AI vs Building
In today’s SaaS landscape, knowing how to code is quickly becoming less critical for most ideas. The barrier to entry that once required either technical skills or substantial funding is fading. Where founders previously needed to either know a developer or raise money for a team (often outsourcing with mixed results), now even basic knowledge is enough to get started.
The advent of LLM-assisted IDEs, like CursorAI & Claude, has revolutionized the speed and efficiency of software development. You can now build relatively complex CRUD applications in less than a day—something unimaginable a few years ago, when tools like VSCode paired with GitHub Copilot first emerged.
This democratization of development tools is creating more competition. Entrepreneurs, product managers, and non-technical founders are no longer restricted by their coding skills or the need for expensive engineering resources. As a result, more startups and side projects will flood the market, making it harder for established players to maintain their market share. At the same time, this shift will inevitably lead to job cuts in mid-sized tech companies, as many positions once considered essential are now being automated or significantly augmented by AI-powered tools.
Marketing vs Distribution
In the early days of digital marketing, relatively low-cost CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) made it easy to scale campaigns and drive significant ROI. If you had product-market fit, you could essentially pour gasoline on the fire through paid advertising. But those days are coming to an end.
As competition increases, PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns have become more expensive and complex to run effectively, often making them a less attractive option for growth. Simultaneously, other traditional methods like cold emailing are also facing challenges. Consumers are becoming less receptive to sales-driven emails, and recent crackdowns by email providers like Microsoft and Google have made high-volume cold outreach even more difficult. While it’s still possible to generate results through cold emailing, it now requires a sophisticated tech stack and operational oversight before a sales rep even gets a response.
This leads us to one of the strongest long-term investments: SEO. Historically, SEO has been a slow burn, but highly rewarding in the long term. However, with the rise of LLMs scraping the web to power their models, the future of traditional search engines like Google and Bing is uncertain. More people are turning to AI-powered search tools that either supplement or bypass Google altogether. If this trend continues, the value of ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs) may diminish over time.
So, Now What?
As the landscape shifts, companies need to think strategically about how to maintain effective distribution and ROI in a world where traditional marketing channels are becoming less viable.
Here are three key areas with relatively low complexity but high long-term value:
- Podcasts: Hosting interviews with industry experts or thought leaders can be a powerful way to build authority and engage your target audience. Podcasts are intimate, and once you’ve established an audience, it’s easier to build trust and loyalty.
- Newsletters: Compiling a weekly industry newsletter can position your company as a knowledge hub while keeping you top of mind for your subscribers. This approach fosters community and long-term engagement.
- Short-Form Videos: Creating short, FAQ-type videos can be a great way to answer common questions in your niche while increasing your reach on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Video content is highly shareable, digestible, and often leads to faster traction than blog posts or longer-form content.
In my view, owned media is set to become the key moat for companies looking to differentiate in this hyper-competitive market. While you can leverage other people’s media—like sponsoring a newsletter or guesting on a podcast—there’s nothing quite like owning your own audience. Having control over your distribution channels not only builds long-term profitability but also provides leverage in negotiations with potential partners and clients.
If you’re looking to jumpstart this process, consider acquiring existing media properties. Marketplaces like Acquire.com or Flippa.com offer opportunities to purchase established newsletters or social media accounts in your industry for a relatively low investment. This can give you a head start in building your own distribution and reduce the time it takes to establish authority in your market.
While AI and automation are making certain parts of the SaaS process easier, the true challenge lies in navigating the rapidly shifting marketing landscape. The companies that succeed will be those that adapt to these changes quickly, focusing on building sustainable, owned media channels and finding innovative ways to distribute their message.