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Forcing an inversion of control on the SaaS stack

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Re: Forcing an inversion of control on the SaaS stack

#11

Post by shardullavekar »

treyd wrote: post #10
shardullavekar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the right step would be to somehow communicate to the vendor that this feature is needed (eliminating the PM backlog BS) and their coding Agents should pick it and build it. The real moat they have is SaaS vendors have everyone believe that trivial feature requests take time to implement.

That introduces a level of indirection between "what I want" and what gets built. A workflow like the OP just has less friction. SaaS platforms would want to provide more stable accessible APIs if it becomes a popular model, because users would find it more usable .

these embeddable UI could be a direct ask on how users want a workflow, the SaaS vendors can distribute the embeddable UI and see if it clicks with a lot of users. Would push them to create a stable API

Re: Forcing an inversion of control on the SaaS stack

#14

Post by drewbeck »

shardullavekar wrote: post #9
mads_quist wrote: post #7

Although I absolutely understand the frustration expressed by the author, I find the notion that SaaS companies are somehow 'evil' because they optimize for the 80/20 rule a bit arrogant. Anyone working in SaaS - or really in any business- understands that you need to prioritize. In the end, your obligation as a company, regardless of your product, is to generate profits. And that's absolutely OK.

> In the end, your obligation as a company, regardless of your product, is to generate profits. No denying that. SaaS started with a user problem at the center of it and as they scaled, forgot about an individual user. This only presents the user frustration and a possible solution to it.

> as they scaled, forgot about an individual user

If you're building for individual users you're not going to succeed. We all prioritize for broad success from the beginning.

I'm very into the idea of inversion of control and giving users this flexibility but I agree with GP that the SaaS company critique is misplaced. I hope you find enough success with 100X that you end up coming to the same conclusion.

I'll also add that one of your video examples is essentially a Twitter spam generator; is that the kind of feature you think SaaS companies should be prioritizing?

Re: Forcing an inversion of control on the SaaS stack

#15

Post by drewbeck »

shardullavekar wrote: post #8
treyd wrote: post #3

I hope there's some forced migration of the SaaS business model towards primarily being "just an API" for whatever magic sauce it is they have. Too much of SaaS moats are just locking the backend behind an undocumented API. Users should be able to have full control over their experience interacting with third parties if they want it. This isn't unique to post-LLM stacks like this, but it seems like this shifts the ba…

I think the right step would be to somehow communicate to the vendor that this feature is needed (eliminating the PM backlog BS) and their coding Agents should pick it and build it. The real moat they have is SaaS vendors have everyone believe that trivial feature requests take time to implement.

> The real moat they have is SaaS vendors have everyone believe that trivial feature requests take time to implement.

So true. People are going to be sooo mad when they find out we all have these Build Features For Free buttons and just don't press them.

Re: Forcing an inversion of control on the SaaS stack

#17

Post by shardullavekar »

drewbeck wrote: post #14
shardullavekar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the end, your obligation as a company, regardless of your product, is to generate profits. No denying that. SaaS started with a user problem at the center of it and as they scaled, forgot about an individual user. This only presents the user frustration and a possible solution to it.

> as they scaled, forgot about an individual user If you're building for individual users you're not going to succeed. We all prioritize for broad success from the beginning. I'm very into the idea of inversion of control and giving users this flexibility but I agree with GP that the SaaS company critique is misplaced. I hope you find enough success with 100X that you end up coming to the same conclusion. I'll also a…

I created that twitter responder after reading this post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47568028). That wasn't to call out what SaaS companies should prioratise but to show how easy it would be for a user to do it.

Re: Forcing an inversion of control on the SaaS stack

#18

Post by shardullavekar »

esafak wrote: post #16

You don't want to ship every feature every user wants, for various reasons that I assume are obvious. Instead make it extensible.

users didnt ask for slow apis either but there they are. I am speaking for the user here and sharing their frustration. Allowing UI modification to fit the user needs should be a default now. The APIs already act as a gaurdrail on what's possible

Re: Forcing an inversion of control on the SaaS stack

#20

Post by socketcluster »

SaaS needs to be reinvented. We need backend platforms which provide more security controls, more flexibility in terms of data-sharing, seamless access by AI agents with advanced access controls; e.g. some agents can define schemas, some agents read data, other agents write data, some agents curate data... And custom app frontends can be generated on demand and integrate data from many different sources. This is what I've been working towards with https://saasufy.com/
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