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AI is killing B2B SaaS

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Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#181

Post by yw3410 »

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…

Not to detract from your wider point, but there's a few ISPs which own IP blocks which aren't blacklisted.

I had quite a bit of success with it and of course, DKIM and the other measures you can take some years back.

For personal emails, I don't think I had any which fed straight into spam.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#182

Post by sbarre »

hbn wrote: post #178
sbarre wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Yes that's reverse-implied(??) in the "Pain" step. ;-)

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#183

Post by kuil009 »

This feels a lot like the old RPA hype cycle to me — more sales narrative than structural change.

Most companies are not going to replace stable SaaS with a pile of AI-generated internal tools. They don’t want the maintenance or the risk.

If there’s a real B2B game changer, it’s Microsoft.

The day Excel gets a serious, domain-aware AI that can actually model workflows, clean data, and automate logic properly, half of these “build vs buy” debates disappear. People will just solve problems where they already work.

Excel has always been the real business platform. AI will just double down on that, not kill SaaS.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#184

Post by bandrami »

jonwinstanley wrote: post #168
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…

So you think this downturn will be short lived? When management realise that the vibe coded projects are not maintainable, SAAS will be as popular as ever

I don't do tea leaves so I wouldn't commit to that, particularly because I think SAAS was oversold in general even before LLMs came out. But I think the idea that the industry as a whole will shrivel away just isn't feasible, even if there is a correction.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#185

Post by FlyingSnake »

mbesto wrote: post #136

1. This isn't rooted in data but anecdotes "One Series E CEO told me that they’re re-evaluating the quarterly renewal of their engineering productivity software because they along with an engineer reimplemented something using Github and Notion APIs. They were paying $30,000 to a popular tool3 and they were not going to renew anymore." 2. These anecdotes are about tech startups spend, not your . Nor or they grounded…

Exactly. This sounds like a barber advising which haircut to get.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#186

Post by mittensc »

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…

what if this time it's senior developers and they actually can slap something together better then the expensive SAAS offerings?

what if the expensive SAAS offering is just as vibe coded and poor quality as what a junior offers?

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#187

Post by sbarre »

bandrami wrote: post #184
jonwinstanley wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think this downturn will be short lived? When management realise that the vibe coded projects are not maintainable, SAAS will be as popular as ever

I don't do tea leaves so I wouldn't commit to that, particularly because I think SAAS was oversold in general even before LLMs came out. But I think the idea that the industry as a whole will shrivel away just isn't feasible, even if there is a correction.

The B2B startup motto of "where someone is using Excel to do something other than accounting, there's a startup waiting to happen" has been shockingly resilient over the decades, and I suspect will continue to be.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#188

Post by chasd00 »

d_watt wrote: post #2

I think one of the interesting things here is that AI doesn't need to be able build B2B SaaS to kill it. So much of the overhead of B2B SaaS companies is thinking about multitenancy, intergrating with many auth providers and mapping those concepts to the program's user system, juggling 100 features when any given customer only needs 10 of them, creating PLG upsell flows to optimize conversions, instrumenting A/B test…

there's no shortage of software engineers, if it was so easy for an organization to replace a saas with something built in-house they'd be doing it all the time. In my experience in enterprise consulting implementing a well defined requirement is the easiest part. Getting everyone to agree on the requirement, getting it defined, and stopping it from changing after every demo is the hard part.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#189

Post by onurcel »

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…

I agree with you. In B2B SaaS you don't sell the software, you sell your expertise in a specific domain and the responsability you take for owning that expertise. The fact that the development costs are nearly zero will make them more valuable and more protifable

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#190

Post by takklob »

kuil009 wrote: post #183

This feels a lot like the old RPA hype cycle to me — more sales narrative than structural change. Most companies are not going to replace stable SaaS with a pile of AI-generated internal tools. They don’t want the maintenance or the risk. If there’s a real B2B game changer, it’s Microsoft. The day Excel gets a serious, domain-aware AI that can actually model workflows, clean data, and automate logic properly, half of…

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