The Future of SaaS
AI as you know it is disrupting industries, and the software industry is at the forefront of this disruption. So what will be the future of SaaS, a model that presents users value for use?
The first and most important impact as we are already seeing is that the barrier for non-technical people to build software they require will drastically drop. This is evident in tools like lovable, bolt, replit etc... where users with no coding experience can whip up apps in a couple of minutes or hours as the case maybe.
Secondly, businesses will have the option to now consider building vs buying no more at the cost of dedicating talent to non core activities because services like Founding.dev built for the core purpose of enabling teams build internal tools without the burden of maintenance exist.
Thirdly software will be commoditized. AI is driving the cost of producing software down, Typically what would cost you assembling talent and thousands of dollars, is now being done with a couple of 100 bucks.
With all of this in play, SaaS products will now need to rethink positioning and the true value they bring to their customers beyond "software"
In all, this is a very interesting time for the human race. With AI going mainstream, the pace of innovation and creativity is bound to take a quantum leap, of course powered by humans. What are your thoughts?
Replies
vibecoder.date
SaaS has its place, the value was never just software, it was two fold.
Responsibility/liability management: Keeps data safe, guarantees correct results on reporting etc.
Productized Domain expertise. Software was the vehicle.
The new positioning is an evolution of the previous one. A problem solved faster than you can solve it yourself, with no maintenance headaches.
In house building attempts will increase and some will be successful, however it is up to the organization to truly put effort behind not just building but maintaining and upgrading their in house solutions. It takes active effort to keep software alive, to make sure user needs and business needs are met within the allotted time. I believe most orgs will succeed at building but will fail at maintaining.
Thus a new sector might arise. SMaaS, Software maintenance as a service. An agency or company will take over maintenance, upgrades, and security for in house software. This may become the standard and I am not sure if this itself could be productized with AI.
We don't have an agent capable of being a sole maintainer yet.
Kalendar.work
@build_with_aj Thanks a lot for sharing your perspective. One important aspect here is the ability to make changes according to your needs.
One of our customers who use docusign alternative by Founding Dev vibe coded a change where a button disappears if contract is received from a particular person. The current SaaS offering can never allow for these and this is going to be an important evolution of SaaS!
The real shift isn't just that building software is cheaper or faster, but that the value is moving from the code itself to how well the AI understands the individual user. We are building a personalized product right now and we see that the real moat isn't the feature set, but the context and memory the AI maintains. The future of SaaS feels much more like a partnership than just a tool. How do you see the role of data privacy evolving as we move toward this level of hyper-personalization?
Kalendar.work
@valeriia_kuna The real moat is the context! You're so spot on!!!!!!
IXORD
I think AI not only reduces costs in product creation through code. It can deliver a large part of the work, but controlling, evaluating, and deciding on that work will still be done by the product creator or a specific person. There are already a few examples where product creators became successful without investing much effort. Now the frequency of product creation will increase because it has become cheaper. On one hand, there will be many products to choose from. On the other hand, when it comes to the reliability of these products, I think the brand will play a key role.