- There is a huge shift happening in SaaS in 2023.
Artificial Intelligence is starting
to become more and more real.
Here's the thing.
Over the last few decades of Software as a Service,
we have been augmenting human beings, augmenting workers.
In a way, SaaS gives humans Iron Man suits.
It gives us superpowers, lets us do crazy things.
But now, the way Artificial Intelligence is developing,
specifically because of generative AI,
now that promise of replacing workers with software,
Software as a Service,
is starting to become more and more real.
And I think that this opens up
massive crazy new opportunities in SaaS in 2023.
In this episode, I'm gonna walk you through
the exact principles that you absolutely need to know
to take advantage of this generative AI movement.
I'm gonna walk you through three concrete SaaS ideas
around this generative AI movement
that I think are going to be huge in 2023.
And when you'll learn these principles and see these ideas,
you'll either take one of them and grow it
and hope you're wildly successful with it,
or you'll be able to apply these principles
to the ideas that you're already honing in on
to get to that next stage of growth.
Intro.
(punchy upbeat music)
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to Unstoppable.
I'm TK, and on this channel, I help SaaS founders like you
grow your SaaS business faster
with an unstoppable strategy.
Now, if you're new to this channel, welcome.
I drop an episode every single Sunday
with actionable strategies and tactics from the trenches,
from actually having been a SaaS founder
and still am a SaaS founder
from working with over 150 SaaS founders
in my Go-To-Market program
and another 150 SaaS founders in my Launch program.
From all of that, I bring you actionable principles
and tactics every single Sunday.
So, be sure to hit that subscribe button and that bell icon.
That way, you'll get notified every single time
I drop an episode with the TK energy.
Now, if you're already part of this channel,
if you're part of this community,
if you're part of my SaaS Go-To-Market coaching programs,
(bubble popping)
my people, welcome back.
It's really awesome to see you over here.
So, I remember when I was the SVP of Strategy at Marketo.
Marketo had bought my last SaaS company ToutApp.
And I was, you know, with the title like SVP of Strategy,
you basically get assigned a whole bunch of work
that no one else wants to do.
One of those things was M&A
which actually is part of this SVP of Strategy role.
And M&A was we wanted to buy more companies
and bring them into Marketo,
so we can inorganically grow the company faster.
And one of the key themes which is still true today,
but was also true back then
was to buy companies that were in AI.
The big problem was every single time
I started to do due diligence on a MarTech company,
super crowded space, that claim to do AI,
I didn't find any true AI.
What I found was a bunch of data scientists
hiding in the background, fussing with models,
trying to make it seem like it was amazing AI.
Fast forward to today,
things are starting to look a lot different.
This field around generative AI
is starting to become really, really hot.
And there's so many startups that are starting
to get into this space because it's so, so promising.
Here's a key thing that's different between normal AI
that we've been talking about and generative AI.
AI up until today has been
kinda about here's a bunch of data,
and I'll tell you if this thing is kinda similar
to everything that I know.
That's what most machine learning algorithms
are all about.
However, now with generative AI,
now the models have shifted to say,
"I know all of this data.
I ingested all this and understood all of this.
Now, I can create something net new for you
that no one has ever seen before."
Whether it's text, whether it's videos, whether it's images.
And this opens up a whole new area of applications
that can be built to actually replace workers
that are sitting there trying to use tools
to create net new things.
Whereas before, it was a perfectly good Iron Man suit
for a worker, but the worker
still had to do the creative work.
Now with generative AI, the AI can create the work output
and this changes everything.
And so in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through
the three key principles you absolutely need to know
tied with three concrete ideas,
SaaS ideas that you can go build
or you can use this inspiration that I know
are gonna be wildly successful in 2023.
And by the end of this episode,
I'll even give you a bonus principle that you can use
to stress test whether your idea is any good.
If you're excited to dig in, go ahead and smash out
the like button for the YouTube algorithm.
It really likes it when you do that.
And let's get into principle number one.
Okay, so principle number one.
This is the number one key type of trend in generative AI.
It is to take workers that create text
and instead use AI to generate the same text.
So, text generation is one of the biggest trends
in generative AI right now.
The API that you can tap into
that really provides this service,
the most amazing one is GPT-3.
This is by OpenAI, the company.
These APIs that are servicing this generative AI
are essentially kinda like AWS.
You don't have to think about how the database is run,
you just hit the API and the database
and the management of it is done for you.
Similarly with generative AI and these APIs,
you can actually just use them.
You don't have to build the models yourself.
You just pay them for access to the model.
In a way, it's a model as a service.
I didn't make that up.
That was from Chamath from The All-In Pod.
So, shout out to him.
So, the first principle is you can go find workers
who are creating text,
and then instead of the workers creating the text,
you can create a SaaS offering and leveraging GPT-3
that creates the text instead of them.
This is super powerful.
You start to think about my home, my default,
that I always think about MarTech.
But obviously MarTech, sales, tech support,
heck, even finance, creating reports.
You can start to think about how if you have access
to a bunch of data and you have this GPT-3 API
that can take that data and start to summarize things
or start to generate text that represents a certain context.
That's truly creative, truly generative.
It can be a game changer in replacing workers.
So, that's principle number one.
Starting to think in terms of what is text being created
that you can actually use this AI that exists now
through an API call and you can put a layer on top,
a SaaS offering on top that uses this API
to create the text instead.
Now, the second principle that you can think
about in generative AI is you can identify
where are their workers that are creating images.
This is the second type of AI, that generative AI
that's starting to become available.
And in this case, what you wanna think
about is who's sitting in front of a computer
and creating images?
Any form of image whether it's charts,
whether it's cartoons, whether it's a T-shirt,
whether it's a logo.
Like, the possibilities are enormous.
Whether it's art.
And instead you can say, "You know what?
We're gonna replace the worker and we're just gonna put in
the AI that creates these images."
It's a similar principle.
The API that you can build on top of for this
is also by OpenAI and it's called DALL-E.
And with DALL-E, it's similar to this GPT-3.
You can actually type in or programmatically define,
"Hey, here's kind of what I'm looking to create."
And the API will create it for you.
Instead of giving text which is what GPT-3 will do,
DALL-E will give you images.
That's super powerful.
And similarly, the same principle here applies.
Find industries, verticals, roles
where workers are sitting in front of a computer
and creating images and start to figure out
if you can actually build a SaaS offering
that completely replaces that job.
Now, before I go to the third one,
which I think is like kinda hits home,
but also really amazing.
And the bonus one, let me just pause here for a second.
And you start to see the power in this.
Now, the last 20 years, 30 years of SaaS,
and heck, the 50 years of software
has been about how do we take human beings,
people working in their jobs
and how do we give them Iron Man suits
to actually be more effective in what they do?
Now, that AI can start to create things,
you can start to really take a shot at saying,
"You know what?
Maybe we don't need the worker to actually do the creation.
We don't need to give them tooling.
We are the worker, the AI is the worker."
If you're starting to see the power in this,
and if you start to think
about it in terms of this framework
of where are the workers that are creating the text
and can we replace the worker with the AI
who can now create text?
Where are the workers that are creating images?
And can we replace the worker with the AI
that can create the images instead?
Another way to think about it is usually,
there's someone else that's hiring these workers.
Maybe you're an entrepreneur and you're gonna go hire
a freelance designer to build a logo.
Maybe you can create the AI and the SaaS offering
purely targeting the people that tend to hire
these freelance workers and say,
"Hey, you can hire the worker or you can just use this AI
and we'll do it at cost for you."
It starts to shift the dynamics.
The pricing dynamics and the quality dynamics
and the scale dynamics.
You start to see the power of generative AI
and why just even these two ideas
in terms of workers that are creating text
or workers that are creating images,
and you can create a SaaS offering
that replaces the workers.
If you start to see the power in this
because of generative AI,
can I just get a yes in the comments below?
Also, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm
if you're starting to get this.
It really likes it when you do that.
Now, if you're at this stage where you're pre-revenue
and you're really developing your ideas
and you wanna get into the right trend,
you wanna sought for the right market,
I run a training every single week
that you can access on demand.
It's completely free.
It's a 45-minute training that's in-depth
on how to actually flesh out your SaaS idea,
how to validate it in the market
without wasting months building the wrong product.
You should definitely check out that training.
I'll link to it below.
You don't have to go anywhere right now,
but you should definitely check it out.
Right now, let's go into principle number three,
which is one of the things that hits home to me
and is also kinda weird, but is also really amazing.
Okay, principle number three is where there are workers
and what they're creating is audio or video.
And you can kinda see
the logical progression of this, right?
OpenAI doesn't really, at least not that I know of,
doesn't have an API that'll go outright
and create audio or video.
You have to go to some other companies,
but there are APIs out there.
The one that stood out to me in my research
is called Synthesia,
and they're really cool because they give you
programmatic access to their models.
And what you can do is feed them a script
or feed them a bunch of texts
and they'll create a computer-generated
pretty real looking avatar
or a human looking person that's AI
that's literally talking to you
following that script in a real way.
You can see how this hits home
because maybe in a year from now,
I'm no longer doing these videos,
but it's my computer generated AI image.
And so when I say workers, I don't mean in a derogatory way.
I mean, literally like I work on these YouTube videos,
and maybe I'm gonna be replaced with AI.
Maybe I just write the script
and the AI does everything else.
I just don't know if they'll have the TK energy though.
But you get the point
in the same way you can follow the same principle
while if there are workers
that are creating this audio or video.
You think in terms of newscasters,
podcasters, YouTubers, actors.
Like, possibilities are endless.
Can you replace that with AI and just create
the audio or the video based on the source dataset?
And this is the third key principle that you can apply.
One of the coolest things about this,
and as is true with SaaS
is you can actually chain these APIs.
Let's just say you have a unique data set
in some organization.
You have some unique data set
and what you can do is take in that data
and feed it into GPT-3 and say,
"Hey, here's a whole bunch of data.
Can you you summarize it to something meaningful?"
From GPT-3, you can also say,
"Hey, also describe this data in a succinct way,
in a vivid way."
And let's just say you take that output
and you plug that into DALL-E
so it creates an image for you.
Along with that image,
let's just say you plug that into Synthesia
and it creates some sort of script
and creates some sort of visual summary.
And then, in the end you have this AI-generated video
along with this AI-generated image
all sourced from this AI generated text
that was summarized from this raw data source.
You can start to see how each of these APIs
can compound into an amazing AI offering as well.
This is why what's happening in AI
and what's happening in SaaS is so exciting,
particularly in 2023 because we're just at the cusp of that.
Is it gonna be perfectly applicable for every industry?
Is it gonna be perfect?
We don't know yet.
We may be super in the super early days of generative AI
or it's about to have a 10x yield.
And this is where startups thrive.
Brand new technology starting to come together.
Whole set of applications
that can completely change the game
and the economics of any sort of work
and business environment or even consumer environment.
And so, this is where things really start to come together.
So, these are the three principles that you can apply
to start to think about, "Hey, what are some ideas?"
And I'm giving you some concrete ideas over here.
Find workers that are creating text
and you can replace that with a SaaS offering
using AI that's generative AI.
How do you actually figure out if this is gonna work or not?
This is where I go to this bonus principle.
The bonus principle that you absolutely wanna know
is there's essentially three core pillars
to every SaaS business, okay?
The first pillar is market.
The second pillar is your product.
And the third pillar is your go-to-market.
Even with something as crazy new as generative AI or AI,
the core principles of what makes a successful business
is still the same.
What you wanna do is find a market
where there's an urgent and important problem.
Where maybe there's not enough workers
to actually fulfill the demand that exists
or it's too expensive.
And then you can see if you can build a product
using one or more of these APIs
that takes what the worker is doing right now
and does it better, or as well or at a fraction of the cost.
And then, you wanna see how you can actually
go into the market and validate this and stress test this
before you spend months building the wrong product.
This is essentially the framework that I follow
to validate and test any SaaS idea.
This is the framework that I also follow
to actually come up with SaaS ideas.
For me, I know that there's a big technological shift
happening with AI, especially with generative AI.
And I know that there's a lot of workers out there
just creating text or creating images
or creating audio and video.
And if my SaaS solution in 2023 or beyond
can actually use these APIs or chain these APIs
to either augment these workers, replace these workers,
or make them 10 times more effective,
then I know have have a winning SaaS solution.
And that's the power behind this video.
So, if you're at that stage where you're flushing out
your SaaS idea and your pre-revenue,
what you wanna do is make sure
you're stress testing this idea
before you waste months building the wrong product.
This is why I run a weekly webinar where I go in-depth
into exactly these three key pillars
and how to actually validate your SaaS idea
and get to initial revenues.
All you have to do is completely free.
To watch this 45-minute in-depth training.
Just go to tkkader.com/webinar, tkkader.com/webinar
and inside of that webinar,
I'll go in-depth into how to actually flesh out your idea,
use these technological advances that are happening,
these macro trends that are happening,
identify the right market,
think about your product in the right way
and go stress test it in the market
and drive to initial revenue.
It's completely free.
Just go to tkkader.com/webinar
If you got value from this video,
you start to see the power of generative AI
and why I'm so excited about it.
You're starting get ideas on,
"Hey, I can go with one of these ideas
or I can tweak it in this."
Or, "I can apply it to my idea."
Please smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
It really loves it when you do that.
Also, my team and I put a lot of love into these videos.
It means the world to us when you do that as well.
Also, comment below with how you're thinking
about the generative AI space, what idea you are working on.
I love hearing from you guys.
And if you have specific questions, you can post there.
I'll reply as well.
Also, I drop an episode every single Sunday
with actionable strategies and tactics from the trenches
on how to grow your SaaS business.
So, be sure to hit that subscribe button
and that bell icon where you'll get notified
every single time to drop an episode.
Also, if you're part of a Slack group or WhatsApp,
or if you have other founders or team members
who get value from this video.
They're starting to think about how to think
about generative AI or SaaS ideas in 2023,
please share this video with them.
It just mean the world to us.
And last, remember, everyone needs a strategy
for their life and their business.
When you are with us, yours is gonna be unstoppable.
I'm TK and I'll see you in the next episode.
Or instead of that, in-depth training, tkkader.com/webinar.
Also link to it below.
(bright music)