To an extent , yes.
Although basecamp is something that is intended more as an internal tool that just happens to work over HTTP and is not directed at any specific market niche (other than perhaps general SMB).
Let's think about real estate as an example.
I imagine that pretty much every real estate agent will want the following features on their website:
A list of properties (that can be sorted by Price etc)
Search By Postcode/Zipcode.
Then a page for each property with:
Pictures from inside/outside the property.
Asking Price.
Number of bedrooms/bathrooms.
Some blurb about the property.
A form to book a viewing (possibly integrated with calendering at the backend).
Of course they will also want the generic "contact us" pages and pages about how great they are.
You could develop all of this bespoke every time for each estate agent, but then the amount of time you invest and how good you can make it are capped by the amount of money they want to spend on the project. You also have to worry about hoating arrangements for each client.
Alternatively you could just build the best real estate website you can make, host it on your own infrastructure and charge a monthly fee to rent an "instance" of it. Because the website is already built activation can be instant.
As an added benefit (if you get enough users) you now have a huge database of properties which you could potentially use to launch your own property search/comparison website.
You will have customers who will require more custom functionality and will eventually outgrow your "one size fits all" system regardless of how customisable you make it. At this point however they are probably willing to pay a significant amount of money to have a bespoke website developed. Another option at this point would be to license them the sourcecode for your system so that they can take it elsewhere for modification.
Let's think about real estate as an example. I imagine that pretty much every real estate agent will want the following features on their website:
A list of properties (that can be sorted by Price etc)
Search By Postcode/Zipcode.
Then a page for each property with:
Pictures from inside/outside the property.
Asking Price.
Number of bedrooms/bathrooms.
Some blurb about the property.
A form to book a viewing (possibly integrated with calendering at the backend).
Of course they will also want the generic "contact us" pages and pages about how great they are.
You could develop all of this bespoke every time for each estate agent, but then the amount of time you invest and how good you can make it are capped by the amount of money they want to spend on the project. You also have to worry about hoating arrangements for each client.
Alternatively you could just build the best real estate website you can make, host it on your own infrastructure and charge a monthly fee to rent an "instance" of it. Because the website is already built activation can be instant.
As an added benefit (if you get enough users) you now have a huge database of properties which you could potentially use to launch your own property search/comparison website.
You will have customers who will require more custom functionality and will eventually outgrow your "one size fits all" system regardless of how customisable you make it. At this point however they are probably willing to pay a significant amount of money to have a bespoke website developed. Another option at this point would be to license them the sourcecode for your system so that they can take it elsewhere for modification.