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AI is killing B2B SaaS

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Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#171

Post by chiffre01 »

kriro wrote: post #78

I'd actually say the opposite is the case. B2B (even SaaS) is probably the most robust when it comes to AI resistance. The described "in house vibe coded SaaS replacement" does not mirror my experience in B2B at all. The B2B software mindset I've encountered the most is "We'll pay you so we don't have to wrestle with this and can focus on what we do. We'll pay you even more if we worry even less." which is basically…

The reality is anyone generate useful code with an AI agent now. Dores in accounting can now automate all her spreadsheets in a single afternoon.

Not trying to hype AI, but we are in an interesting transitional period.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#172

Post by zbiku »

dotdi wrote: post #6

This immediately lost credibility for me with this quote: > And vibe coding is fun. Even Bret Taylor, OpenAI’s chair, acknowledges it’s become a legitimate development approach. Color me shocked! Bret, who directly profits by how his product is perceived, thinks it's legitimate???? /s

And if I understand correctly the author is running a business that helps SaaS companies overcome the risk of using their own vibe-coded solutions.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#173

Post by sbarre »

misiti3780 wrote: post #164
bandrami wrote: post #162

It's a tale as old as time that developers, particularly junior developers, are convinced they could "slap together something in one weekend" that would replace expensive SAAS software and "just do the parts of it we actually use". Unfortunately, the same arguments against those devs regular-coding a bespoke replacement apply to them vibe-coding a bespoke replacement: management simply doesn't want to be responsible…

sorry, what do you mean?

1. Enthusiastic employee (vibe-)codes a replacement for a turnkey SaaS product that the company uses.

2. Company uses it, maybe even starts to rely on it for important business operations, and for a time the employee supports that app.

3. Bugs creep in, feature request pile up.

4. Employee either leaves the company or moves on to another project.

5. Pain

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#174

Post by Ucalegon »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #153
rvnx wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mail server in a router is easy to host, the problem is: 1) Uptime (though this could be partially alleviated by retries) and most of all: 2) "Trust"/"Spam score" It's the main reason to use Sendgrid, AWS, Google, etc. Their "value" is not the email service, it's that their SMTP servers are trusted. If tomorrow I can just send from localhost instead of going through Google it's fine for me, but in reality, my ema…

The specific concern around uptime & reliability was baked into email systems from almost the start - undeliverable notifications (for the sender) and retries. But yes, the “trust / spam score” is a legit challenge. If only device manufacturers were held liable for security flaws, but we sadly don’t live in that timeline.

Its not a device/MTA issue, SMTP just is not a secure protocol and there is not much you can do in order to 'secure' human communication. Things like spoofing or social engineering are near impossible to address within SMTP without external systems doing some sort of analysis on the messages or in combination with other protocols like DNS.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#175

Post by brikym »

kriro wrote: post #78

I'd actually say the opposite is the case. B2B (even SaaS) is probably the most robust when it comes to AI resistance. The described "in house vibe coded SaaS replacement" does not mirror my experience in B2B at all. The B2B software mindset I've encountered the most is "We'll pay you so we don't have to wrestle with this and can focus on what we do. We'll pay you even more if we worry even less." which is basically…

Maybe you are right and the companies do want to pay and not worry about these problems. But now they have a lot more SaaS options to chose from. The incumbent companies like Salesforce and Atlassian have less of a moat. Maybe they'll keep the power users but if a customer is only using 80% of the feature set there is new competition. Competition might come in the form of a startup but it can also come from existing SaaS companies expanding into adjacent domains. Canva now does docs. Notion does email. etc

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#176

Post by coolgoose »

graemep wrote: post #151
MrDresden wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that SMBs are generally not run by people who feel confident doing any kind of self managed IT. No amount of LLM usage is going to change them into full stack vibe coders who moonlight as sysadmins. I just don't see it happening. Not until, that is, a new generation, that has grown accustomed to the tech, takes over. Until then the current SMBs will for the most part fulfill their IT needs from SaaS…

What new generation? Younger generations are less accustomed to self-managed tech.

This 100% most of new devices are locked, mobile etc.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#177

Post by badc0ffee »

rvnx wrote: post #150
isk517 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no chance that everyone would be running their own email server, but if it wasn't for the lack of IPv6 adaptation a plug and go home email server solution would probably see a decent amount of use. I'd bet we'd already be seeing it as a feature in most mid-ranged home routers by now.

The mail server in a router is easy to host, the problem is: 1) Uptime (though this could be partially alleviated by retries) and most of all: 2) "Trust"/"Spam score" It's the main reason to use Sendgrid, AWS, Google, etc. Their "value" is not the email service, it's that their SMTP servers are trusted. If tomorrow I can just send from localhost instead of going through Google it's fine for me, but in reality, my ema…

> "Trust"/"Spam score"

See jwz's struggles with hosting his own email. (Not linking to his blog here with HN as the referrer...)

With email, the 800 lb gorillas won, and in the end it didn't even solve the spam problem.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#178

Post by hbn »

sbarre wrote: post #173
misiti3780 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, what do you mean?

1. Enthusiastic employee (vibe-)codes a replacement for a turnkey SaaS product that the company uses. 2. Company uses it, maybe even starts to rely on it for important business operations, and for a time the employee supports that app. 3. Bugs creep in, feature request pile up. 4. Employee either leaves the company or moves on to another project. 5. Pain

And don't forget the safety in getting to say "our systems are down because of [X TRUSTED SOFTWARE FROM LARGE KNOWN BRAND] and we're just waiting for them to fix it" instead of "our shitty internal tooling is broken and no one knows how to fix it"

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#179

Post by AstroBen »

llmslave wrote: post #165
AstroBen wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atlassian: surviving since 2002 because no-one could previously build a kanban board or project management app

no the difference is 90% cost savings, which was previously impossible

How does a company charging 10% their competitor afford to compete on marketing, sales, design, user testing or customer service?

(this is even granting that AI is a 10x speedup for developers, which I don't agree with and no-one has shown)

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#180

Post by bandrami »

vladms wrote: post #170
misiti3780 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, what do you mean?

If I understand correctly many organizations will not develop original stuff internally, because nobody internally wants to be the one is shouted at if something goes wrong.

That's a huge part of it. But also you presumably hired a full-time programmer for a reason, and in almost every case that reason was not to have somebody to write and maintain your CRM system. So any system they build and maintain is not just another thing for you to worry about, it's a huge chunk of time that the developer isn't doing what you hired them for.
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