Saas
328 tweets
Tailwind lays of 75% of their team. the reason is so ironic: > their css framework became extremely popular w AI coding agents, 75m downloads/mo > that meant nobody would visit their docs where they promoted paid offerings > resulting in 40% drop in traffic & 80% revenue loss
From an eng responsible for AI tooling at a mid-sized company (100+ devs): "Our execs read a blog post about Claude Code and ask: 'why are we not all using it?' Me: well, none of you would approve going from $40/mo on GitHub to $65/mo on Cursor... Claude Code is $150/mo."
Before Adam posted his podcast episode, Tailwind had: - 13 Partners at $5000 - 3 Ambassadors at $2500 - 5 supporters at $500 => $75k MRR Now: - 22 Partners at $5000 - 4 Ambassadors at $2500 - 22 supporters at $500 => $131k MRR That's +$56k MRR with a tweet, not counting the Tailwind+ sub boosts, free PR, and all the long-term ripple effects for the business that are yet to come. The community is now sensitized to the cause and are much more likely to convert into a subscription in the future than they would have before this, just because Adam sounded like a human and not a faceless corporation. When you build something people love with a great attention to craft and manage to tell a compelling story, people show up for you. That’s something a data driven founder, busy optimizing funnels and nudging button colors, will never quite reach. Because trust isn’t a metric, goodwill doesn’t fit in a dashboard, and people don’t rally behind experiments. They rally behind work that feels intentional, human, and worth supporting.
Weft. I wanted a personal board where agents could pick up some of my daily tasks. Think Trello, but agents do your tasks for you. Agents can connect to Gmail, Docs, GitHub, or any MCP server. All tasks have access to a Sandbox with Claude Code. Built on @CloudflareDev
2026 is the GREATEST time to build a startup in 30 years I’m 36. I’ve sold 3 startups, helped build companies that raised billions, and backed teams from seed to unicorn. 20 MEGA shifts that make this the BEST time to build in a GENERATION: 1. Hardware got smart. Download open-source AI models from HuggingFace to cheap robots and they're suddenly smart. Opens up tons of use-cases. 2. SaaS is imploding. AI can replicate $500K software for pennies. Enterprise software that took 30 engineers now requires 1 and a Claude Code subscription. Founders will go more niche and more custom and outprice incumbents. 3. Outcome-based pricing is eating subscriptions. With AI agents handling work automatically, founders can guarantee results instead of selling features. This creates a massive arbitrage opportunity to steal market share from rigid subscription models. 4. Vibe marketing is the new marketing. AI agents/tools like Lindy, Gemini and Claude Code Using agents to do personalized outreach, ads and content creation it’s getting good. This is like getting on social in 2005. 5. Social is FYP-ified. Distribution no longer requires massive followings, just content that hits. Founders can build audience from zero without ads and then convert them to owned media channels (text/email). 6. Interfaces are vanishing. Conversations are replacing dashboards across industries. This removes training barriers and means customers can use sophisticated products immediately. 7. Companies are obsessed with efficiency and cutting costs right now. Corporate budgets are getting reallocated to AI. Companies are cutting traditional software spend to make room for AI-powered alternatives. This creates fast-tracked approvals for startups delivering 10x efficiency. 8. 99% of MVPs won't need VC. Low-cost MVPs combined with creator partnerships and AI automation allow bootstrapped scaling. For most software businesses, outside funding is now unnecessary. 9. Global teams. You don’t need to hire in your own city anymore. Opens up tons of arbitrage opportunities and ways to create products unlike before. 10. Millions of creators want to get paid. If you have the right product, the right network of creators, you can hit scale insanely efficiently. Never before did this exist. Next gen founders are building startups community first, software second. 11. Prototyping is nearly instant. With Lovable, Rork etc, you can test ideas in days, not months. MVP speed is basically 1x/week. This creates room for multiple products from small companies (multipreneurship), helps get to PMF faster, 12. LLM APIs create building blocks weekly. I can’t even keep up with how many new APIs/tools coming out from LLMs weekly. Example: Nano Banana pro comes out, probably 1000 ideas built on top of that can be $5M/year businesses. 13. $1m+ revenue per employee. With the leverage of LLMs, community and agents, employees are way more efficient. It won’t be uncommon to generate $1m per employee. This will lead to a rise of "multipreneurship", small teams owning multiple products /businesses. Holding companies will be as common as startups. 14. Superniche is the new niche. Because costs to create software startups is 1/100th, you can service little niches (i call them superniches) and still have a life-changing business. 15. Mobile app ecosystem about to 10X. 2 reasons. First is, adding AI to apps make apps more useful. More useful apps, make more money. Second, 16. Compliance and boring workflows are suddenly buildable. Permits, audits, insurance, payroll edge cases, filings, RFPs. These were “too annoying” for startups before. Agents thrive on rules, checklists, and repetition. The least sexy problems now have the best unit economics. 17. Claude Code killed the “engineering bottleneck.” The constraint is no longer “can we build it,” it’s “do we understand the workflow deeply enough.” The winning founders are ex-operators who encode tribal knowledge into agents. Code is cheap. Taste + domain insight is scarce. 18. The long tail of software is now profitable. Niches that capped at $200k ARR can clear $5M with near-zero marginal cost. 19. Services are quietly becoming software. Manual agencies are one agent away from product margins. 20. if AI can replicate $500K software for $20/month, what’s your moat? distribution, customer service, brand, data etc. REALLY good time to be a world class designer/marketer. (and even more.... but this is getting long already!) We've entered the rarest of windows... when multiple technological shifts collide at once, creating a brief period where small teams can build things that were previously impossible. THE FUTURE OF BUILDING STARTUPS IS DIFFERENT. I know this... This unique moment won't last forever. Markets will adapt. Giants will respond. The window will close. But right now, a founder with clear vision and bias for action can build more in six months than was previously possible in years. (note: if you need an idea to get creative juices flowing, grab one at @ideabrowser) The next generation of great companies is being created right now, many by founders you've never heard of. Some by people who would never have had a shot in previous cycles. That's the beauty of these rare windows. The playing field briefly levels, and the future belongs to those who see it clearly and move first. It's a sacred time, don't bookmark/share this, build something in 2026, will ya? Happy building, my friends. 2026 is yours. Am I wrong?
Founders think $100,000 MRR is freedom, and that's absolutely true! Full breakdown of @seobotai economy: OpenAI API: $18,000 Anthropic API: $17,000 Gemini: $1,500 MongoDB: $3,000 Google Cloud: $2,900 Tolt & affiliates: $9,200 Exa: $2,000 Perplexity AI: $3,400 Intercom: $600 Ahrefs: $999 DataForSEO: $1,999 Pinecone: $599 ScrapingBee: $199 ScreenshotOne: $100 Apify: $1,999 Unicorn Platform: $49 Cursor: $20 Zoho: $99 Support agents: $1,999 Accounting: $499 Stripe fees: $5,000 Design: $499 Wrapifai API: $1,999 Hetzner: $199 Cloudflare: $99 BunnyCDN: $10 AWS: $199 Firecrawl: $399 ListingBott: $5,000 Thai massage: $999 Other: $2,999 Taxes: $16,000 Total spend: $99,563 Total earned: $100,000 Profit: $437. No matter the profit, I live my life on my own terms.
Ladies and gentlemen: Over the next week, we’ll be launching a handful of updates for our creators & power users. To kick things off, we’re opening up X Articles to all Premium subscribers. We’ve seen some incredible articles go viral over the last few weeks — and we’d love to see more writers posting on X. More to come.
You guys realize that all software is about to be free, right? And software is presently the most valuable capital asset, right? Guys?
On demand software generation is going to be as common and foundational in the next 3 years as SaaS is today. Most actions humans will take online and in some cases in person will cause software to be created. Going to be wild to see it happen!
2025 was the year that "Chinese peptides" took over SF. I wrote about it in my first for the NYT: gift link here https://nytimes.com/2026/01/03/business/chinese-peptides-silicon-valley.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BlA.bSI-.5puwhP1yiF6B&smid=url-share…
Disney has signed a deal with OpenAI & invested $1 billion into the company Sora will now be able to AI generate videos based on animated, masked & creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar & Star Wars Curated selections of AI generated videos will be released on Disney+
“Software is eating the world, and now AI is eating software.”
Software 2.0
Europeans are shifting from Stripe to Polar I already have all the code ready for Stripe that can be reused. Is it worth switching to Polar just for tax handling?
AI agents will be a big part of how we shop in the not-so-distant future. To help lay the groundwork, we partnered with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart to create the Universal Commerce Protocol, a new open standard for agents and systems to talk to each other across every step of the shopping journey. And coming soon, UCP will power native checkout so you can buy directly on AI Mode and the @Geminiapp.
I'm trying to put together a list of all the distribution "channels" that work in 2026: 1. Organic Short Form 2. Niche Communities (Reddit, Discord, FB Groups) 3. ASO (App Store & Platform) 4. Personal Brand 5. UGC 6. Influencers 7. Engineering As Marketing (Free Tools) 8. SEO & AIO (incl. programmatic) 9. X & LinkedIn 10. Viral Video Launches 11. Organic Long Form (YouTube) 12. Cold Email & Outreach 13. Salespeople 14. Paid Ads 15. Affiliate 16. Feedback/Customer Calls 17. Timing & Trends 18. Positioning 19. Open Source What am I missing?
here is a list of all startup accelerators you can apply to right now: - a16z Speedrun ($750k–$1M for ~7–10%) - Y Combinator ($500k for ~7%) - Pioneer ($20k for 1%) - LAUNCH ($125k for 6–7%) - The Mint ($500k for 10%) - AngelPad ($120k for 7%) - Techstars ($220k for ~5–7%) - 500 Global ($112.5k for 6%) - Entrepreneur First ($250k for ~9%) - South Park Commons ($400k for 7% + $600k guaranteed follow-on) - HFO Residency ($1M uncapped for 5% or $500k uncapped + 3%) - NEO ($600k via uncapped SAFE with $10M floor valuation) - Sequoia Arc ($1M) - PearX ($250k–$2M) - Betaworks AI Camp ($500k) - Greylock Edge (SAFE note + $500k+ in credits) - Conviction Embed ($150k uncapped MFN SAFE) - OpenAI Converge ($1M equity investment) - Startup Wise Guys (up to €65k for equity) - APX (up to €500k, typically €50k for 5%) - Founders Fellowship ($150k for 5–10%) - Seedcamp (€100k–€200k for 7–7.5%) - Antler (€100k for 10% + stipend) - Google for Startups (up to $100k)Accel Atoms (up to $500k–$1M) - AI Grant ($250k uncapped) - AI2 Incubator ($50k–$150k)Afore Capital ($100k–$500k) - Berkeley SkyDeck ($200k) - Soma Capital ($100k) - Founder Institute (equity-based program with undisclosed funding) - Boost VC (up to $500k for 15%) - Antler ($200k–$250k for 8–9%)
Companies' internal tooling will become a set of Lovable apps with dependencies between them, all built by the people who actually use them.