SaaS is now for the domain experts - not VC-backed companies
Elena Verna recently wrote about the rise of “Mom-and-Pop SaaS”.
Her main point is simple.
AI is not just making developers faster. It is making software possible for people who were never software builders in the first place.
That matters.
For years, software was expensive to build. If the market was not big enough, the idea was not worth funding. That meant thousands of useful tools never got built.
Not because the problems were not real.
Because the economics did not work.
AI changes that.
A founder, consultant, coach, accountant, recruiter, or salesperson can now turn deep industry knowledge into software. Not perfect software. Not billion-dollar software. But useful software that solves a specific problem for a specific group of customers.
This is where Jevons Paradox becomes relevant.
Jevons Paradox says that when something becomes more efficient and cheaper to use, demand often increases rather than decreases.
So as software becomes cheaper to build, we should not expect less software.
We should expect more of it.
More niche tools.
More founder-led products.
More small SaaS businesses built around specific workflows, industries, and customer problems.
For startup founders, this is both exciting and dangerous.
Exciting because you can now build products faster than ever.
Dangerous because building is no longer the hardest part.
Selling is.
The market will not reward you for having an AI-built product. It will reward you for understanding a real customer problem, positioning the solution clearly, and creating enough trust for someone to pay.
That means sales discipline matters more, not less.
Talk to customers.
Find the pain.
Test the message.
Follow up properly.
Learn why people buy.
Learn why they don’t.
AI may help you build the product.
But customers still decide whether you have built something worth buying.
That is where the real work starts.
Credit: Inspired by Elena Verna’s article, “The Mom-and-Pop SaaS era has arrived.”
