The future of AI is about scale and personalizationā not replacement.
Posts by MathewMakes
Who else is using LLMs to build their brand ?
Interesting.. but what's your value proposition ? Almost all of these products are pre product market fit ? Want to build something better ... add searchable metrics for what buyers look for ... MRR, Churn, Customer count.. searchable by tech stack.
Truly mind boggling assertions here. These people won the lottery and were utterly miserable assholes. If you told me in 1990 that a company built around putting a face to a name on college campuses would have brought about the collapse of decent society.. I would have slapped you across the face.
For first time founders let me give you 5 real problems in the Insurance Brokerage that are begging for a #SaaS:
1. Endorsement Databases integrated with AMS
2. Commission Reconciliation
3. Generic Benchmarking tools
4. Proposal automation
5. Realtime Claims integrations with Carriers
#insurtech
I'd like to hear a single story of someone acquiring a #SaaS on Acquire.com and actually coming out on top. So many pre revenue SaaS products asking for insane valuations. I'd say 95+% of listings are pre product market fit. Marginally better than Fliipa...
If you have to pick your poison.. you're better off drinking nothing.
Everything in life is āpersonalā. The only people Iāve seen say āItās just business .. itās not personal..ā are people that canāt say āIām sorry.ā or donāt have the awareness to realize that they underestimated you.
If you think austerity in tech is new, you havenāt lived through 1990, 2000-2001, or 2007-2009.
It doesnāt take a crack genius to layoff talent into a recession .. BUT it does take balls of steel and conviction to hire into one though.
Bill Burr is an American Treasure
Any book that matters, I buy in print.
If you have a boss not invested in your success⦠itās time to find a new job. Too many leaders manipulate and donāt lead. Leadership takes a different type of commitment. Itās the type of commitment that picks up a call from a former employee .. 10 yrs later. #Leadership
Well, Twitter's out of my life for good. Trying Bluesky nowāstill skeptical of techbros (even as one myself). Been here before Google, Meta, or Twitter. If you told me in HS, tech would lead us here, I'd have asked you to put down the crackpipe.
#Bluesky #TwitterExit #Founder #SaaS
Lesson: Many ways to skin a cat.. but we only hear about the lottery ticket story of building a SaaS with little experience.
5. I began building Saas on the side 15 yrs ago. All side hustles ā I was determined to keep my day job. I built 6 SaaS products, 4 failed. One I sold for six figures . I never considered quitting my job.
4. After being tasked with laying off 500+ employees in my first role, I became determined not to be a victim and deemed to be independent by the time I was 50. I turn 50 next month. Mission accomplished.
3. My next role I selected a CIO role with lower pay and a smaller team explicitly because I would get equity⦠and I firmly believed that the company would be acquired. Over the last 5 yrs my equity has gone 20x.
2. Deep domain experience differentiated me, and I was able to get my pick CIO roles in my domain. Yet.. my career moves were puzzling to my peers. From F500 company to a smal company as my first CIO. With every role I asked if I would learn and whether it aligned with my long term goals.
1. Iām risk averse. I spent 25 yrs building out a career and gained deep domain knowledge. I worked my way up from Help Desk to CIO. Along the way an Associates , Bachelors and Masters Degree paid for by my employers ( 0 Debt )
āFree at last, free at last, Thank God almighty [Iām] are free at last!!ā
Finally waited out an earn out after an acquisition.
Itās something to watch an 8 figure wire transfer drop into your account.
Here are lessons from my atypical journey:
After reviewing hundreds of startups for investment in the last year, When I hear ā80% of startups fail in one yearā. I wonder where the 20% are worth investing in.
1. AI wrappers alone are worthless
2. No.. I donāt want another task list
3. If you donāt understand a problem, you canāt solve it.
Contrarianism as trait is almost always a negative. Consider contrarian view points to test your bias, but live most of your life in common ground.
So.. Microsoft has known about an issue impacting M365 going on almost 24 hrs now.. and they still haven't fixed the issue. Why can't they be honest?? Here's the official writeup from their tech team... MO941162
I'll take the contrarian view .. there hasn't been a better time to start a SaaS... if...
1ļøā£You can improve an existing product and serve a niche
2ļøā£Have deep domain experience and can solve problems for that domain.
3ļøā£You have capital to self fund.. say 50K
Patiently š¤waiting for an earn out.. šØbuilding out SaaS and šµinvesting in startups on the side.