Is SaaS dead?

Dirk Sahlmer spends his days looking at SaaS businesses through the eyes of buyers — and his answer is no. But the things that make a SaaS company valuable are changing fast.

In this episode, we get into what the SaaS M&A market actually looks like in 2026: which businesses buyers still want, what kind of multiples founders can realistically expect, why vertical SaaS is getting more attention, and why a business growing hundreds of percent a year can still be difficult for an acquirer to underwrite.

We talk about AI-native companies with incredible top-line growth but brutal churn, whether buyers actually care how much AI you're using internally, and why the dream of running a multi-million-dollar SaaS with three people and a small army of agents is still much more common on LinkedIn than behind the scenes.

Then there's vibe coding. If you can build a product in a weekend, can you sell it? Dirk explains why a little revenue isn't necessarily enough to make a vibe-coded product attractive to an acquirer — and why distribution, brand, customers and market access are becoming increasingly valuable as the underlying technology gets easier to replicate.

We also talk about the increasingly weird world of LinkedIn, why Dirk gets fewer impressions but more actual leads, and why reach might be one of the least interesting metrics for a niche expert.

Finally, we get into something founders often think about far too late: preparing for an exit. Increasing growth and profitability isn't the whole story. Customer concentration, geography, pricing, platform dependencies, hiring and product decisions can all influence what a buyer sees — which is why Dirk would rather start talking to a founder one or two years before they want to sell.



Timestamps:

00:00 — Is SaaS actually dead?

03:19 — What makes a SaaS business durable now?

06:41 — What happened to the “prompt engineer”?

08:08 — What are SaaS companies actually worth?

11:16 — SaaS multiples in 2026

13:24 — Can you really run a SaaS with three people and AI agents?

16:40 — AI growth vs sustainable growth

18:51 — Why great growth can't hide terrible churn

20:05 — Can you sell a vibe-coded SaaS?

21:39 — Is distribution becoming more valuable than product?

23:02 — Why strategic buyers increasingly care about distribution

24:54 — What happened to LinkedIn?

31:16 — Why reach is a vanity metric

32:49 — When personal posts outperform useful content

34:33 — What founders should ask an M&A advisor

35:08 — Why you should prepare for an exit years in advance

38:00 — What actually makes your company more attractive to buyers

40:42 — Don't let the AI bubble drive you insane


Dirk - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirksahlmer/
FE - https://www.feinternational.com/


sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina

https://soundsgoodpod.com

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/

What happens after you sell your SaaS?

Peter Leonard founded MyWorks, built it into a successful SaaS business, and eventually joined saas.group through an acquisition. The original plan was simple: sell the company and move on.

But Peter stayed.

In this episode, we talk about what happens when a founder moves from building and running their own SaaS to becoming part of a larger group — and how that changes your relationship with the company, the product, and your role as CEO.

We also get into what Peter is building next with Stockroom, a new product focused on B2B purchase orders and inventory management for Shopify. As Shopify continues pushing further into higher-volume B2B commerce, there are still plenty of operational problems that existing software doesn't solve particularly well.

From purchase orders and inventory workflows to the reality of competing with spreadsheets and manual processes, Peter explains where he sees the opportunities — and why “boring” software can still be incredibly valuable.

And then there's AI.

We talk about what AI actually changes for established SaaS products, where it creates leverage for small teams, and where it doesn't magically eliminate the need for deep product knowledge, reliable infrastructure, and software that businesses genuinely depend on.

Peter also shares what has changed for him personally since the acquisition: moving from founder to CEO, growing into a different kind of leadership role, and figuring out what it means to build the next chapter rather than simply starting another company.

Timestamps:

00:53 Introduction and Journey to Leadership
03:55 Navigating Change in a New Structure
06:40 The Role of AI in Business Growth
10:01 Building Relationships and Product Focus
12:43 Adopting AI: Challenges and Strategies
15:49 AI in Product Development and User Experience
19:03 Introducing Stock Room: A New Venture
21:59 Partnerships and the Future of E-commerce
26:12 The Role of Expertise in SaaS Development
30:42 The Future of Retail and AI Integration
35:46 Building Partnerships for Success
40:37 Finding Balance Beyond AI


Peter Leonard - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-leonard-tx/
MyWorks - https://myworks.software/

sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina
https://soundsgoodpod.com

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/

B2B marketing doesn't have to be boring.

Renée Shaw from tl;dv has turned humor, personality, and relentless experimentation into one of the company's most recognizable growth channels. Instead of treating social content as something marketing teams have to “do,” tl;dv built a culture where creators are given the freedom to experiment, fail, and figure out what makes people pay attention.

We talked about why a B2B company decided to put creators and comedy at the center of its marketing, how to measure something as messy as brand attention, and why trying to attribute every view to revenue can actually make your content worse.

Renée breaks down how their team comes up with ideas, why TikTok, LinkedIn, and Instagram require different instincts, how trends become original skits, and why volume matters when you're still figuring out what works.

We also get into the less obvious side of creator-led marketing: how to hire people who can actually make funny content, why they don't necessarily need to understand your industry, how a distributed team maintains the same voice without a giant tone-of-voice document, and why psychological safety and trust are essential for creative work.

And then there's the AI question. Renée explains why she's skeptical of AI-generated creative at scale, why she thinks human-made work is becoming more interesting, and why sometimes the best creative strategy is simply to stop optimizing everything.

Plus: the mistakes that taught her the most, the dangers of over-engineering content, creative burnout, why your ideas aren't as precious as you think, and what happens when you stop performing for an imaginary audience.

Timestamps:

00:00 — How Renée became “CEO” of tl;dv
03:33 — Why tl;dv hired creators before it was cool
04:58 — Taking a risk on unconventional B2B marketing
07:00 — Can you actually measure brand-driven growth?
09:48 — LinkedIn vs TikTok vs Instagram
12:50 — Why TikTok became a place to experiment
14:28 — Where do viral content ideas actually come from?
17:21 — The philosophy behind tl;dv's content
19:32 — How a remote team maintains culture
21:43 — Trust, ownership and psychological safety
24:09 — How to hire a creator for your company
25:57 — Why you might find your next creator in comedy
27:24 — Do creators need to understand your product?
27:29 — Would you hire an AI influencer?
30:33 — The actual process behind making a video
33:20 — Why not every video needs a product plug
38:38 — Culture, optimism and surviving competition
42:01 — How to avoid creative burnout
44:46 — The content experiments that completely flopped
47:07 — Why trying to be someone else doesn't work
48:32 — What exciting things are happening outside AI?
50:46 — Stop optimizing everything
52:40 — Why old sitcoms are surprisingly good for your brain
54:43 — Why human creativity might matter more than ever

Renée - https://www.linkedin.com/in/reneeeshaw/
tl;dv - https://tldv.io/

sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina

https://soundsgoodpod.com

[email protected]

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/

AI has made building software dramatically faster—but it hasn't made building the right software any easier.

Juan Germano, founder and CEO of Jams, builds custom web and mobile products with founders and operators. And after years of building software, he's seeing a fundamental shift in how products get designed, built, and launched.

We talked about what happens when founders can turn an idea into a working prototype in hours, why AI-generated roadmaps can be dangerously convincing, and why having unlimited building capacity can actually make products worse.

Juan also explains why the fundamentals of product development haven't changed: you still need to understand the problem, make the right trade-offs, launch, get feedback, and figure out how you're going to get your first users.

We get into why distribution needs to be designed into a product from day one, what AI means for software agencies and developers, why small senior teams may have an even bigger advantage now, and why Argentina could have a lot of SaaS opportunity hiding in plain sight.

And we talk about something that gets surprisingly little attention in the AI conversation: why human expertise, real-world experiences, communities, and authentic content may become more valuable—not less—as AI-generated everything takes over the internet.

One of the biggest takeaways: AI gives you more building capacity. It doesn't give you better judgment.


Timestamps:

00:00 - Is software development becoming a dying craft?
01:41 - Why product strategy matters more than ever
02:52 - Are we building for humans or AI agents?
04:46 - The rise of MCPs and APIs
07:02 - Why AI prototypes can be dangerous
07:17 - A prototype isn't a product
09:14 - What is the actual "product"?
11:29 - When AI creates the product roadmap
13:54 - Why founders still need product expertise
16:21 - Why six weeks still matters
17:13 - AI lets teams ship 10x more iterations
18:43 - More output doesn't mean better products
21:28 - The danger of unlimited building capacity
24:03 - The one-sitting approach to building
27:12 - Why small teams can move incredibly fast
30:31 - The new distribution problem
31:19 - The first question Juan asks every founder
33:41 - Designing distribution into the product
37:25 - What's happening in Argentina's SaaS market?
39:40 - The opportunity in legacy software
42:15 - What happens to WordPress in five years?
46:16 - How should founders work with software experts now?
47:37 - Using AI to turn ideas into tangible products
53:05 - How to use AI to write better prompts
54:47 - Juan's AI workflow
57:13 - AI is teaching us how bad we are at communicating
59:19 - What's exciting that isn't AI?
01:00:08 - Why timeless ideas still matter
01:02:33 - Escaping AI FOMO
01:03:40 - Will AI make communities more valuable?
01:05:59 - Are we actually going to work less?
01:08:14 - Why humans will still want human things
01:10:05 - Why people hate AI-generated art
01:11:09 - The value of authentic work

───

Juan Germano — https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejuangermano/

Jams — Custom web & mobile products for founders and operators

sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina

https://soundsgoodpod.com

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/

AI is making software easier to build—and that could be a serious problem for SaaS.

Roman, founder of BetterContact, believes SaaS companies increasingly need a real “right to exist” as AI-native companies start rebuilding existing software and aggregating multiple tools into simpler interfaces.

We talked about why tool sprawl is becoming a problem, whether SaaS will become increasingly API-first, why founders need to decide whether they're building for humans or AI agents, and why PLG alone may no longer be enough.

We also got into outbound, AI-generated content, founder-led sales, personalization, and why Roman thinks human-centric GTM could become even more important as AI takes over more of the sales process.

Timestamps:

00:00 - How Roman came up with BetterContact
01:44 - Why BetterContact chose a niche
05:02 - Does SaaS have a “right to exist”?
07:32 - Is AI going to replace SaaS?
10:04 - Choosing the right ICP
12:17 - Can AI giants replace data SaaS?
13:14 - Why PLG is getting harder
14:09 - The return of human-centric SaaS
16:26 - Will AI agents start buying software?
17:44 - UI vs API: what should SaaS build for?
19:35 - Are we building for humans or bots?
20:45 - Which parts of outbound AI can replace
23:05 - Why AI cold calling isn't taking over
25:07 - Founder-led sales and AI content
27:27 - Why generic AI content doesn't work
29:31 - The danger of founder-dependent brands
33:42 - Why outbound is still a powerful channel
35:33 - Why outbound is a numbers game
37:57 - Why personalization is now table stakes
40:40 - What “90% hit rate” actually means
43:26 - How much growth comes from outbound
45:58 - Why GTM events matter
48:22 - Will AI agents replace GTM?
50:44 - Why human-centric GTM could win
51:46 - Is there a perfect cold-call script?
53:49 - Why Roman is excited about air conditioners

───

Roman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/roman-hipp/
BetterContact - https://bettercontact.rocks/

sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina

https://soundsgoodpod.com

[email protected]

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/

AI is coming for SaaS—but probably not in the way most founders think.

Martin Gourdeau, CEO of Vacation Tracker, has spent years operating SaaS businesses at very different scales, from a 15-person company to Workleap, where he helped grow the business from roughly 275 to 450 people.

Now he's back in a small SaaS company, deliberately testing how far AI can take a business without massively increasing headcount.

And his view on the future of SaaS is refreshingly nuanced.

We talk about why AI could actually supercharge SaaS, why “shallow SaaS” is much more vulnerable to vibe coding, and why companies that own important data and become systems of record may be harder to replace than ever.

We also get into AI adoption inside a real SaaS company, the productivity trap of generating more and more without actually moving the business forward, pricing, trials, distribution, LLM discovery, YouTube as an AI visibility channel, and where Vacation Tracker is going next.

One of the biggest takeaways: AI has made building software dramatically easier—but that doesn't mean building the right software has become easier.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Is SaaS dead in Quebec?
01:26 - Why nuance disappeared from the AI conversation
02:10 - Is AI actually supercharging SaaS?
03:24 - The SaaS AI can't easily replace
04:46 - Can Vacation Tracker be vibe coded?
06:00 - When building your own software makes sense
07:12 - The hidden cost of building SaaS yourself
09:54 - Did SaaS remove too much friction?
11:00 - The new opportunity: building on top of systems of record
12:45 - Why AI hype always goes too far
14:11 - How Vacation Tracker uses AI internally
16:19 - The AI experimentation playbook
18:07 - Is AI making people work more?
19:48 - The dangerous side of AI productivity
21:20 - Producing more vs actually growing the business
23:07 - Why bigger companies may be more vulnerable
24:30 - How AI can make SaaS products worse
25:41 - The craft of product management
27:28 - Could Vacation Tracker become the next Workleap?
29:39 - From 450-person SaaS to a 15-person company
31:20 - Why Martin took a year off
33:00 - Getting back into technology
34:41 - Avoiding AI shiny object syndrome
37:46 - Vacation Tracker's pricing strategy
38:26 - Why they doubled their trial period
40:24 - Did AI influence their pricing?
42:00 - The right way to raise SaaS prices
43:34 - Is SaaS distribution getting harder?
43:43 - LLMs are driving 30–50% of inbound
45:41 - How to rank in ChatGPT and other LLMs
46:00 - Why content matters for AI visibility
47:47 - Why YouTube matters for LLM discovery
51:47 - What's next for Vacation Tracker?
52:45 - MCP and the future of headless SaaS
53:37 - Could SaaS move to value-based pricing?
54:40 - Is SaaS actually dying?
55:35 - The technology Martin is excited about
57:04 - What kids think about AI
58:32 - Will we revisit these predictions?

Martin Gourdeau — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgourdeau/

Vacation Tracker — https://vacationtracker.io/

───

sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina

https://soundsgoodpod.com

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/

Ricardo Ghekiere bought BetterPic for $1 when the product was still rough, the AI struggled with consistency, and very few people believed AI headshots could become a real business.

Less than three years later, BetterPic had grown into a multimillion-dollar company. But while everyone else was celebrating AI image generation, Ricardo was already thinking about what comes next. That thinking led to BetterStudio, a $2.2M venture-backed bet on AI fashion photography that ultimately failed—and to Runflow and Patricia, the companies that emerged from everything the team learned along the way.

We talked about growing BetterPic through affiliate marketing, why they moved from closed-source to open-source AI models, what actually happens after you raise venture capital, why product-market fit can't be bought with headcount, and how a non-technical founder learned enough about AI infrastructure to build products at scale.

Plus: whether designers disappear before developers, why software itself may eventually become free, and what companies outside the AI bubble are really doing with artificial intelligence.

In this episode:

* Buying BetterPic for $1 and growing it into a multimillion-dollar business
* Why redesigning the product was critical to building customer trust
* How affiliate marketing became one of BetterPic's biggest growth channels
* The AI workflow behind consistent image generation
* Why BetterPic moved from closed-source to open-source AI models
* How open source helped dramatically improve margins
* Raising $2.2M before finding product-market fit
* Why BetterStudio ultimately failed
* The biggest mistake founders make after raising venture capital
* Building Runflow for enterprise AI image workflows
* Why Ricardo believes designers will change faster than developers
* How AI is reshaping internal teams
* Building Patricia—an AI teammate that lives inside Slack
* Why software itself may eventually become free
* What founders outside the AI bubble still misunderstand about AI

Ricardo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardoghekiere/

BetterPic - https://betterpic.io

Runflow - https://runflow.io

───

sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina

https://soundsgoodpod.com

[email protected]

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/

Simonida has made a career out of figuring out why SaaS users don't pay—and she doesn't think throwing more AI, more emails, or more traffic at the problem is the answer.

She focuses on one of the most valuable parts of the SaaS funnel: the gap between someone starting a trial and deciding the product is worth paying for. Sometimes moving that conversion rate by just a few percentage points can create more revenue than another expensive push at the top of the funnel.

We talked about what actually makes trial users convert, why "best practices" can be dangerously misleading, how behavioral segmentation can go too far, and why copy should be one of the last things you work on—not the first. Plus: founder voice, no-reply emails, suppression rules, and why product, sales, support, and marketing need to actually talk to each other before anyone writes another lifecycle sequence.
And, inevitably, AI. Why Simonida thinks outsourcing strategy to an LLM is a terrible idea, why AI-generated content increasingly feels like "plastic fruit," what she does use AI for, and why firing your marketing team because ChatGPT can do the job might be an experiment you regret six months later.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Can AI actually replace people?
03:07 - Why AI is dangerous for strategy
05:20 - AI won't kill work—it'll change it
06:23 - LinkedIn's AI bubble
08:52 - Why tech companies are humanizing AI
12:57 - Are we overhyping AI?
15:03 - Turning SaaS trials into paying customers
17:35 - The revenue hiding inside your existing funnel
19:40 - The problem with marketing best practices
21:09 - Why human judgment still matters
23:39 - Can AI run your marketing without humans?
28:04 - Why AI strategy still falls short
32:38 - The car wash test for AI
34:09 - Fire your marketing team for AI? Go ahead.
35:36 - What makes a great SaaS email?
38:13 - Every email needs one job
40:13 - Why emails should come from a real person
42:14 - Why no-reply emails need to die
44:48 - Stop emailing people who don't care
47:03 - Behavioral emails and knowing when to stop
49:37 - How Simonida audits a SaaS funnel
52:05 - What product, sales, and support know that marketing doesn't
55:14 - Why copy comes last
56:14 - Can you segment too much?
58:13 - When better onboarding hurts conversion
59:51 - Who should send your SaaS emails?
62:31 - Founder voice as a competitive advantage
67:17 - Cyberdecks, hedgehogs, and the internet beyond AI

Simonida - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonida-jovanovic-29778244/

───

sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina

https://soundsgoodpod.com

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/

Jeremy has been bootstrapping SaaS products for more than a decade. After building QuickMail into one of the most respected outbound platforms, he's now betting on a much bigger idea: AI won't replace companies — it'll replace the way companies operate.

We talked about where AI actually delivers value (and where it absolutely doesn't), why founders are creating technical debt faster than ever, how to build products without drowning users in features, and why becoming a real CEO means giving up control.

Plus: AI search, pricing AI features, distribution in 2026, bootstrapping a second company, and raising kids while building SaaS from hotel rooms.

In this episode:

- Why AI is incredible at customer support but terrible at strategy
- The biggest mistake founders make when building internal AI tools
- Why coding with AI creates tomorrow's technical debt
- Should AI features cost extra?
- Building MonsterOps while still running QuickMail
- The real reason distribution is still harder than building
- How to simplify products instead of endlessly adding features
- Bootstrapping a second SaaS company from scratch
- Raising entrepreneurial kids while traveling the world

Timestamps

00:00 - Why AI isn't replacing SaaS yet
01:56 - What MonsterOps actually replaces inside companies
06:31 - Finding AI use cases that actually work
10:24 - AI customer support that's surprisingly good
14:15 - Does AI replace jobs or change them?
18:42 - Feature bloat and knowing when to stop building
25:22 - AI coding and the coming technical debt problem
27:54 - Pricing AI features the right way
30:20 - Bootstrapping MonsterOps differently than QuickMail
33:15 - Distribution in the age of AI search
39:17 - Becoming a CEO instead of just a founder
45:29 - Running two SaaS companies while traveling
50:23 - Teaching the next generation to build with AI
51:52 - The one business book Jeremy keeps rereading

Jeremy:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremychatelaine/

QuickMail:
https://quickmail.com

MonsterOps:
https://monsterops.io

───
sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina
https://soundsgoodpod.com
[email protected]

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/

AI can write.

But can it actually persuade customers?

In this episode of Sounds Good, Lianna Patch joins Anna Nadeina to talk about what AI is genuinely good at, where Claude and ChatGPT still fail, and why the best SaaS companies are investing more—not less—in brand, personality, and great content.

We cover:

• Why AI-generated copy still sounds the same
• When Claude is actually useful (and when it isn't)
• Why website copy and lifecycle emails still need humans
• Founder branding vs company branding
• Why humor is becoming a competitive advantage in SaaS
• How to create content people actually remember
• Building trust through personality—not prompts
• The role of communities like MicroConf in founder growth
• Whether content marketing can actually be measured

If you're building a SaaS company, leading marketing, writing content with AI, or wondering whether founders should still invest in brand, this conversation is packed with practical advice.

Lianna -   / liannapatch  
Punchline Conversion Copywriting - https://punchlinecopy.com/

───
sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina
soundsgoodpod.com

sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group - serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.

If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.

https://saas.group/