Max Musing

There's a popular narrative on social media right now that AI can build software so quickly and cheaply that SaaS is dead (or will be soon).

Why pay for Linear when AI can build a project tracker in an afternoon? Why pay Stripe $30k/year when you can vibe code your own billing system in a weekend? The cost of building software has collapsed to near zero, therefore the value of selling software has collapsed to near zero. QED, SaaS is dead.

After four long years of grinding, building, fundraising, and hiring, we decided to pivot. I wanted to write down my thought process and timeline because I wish I d seen more honest pivot stories when we were stuck. Not just we pivoted and everything was instantly great but the real version where we kept trying to make the original idea work for way too long because we already put so much into it.

I went through YC S20 (the first COVID batch) as a solo founder working on @Basedash. After YC, I did what you re supposed to do. I talked to users. I built product. I did founder-led sales. I hired a great team. It felt like progress because I was constantly busy and the product kept getting better.

The funny thing about building an AI product right now is that the hard part keeps changing.

A couple years ago, I was obsessed with offline evals. They felt clean. You write a test, you run it every time you change something, and you get a number you can trust. If the number goes up, you ship. If it goes down, you fix it. It s the kind of engineering loop that makes you feel like you re in control.