[1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv...
I am not even sure it was still true by the time her wrote it. It think that there is a set of core features (laying out stuff in a table, simple formulae) and some very commonly used features (e.g. graphs, data filtering) and a long tail of less commonly used advanced features (pivot tables, database like formulae like VLOOKUP).
Its more like 80% of users only use the same subset. Less commonly used stiff is important to the people who do use them, so you need it to sustain the network effects and enterprise sales.
What you’re saying is basically a majority of SaaS shouldn’t exist because it could just be an excel spreadsheet. Why would anyone pay for a subscription or something when they already pay for excel right? Problem is spreadsheets are a blank canvas and can be difficult for people to build. Just like a design software like adobes and figma. This product is trying to focus on one particular use case of design software and simplify it. It’s not a horrible idea and can exist in the market. I’m not sure it will succeed but conceptually it’s not destined to fail for the this reason. I think you need to also define what success means. For a single dev, could just be a thousand paying users. He’s not necessarily trying to be figma.
My most successful company was a tool that focused on 10% of a ERP feature. One that I had used and implemented at corporates but knew ERP vendors were selling hard for having 100s of features of which I only cared about 20%. Not everyone cared about those same 20% but I found enough people that did and liked my opinionated take on the software. It would have never worked if I had this mindset.
Vecti looks like a Figma clone if its landing page is anything to go by. You're not going to have an easy time convincing people to migrate from Figma to a clone.
I’m not saying anything good or bad against this product just that it has a right to exist and could work (whether it will or not is not what I’m arguing).