say, we’re not making this thing up. This is really tangible proof that banks are experiencing this problem.”

The approach resonated across market segments. “Everyone is looking for the best way to govern their solutions, to get visibility, transparency. They want to make sure that they know what they own and what they’re using and what the relationship that they have with their vendors and their solutions.”

For founders, Entrio’s journey offers a crucial lesson: sometimes the best opportunity isn’t in existing categories but in identifying problems those categories miss. The key is having enough evidence that your new category solves real, widespread problems that current solutions can’t address.