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AI is killing B2B SaaS

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Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#271

Post by ralnivar »

runako wrote: post #233
mittensc wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> what if this time it's senior developers and they actually can slap something together better then the expensive SAAS offerings A typical SaaS customer will use many pieces of software (we mostly call them SaaS now) across its various functions: HR, accounting, CRM, etc. Each one of those will have access to the same pool of senior devs and AI tools, but they will pour more resources into each area and theoreticall…

We have replaced many SaaS with inhouse solutions, but most of these where lacking in quality and where part of our existing core business model which we where not "owning" prior. We can flip the argument where we have lost customers and revenue due to SaaS not delivering

The gains is generally more seen outside of monetary as these SaaS solutions where holding us back for achieving our goals and improving our services to our customers. As in the end of the day our customers do not care if "insert SaaS" is having issues, it will always be our problem to own.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#272

Post by scotty79 »

turnsout wrote: post #212
baxtr wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This vibe-coding-will-replace-SaaS insanity is the new crypto-will-replace-fiat-money insanity.

People really seem to believe that code is the only thing you need to make a SaaS company. It's like thinking a line cook is all you need to open a restaurant. There are so, so many other components to running a business.

SaaS is mostly sales.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#273

Post by TZubiri »

It seems like 'the market' is making this bet. I'm not deep into financial reports or whatever. But what I'm seeing from the tech side, this is not at all true.

If anything B2B SaaS is growing with AI, and it hasn't even begun, the biggest AI markets right now are personal. The B2B market is up for grabs for sure, 0%-1% of niches have an LLM product right now. But traditional SaaS has a huge advantage, they have reams of industry specific data, and they have the customers, sure they will have competition, but they are the incumbents.

If I had any money I'd buy the dip

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#274

Post by brianwawok »

cj wrote: post #263
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 I struggle with is developers wanting to leave platforms like Datadog for open source equivalents that need to be self-hosted. I hear all of the cost savings benefit, but I never see the team factoring in their own time (and others time) needed to set up and maintain these systems reliably long term. Something IC’s at company often struggle to understand is the reason why companies often prefer to buy managed so…

My log bill for Google cloud log would be like 30k. For splunk I like 80k. I self host for 1.5k per month. Spend maybe an hour a month? Easiest money I ever made.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#275

Post by trhway »

overfeed wrote: post #255
mym1990 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are certainly closer now to being able to prototype and go to market faster with a product. In one weekend is a little much but I think its hard to deny that building will continue to expedite. What most developers don't think about is that the marketing, sales, customer service are all non-trivial parts of the business/product and all require legwork that is more than just sitting at an IDE. The nail in the coffi…

> We are certainly closer now to being able to prototype and go to market faster with a product. What are the higher-order effects when anyone can do this, and *aaS becomes a market for Lemons?

in the 90-ies anyone could easily prototype with tools like Access (and all the other "4GL" tools which were similarly all the rage back then). That still didn't preclude companies from buying their major software from software vendors instead of doing it themselves.

In some sense having customer able to prototype what they want is a good thing. I did it myself as i was at the time on that side, and having a quick-whip-it tool was a good thing to quickly get some feature that was missing in the major software before that major software would add it (if at all). (And if one remembers for example Crystal Reports - while for "reports", it and the likes were in many senses such quick-whip-it tools for a lot of such customization that was doable by the customer.)

So, after initial aftershock - "Ahhhh, we don't need software companies anymore!" - we'll get to the state with software companies still doing their thing just with a lot of AI as specialization is one of the main thing in modern economy and AI becomes most powerful tools of the trade. (and various AI components themselves will be part of software delivery, like say a very fine-tuned model (hosted or on-premise) specific to the customer and software - Clippy on steroids)

(Of course some companies wouldn't survive the transition just like some companies didn't survive the transitions to client/server, cloud, etc. while some new companies will emerge like Anthropic has today or Borland had at the time)

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#276

Post by sdf2erf »

827a wrote: post #122

This isn't happening. The past six months has been rough on public B2B SaaS valuations, but the impact is a lot wider than just B2B SaaS (its all non-S&P10 software), and valuations are just vibes in the end. Most of these companies are, financially, doing pretty well; seeing key metric growth, including revenue and profit. This makes sense: AI does not fundamentally change the bargain SaaS brought to the table, that…

Equity markets both private and public are mangled today, for a wide range of reasons which I wont get into.

Financial performance e.g. revenue is what counts right now as any hard-evidence.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#277

Post by turnsout »

scotty79 wrote: post #272
turnsout wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People really seem to believe that code is the only thing you need to make a SaaS company. It's like thinking a line cook is all you need to open a restaurant. There are so, so many other components to running a business.

SaaS is mostly sales.

100%, particularly B2B SaaS

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#278

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

bandrami wrote: post #240
mym1990 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because what management wants and what builders want are not aligned, not because the quality of JIRA is so amazing that no other alternative could ever be created. JIRA is fine but many people I know that use have some qualms with it because the bloat is pretty crazy.

As Spolsky said a quarter century ago, "bloat" is just "bugs somebody already fixed". (He may have actually said that about "cruft", but the idea still applies.)

Hard to believe that it was that long ago!

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#279

Post by ozim »

vdfs wrote: post #254
DebtDeflation wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shocking to me how prevalent this "who needs Salesforce when everyone can just vibe code their own CRM from scratch in a day" narrative has become in the business press. Like, what???

That's not like "Who need Photoshop everyone can just vibe code their own photoshop" They could just download GIMP or find cheaper alternative, that was always an option

Same with „building custom businesses stuff” you can already do it quicker with existing CRM configuration without burning tokens.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#280

Post by [deleted] »

cj wrote: post #263
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 I struggle with is developers wanting to leave platforms like Datadog for open source equivalents that need to be self-hosted. I hear all of the cost savings benefit, but I never see the team factoring in their own time (and others time) needed to set up and maintain these systems reliably long term. Something IC’s at company often struggle to understand is the reason why companies often prefer to buy managed so…

[deleted]
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