AI will not build your Saas

My friend Brian Casel and I have New Podcast. In it, we invited other founders to discuss (and debate) the facts of building a business.

In our first stage with Colleen Schnettler and Tyler King, the Subject to AI came.

Some people think AI will make the launch of software products not important. “I’m not convinced,” I told our panel. I don’t think AI can replace a talented person expert to make the whole experience.

Colleen Schnettler, the founder of Hello Query, agree: “AI is very good at these individual things, but not very good at the level of system.”

If you build a product, you want to try out the details: each screen, each run by the user, and each interaction. These elements contribute to the general sense of quality. A web app feels strong if all its pieces have strong architecture and unity.

We’ve all used products that are not well-dressed and have frequent bugs-buttons not responding if clicked, randomly crashed, and confusing errors. Instead of being a coherent experience, they felt janky, as they were held in duct tape.

Cheap, bad making apps always exist. In “SaaS / Indie Hacker Gold Rush,” Many people are willing to make Colleen called “Crappy Little Apps.”

If there is anything, this new wave of AI-Generated “Crappy Apps” will make more opportunities for talented builders who care about quality.

As Brian Casel’s pointed, “customers are more skilled and have a higher bar in terms of what they are willing to put on software tools they buy and use in their businesses.”

What makes people talk about, recommend, and use an app a great user experience.

The hardest part is not the building

In our panel discussion, Tyler King hit the nail on the head:

“The hardest part about SaaS is never the building. It draws to anyone who can notice you.”

Even if your product is good, you need to find customers.

I used to say how the founders had to stack every advantage they needed to notice:

• SEO skills

• Connections

• product quality

• Customer Service

• Payment claim skills (ads)

• Ability to connect an audience

• Build a reputation in an industry

Many good sales have gathered these resources throughout life and deploys it to get the distribution of your product.

Marketing materials made by AI Generic, no soul, and not unique. The public is tired of them. What’s going out? The touch of the person.

As Brian said, “People longing for a person’s connection, the genuble person. Well done by the youtubers because people connect them by video. If I’m looking for something on Google, what I’m looking for a Google -Klik? Reddit links. Why? Because there are people who are. “

An AI does not pay attention to the way you can

Another quote me is:

“In a small business, anyone who cares about customers, won.”

Small businesses often compete by willingness to do what major incumbent can do. When people ask me the TransistorLive chat on what is the difference between us and the Spotify, I say: “Daniel EK (Spotify’s CEO) doesn’t answer customer support tickets.”

If you ask for an AI to make an app for you, it doesn’t matter to the overall experience in the way you can.

If you ask an AI to write to you a blog post, it doesn’t matter about something heard by the audience you have built for 10 years.

For years, Indie Saas Founders put “Made with Jill and Bob” on the footer on their websites. It is the heart that has made us divorced.

Cheers,
Justin Jackson

Talk to me at:
🦋 Bluesky
💼 LinkedIn
🐘 Mastodon

PS: My friend Josh Wood also wrote a great piece about this subject: How can software developers use LLMs while avoiding traps?