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AI is killing B2B SaaS

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Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#641

Post by groundzeros2015 »

habinero wrote: post #527
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those things are true. It still doesn’t sound like 1000+ engineers at 350k/yr. What actually happens in a startup is you encounter these problems one at a time as they arise.

Startups have no users and no data to start with, and if they fuck up security, well, they just fail sooner than expected. Once you get past a certain size, you have very different sorts of problems. Any idiot can vibe code a facebook lookalike, but the real one has to handle hundreds of millions of users and posts while being a target for state actors. TLDR; yes you do need that many

> yes you do need that many

You absolutely do not. what do you think about the website we are using right now! It has half of the problems listed above.

> facebook

Your work project doesn’t have a billion users.

We were talking about what it would take to fix the technical problems resulting from taking a working program to something people use.

> Any idiot can vibe code

I didn’t say that either.

How is it the HN opinion that it’s impossible to make a web application a lot of people use?

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#642

Post by pixl97 »

falloutx wrote: post #529
pixl97 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lets take Figma as an example, Imagine you have 1000 employees, 300 of them need Figma, so you are paying 120k per year in Figma licenses. I mean in an example that almost happened... "you are paying 120k per year in Figma licenses, Adobe buys it, you are paying 500k per year in Figma licenses" At least up until the point of vibe coding it was still worth the SaaS provider charging at least as much if not slightly m…

By that logic, people should never use any Saas products because someday the price will increase. Then why even use Claude Code, someday they will get sick of losing money and increase the price to $1000/month.

I mean, yes it is a potential company ending risk if the continuation of your business depends on said SaaS product.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#643

Post by ActionHank »

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…

Also, it is my experience that exec and boards favour safe and well known B2B partners over in house. It's a more publicly defensible approach that gives them an out if things go wrong and shareholders get upset.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#644

Post by lazide »

nosianu wrote: post #537
kstrauser wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn’t politically savvy enough to do that. Honestly, I don’t want to be. The reality was that the project really could have been done in a month by a couple of people. It got turned into an enterprise project with multiple unaligned teams with Gantt charts and milestones and everything. Again, and I can’t emphasize this enough, for a Django CRUD app . It was a 4 person-week project turned into a major ordeal. No o…

> Honestly, I don’t want to be. I don't get it. On the other hand, programmers are happy to work with AI, which is incredibly limited and a pale shadow compared to the real "I" in educated and experienced meat brains. Also, networking - in both space and time (among the living, the latter with the dead, one way from them to us) - is THE gigantic advantage of humans. Not to want to bother with it is an equally giganti…

Some people like blowing things up, even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense at the time.

Some people like building things, even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense at the time.

Some people like meeting other people and making money, etc, etc.

Know thyself.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#645

Post by whurley23 »

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…

To be fair, re-creating the SaaS solution that simply replicates the features they see can often be done fairly simply. However, there are generally a whole lot of things under the surface. Then there is the whole hosting and maintaining the system, which is its own problem.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#646

Post by lazide »

whurley23 wrote: post #645
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…

To be fair, re-creating the SaaS solution that simply replicates the features they see can often be done fairly simply. However, there are generally a whole lot of things under the surface. Then there is the whole hosting and maintaining the system, which is its own problem.

Also, management doesn’t have time to fully understand it, which means they need at least one employee who does. And that employee now has leverage.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#647

Post by thinkindie »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #627
thinkindie wrote: post #565

I have few sticks in the sand in my thinking framework: * writing code has always been the easiest part of building software, deciding what to do and what not to do is something else that takes forever sometimes * there are several open source projects that can replace commercial SaaS and still people prefer to purchase commercial SaaS. These are available immediately, deployed immediately etc etc. * along the same l…

I agree with your larger point, however: > camcorders have been around for ages but you don't have millions of directors around just because you make a tool more accessible That’s exactly what happened. There are more filmmakers than ever now due to the accessibility of cheap cameras, then digital tools, including affordable HD cameras. Especially once the DSLR revolution took off circa 2011, which enabled budget-con…

My point was along this line: writing code is different than building a product as much as recording a video is different than telling a story with a movie (long and short that you want).

Do everyone has the capability to build a comprehensive set of features that we call a product to solve problems that people or business have in their life?

That’s why I’m always skeptical about measuring AI impact based solely on quantitative metrics.

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#648

Post by fsloth »

fsloth wrote: post #595
kavalg wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the beginning of my career, I've been once told by my senior management that I should never again: 1. Optimize things so that they work 10 000 times faster because it makes us look incompetent (must be done slowly to show gradual progress). 2. Brag about such optimization (to stakeholders) without first synchronizing this with them (so they can brag proportionally to their pay rate :) ).

IMHO I think the best any engineer can do in an org is to ask "what is the highest value problem to solve for the business" and "can I solve it". "I made this x times better" is not relevant to _most peoples in any org_. That's the dark secret. Nobody cares how good of an engineer you are _unless there is a fire to put out_. After which you get pat on the back and back to usual business. There are situations where ye…

The sad corollary to "you will be noticed only if you put out fires" is nobody actually realizes the elegant solution you shipped will stop tons of these fires from happening. Rather the reaction will be "that looked simple and easy so probably is not important".

And on the other hand, the complexifier (you know the type) ships rude goldberg gizmos just waiting to go off-kilter - and then they come in and save the day - and get rewarded. This creates a very strong "emperor has no clothes" syndrome until reality hits the organization really hard in the face. More often than not these horrible solutions are "good enough" and the show just goes on.

Don't take it too seriously! That's what people are like!

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#649

Post by osigurdson »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #626
osigurdson wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that current advantages would compound with AI. I.e., if I am making a SaaS for Popsicle stick makers today, why I am disadvantaged with AI vs a new competitor in the space? I guess the hypothesis is the Popsicle stick maker will vibe code all of the software that they need instead. For that, we need significantly better AI than we have today - perhaps something like a 1000X improvement. Basically, this is a…

That's not a 1000X improvement in current AI. That's more like a 2x ~ 5x improvement in current AI, which is measured in months.

So, within months your prompt can simply be "increase NPV" and machines will do the rest? If not, what prompt will work perfectly in your estimation by the end of the year?

Re: AI is killing B2B SaaS

#650

Post by sumtechguy »

sublinear wrote: post #577
kavalg wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the beginning of my career, I've been once told by my senior management that I should never again: 1. Optimize things so that they work 10 000 times faster because it makes us look incompetent (must be done slowly to show gradual progress). 2. Brag about such optimization (to stakeholders) without first synchronizing this with them (so they can brag proportionally to their pay rate :) ).

Unless you were working at a startup full of very naive people, I gotta say this sounds made up.

This happens all the time.

Basically build vs buy. The problem is on the 'buy' portion of looking at things the company failed. So they took who they had on hand and built something. It took a fresh perspective to say 'hey have you tried this' and looks like they did not want to hear it. I would say the right choice was made to move on.

This is wildly common. At that point they were committed to the wrong path at 'above my pay grade levels'. Once you get that buy in you better do it that way. Most companies will not pivot unless the champion for whatever is going on is removed in some way.

At 'my paygrade' I can prototype tech but I better make a good case why I need everyone else to do it too. If I dont I will be summerly ignored at best, at worst 'the guy with the lets rewrite the system hahahaha' guy. I might even be right about it. But the probelm is a jr level guy is not going to have the political cover to make it happen. Even if they are right.

But if you can get 'the higher ups' to buy in. Then it is quite dramatic how much better somethings putting that sort of tech in. Then other times it can be a total disaster. So you have to pick your hill to die on.

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