【台灣新創的內捲困境】當你沒有出海策略，只能在小 TAM 裡彼此內耗
- 前半段為文章的英文版本 (The first half is the English version)
- 後半段為中文版本 (The second half is the Mandarin version)
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In my previous post, “Taiwan Startups Can’t Become Unicorns Without TAM and Global Strategy”, I laid out a key challenge: Taiwan’s total addressable market (TAM) is simply too small to support unicorn-scale growth.
If a startup doesn’t build with international expansion in mind, it risks being trapped in a local red ocean—where everyone copies each other, prices keep falling, and no one really makes money.
This follow-up article explores four industry examples in Taiwan where the absence of a scalable global strategy leads to painful internal competition, margin erosion, and stalled growth—even when the product itself is good.
As Y Combinator explains, evaluating a startup idea requires more than just innovation; it also depends heavily on whether the total addressable market (TAM) is big enough to support sustained growth and investor confidence.
📱 1. Mobile Payments: 10 Players, Few Profits—LINE Pay as a Rare (but Foreign-Backed) Exception
Taiwan’s mobile payment market was once seen as a promising frontier—but has since devolved into a heavily subsidized battleground.
LINE Pay, JKOPay, PX Pay, icash Pay, EasyCard Pay, and others compete for users with similar features and endless cashback campaigns.
Most users simply hop between apps for the best deal, showing little brand loyalty.
While LINE Pay is one of the few platforms approaching profitability, it’s important to note that it is not a local startup. Backed by LY Corporation (the post-merger entity of LINE and Yahoo Japan), LINE Pay benefits from deep financial resources, brand equity, and integration into a broader digital ecosystem—advantages few local players can match.
By contrast, Taiwan’s homegrown payment startups face resource constraints, fickle user behavior, and razor-thin margins. Most are still deeply unprofitable, caught in a cycle of endless competition with little upside.
🎓 2. Digital Learning: Fewer Students, Look-Alike Content, Poor Conversion
Digital learning is a vibrant space full of innovation—especially in Taiwan, with platforms like Hahow, PaGamO, Snapask, LearnMode and others.
But here’s the hard truth:
The student population is shrinking, competition exam prep content is largely standardized, and parents’ willingness to pay for digital-only services remains limited. Most platforms end up offering nearly identical video lessons, quizzes, and diagnostic tools.
Worse still, education is highly local. You can’t just “go global” unless you rebuild everything—language, curriculum, test alignment, UI/UX.
Without a cross-border play, Taiwanese edtech ends up stuck: chasing a small pool of users while competing on price and features that are easily copied.
🛵 3. Shared Scooters: Great Experience, But No Business Model
Taiwan was early to adopt shared electric scooters as part of its smart mobility push.
WeMo, GoShare (by Gogoro), iRent—each poured significant capital into vehicles, infrastructure, apps, and user acquisition.
The service quality isn’t the problem. The issue is:
It’s a capital-intensive model with no clear path to profitability.
Scooter depreciation, maintenance, relocation labor, battery swapping, vandalism, parking fines—it all adds up. Consumers are highly price-sensitive, and brands must offer constant promotions to stay top of mind.
Shared scooters could have expanded into Southeast Asia, where scooter usage is high. But so far, Taiwanese players have failed to scale abroad—leaving them stuck in a domestic burn-rate trap.
🍽️ 4. POS and Restaurant SaaS: Great Tech, No Scale
Taiwan’s POS and restaurant SaaS sector is full of well-designed, reliable platforms:
iCHEF, SmartOrder, POSSHARE, JabezPOS, and more.
But despite strong engineering and UI/UX, most of these tools serve small to mid-sized restaurants, with low monthly fees and high churn rates. The TAM is simply not big enough to support rapid scaling.
Even with strong retention, customer LTV plateaus quickly. And while these systems could be exported to other markets, international expansion is hard:
Each country has its own payment rails, tax systems, invoice formats, languages, and regulatory requirements.
So these SaaS products end up locked in local battles, where players compete on price rather than value—and everyone gets squeezed.
🔚 Conclusion: Going Global Isn’t Optional. It’s Survival.
These four examples tell the same story in different ways:
Without international ambition and scalable product design, Taiwan’s startups risk falling into a painful cycle:
Small TAM → Too many competitors → Easy to copy → Price wars → Low user loyalty → Unstable revenue → Hard fundraising → Stagnation → More internal competition
This is exactly what the Red Ocean vs. Blue Ocean Strategy framework warns against—competing in saturated markets by beating rivals instead of creating new demand.
It’s not about effort or capability. Many teams have built great products. But without market space to grow, they end up stuck in a system that rewards no one.
Going global isn’t a luxury—it’s a lifeline.
In my next post, I’ll share examples of the few Taiwanese startups that have successfully gone global—and what they did differently.
📌 Further Reading:
- Why Taiwan Startups Must Think Bigger Than the Local Market
- Taiwan’s AI Cybersecurity Startup CyCraft Technology Secures Funding for Global Expansion
- Oen Tech Secures Series A Funding for Global Expansion
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在我之前的一篇文章〈台灣軟體新創的成長邏輯：當 TAM 不足，如何邁向獨角獸之路？〉中，我談到了一個簡單卻關鍵的現實：
台灣市場的 TAM（Total Addressable Market）太小，不足以支撐一家新創成為真正的獨角獸。
若沒有明確的出海策略，最終只能困在島內打轉。
這其實也是許多國際創投評估新創項目的首要指標。根據 Y Combinator 的創業建議，一個夠大的市場規模，是能否長期擴張、吸引投資的關鍵。
這不是理論問題，而是已經發生的集體現象。這篇文章，我想進一步分享四個具代表性的產業案例，它們都曾是熱門的新創題目，甚至也不乏技術力與產品創新，但因為無法有效出海，最終淪為在本地市場內捲、自相競爭、難以規模化與獲利的困境。
📱 一、手機支付：十家平台無人獲利，LINE Pay 是少數例外（但非本土業者）
在台灣，手機支付原本是一個政府與市場共同看好的產業，但如今卻變成了最典型的「補貼內耗」戰場。
LINE Pay、街口、全支付、悠遊付、PX Pay、橘子支付、icash Pay…超過十個平台互相競爭，幾乎無差異化。各家為了搶用戶，不惜大撒幣補貼、搞回饋、聯名活動，但多數使用者只是「哪家回饋高就用哪家」，毫無品牌忠誠。
雖然 LINE Pay 是少數具備穩健營運與獲利能力的業者，但它本身並非台灣本土新創，而是背後有大型財團（LY Corporation，LINE 與 Yahoo Japan 合併後的公司）全力支撐，在品牌、資源、用戶生態等方面遠勝其他本地競爭者。
反觀台灣本土的支付新創，資源有限、使用者忠誠度低，長期陷入價格戰與補貼競賽，成長難、獲利更難。整體而言，這是一個高密度競爭但低利潤的產業，幾乎所有本地業者都還在賠錢。
🎓 二、數位學習：學生變少、內容趨同、轉換困難
數位學習也是一個充滿創意與技術的領域，台灣過去幾年出現了不少具代表性的產品與平台，包括 Hahow、PaGamO、Snapask、LearnMode 等等。
問題在於：升學市場的用戶數量有限，而且逐年下滑。
多數 App 都提供影音課程、題庫、診斷工具，內容大同小異，產品間可替代性高，用戶難留下、轉換率低、付費意願不穩。
教育市場本身具有強烈在地性，想要跨境也不是那麼容易：語言、考試制度、文化都不一樣。出海難、在地捲，結果就是死守一小塊市場，互相模仿、互相削價。
🛵 三、共享機車：燒錢補貼不斷，營運成本難以回收
共享機車一度被視為台灣智慧交通的重要突破口。WeMo、GoShare、iRent 都曾大舉擴張，提供便利的短程代步方案，甚至還整合了換電、生態圈、App 控管等創新應用。
但真相是：這是一個極度燒錢卻無法回本的商業模式。
高昂的車輛採購成本、維運人力、電池更換、違停罰單、折舊損壞，再加上用戶對價格極為敏感，各家只好拼命補貼來搶市佔。即使技術做得再好，也難敵營運壓力與資金消耗。而原本應該能出海的共享機車，台灣品牌卻遲遲沒有大規模跨境。
🍽️ 四、POS 與餐飲 SaaS：產品不差，但市場太小
台灣的 POS 與餐飲 SaaS 是一個具備技術力、產品也成熟的領域。iCHEF、SmartOrder、POSSHARE、JabezPOS 等團隊長期耕耘，系統穩定、操作簡便，也能整合外送、會員、金流等功能。
但這個產業最大問題是：市場無法快速擴張。
多數客戶是中小型餐廳，月租費低、用戶流失率高。台灣總體商家數有限，導致LTV 停滯不前，CAC 居高不下。想出海？又遇上金流、發票、語言、文化、法規的阻礙，難以複製成功。
結果就是一場「大家都做得出系統，卻沒人真正活得好」的競賽。
🔚 結語：出海，不是選配，而是生存
從這四個例子可以清楚看到，如果沒有及早思考國際市場與可擴張的產品定位，新創就很容易陷入這樣的惡性循環：
TAM 太小 → 競爭者太多 → 模式被複製 → 價格戰 → 用戶不忠誠 → 收入不穩定 → 融資困難 → 無法成長 → 更內捲
這正是 藍海策略理論 所強調的紅海困境：當所有企業都在擠進同一片擁擠市場，只能靠價格競爭，最終誰都無法脫穎而出。
不是這些團隊不努力，也不是產品做不好，而是：困在同一個市場裡，彼此拉扯，結果誰也走不遠。
所以我始終認為：
台灣新創若想跳脫這樣的困境，出海不是遠方的選項，而是現在就該啟動的策略。