AI Agents are the new SaaS

**Greg Isenberg** (0:00)
Okay, I'll say it, Building Agents is the new SaaS. I mean, we saw billions of dollars of value creation during the SaaS era. People, founders, 21 years old, 24 years old, you name it, come up with SaaS ideas that change your lives. Of course, not everyone was successful, but this is a new wave that's happening. And I want you to understand what this wave is, how you can take advantage of it, how you can build startups in this space. And in this episode, I'm basically gonna clearly explain this entire agents is the new SaaS opportunity. By the end of this, you're gonna understand the playbook, you're gonna understand how to find the niche, you're gonna understand how to pick the workflow, how to build your first agent, how to prove it works, how you can package it like SaaS, and how you can basically sell these agents as labor. And it's really important because that labor point, because labor is a multi-trillion dollar market, right? So I think why people say agents is bigger than SaaS is because the total addressable market for agents is just way bigger, it's human capital. And I wanted to just do an episode where I explain everything step by step, just clearly, for people who are interested in building agents, who are interested in selling agents, and who just want their creative juices flowing around this. This is for anyone who wants to build a business or who just wants to be more productive. This episode is for you.
So, the first thing you need to understand is the product is the job. So, the mental model I have for this is SaaS sells software, Agent SaaS sells work. A normal SaaS product says, here is a tool a team could use, basically. But an Agent SaaS product will say, here is a job your team no longer has to do by hand. And then you're selling that service. So, it sounds like a small change, but it's a really big mindset change for the customer and for you, the person who's going to be building it. So, take restaurants, for example. A restaurant wakes up thinking, our phone is ringing during dinner time.
And the host is busy dealing with seating people. People are asking the same questions, we're missing reservations, and private dining calls are getting lost. So, they're basically missing out on lost revenue. This is why a company like Slang AI is interesting. Basically, it's an AI super host for restaurants. I'm not affiliated, I just think it's an interesting example. It answers inbound calls, it handles guest questions, it manages reservations, it routes VIPs, it alerts staff about high-priority topics, like private dining or guest complaints, and it integrates with systems like Open Table and Yelp and stuff like that. I'll give you another example. Home services, a plumbing company, HVAC company, a roofing company, pest control company, missed calls, jobs are booked, customers followed up with, dispatches are less overwhelmed, more revenue from the same demand, if they integrate something that picks up their phone 24-7. An example of a startup that's doing this is Same Day. So they focus on home services, and then they basically sell these AI, dispatchers, sales agents, receptionists that answer calls, respond to texts, books, jobs, reschedule. Again, the product is the job. These examples matter because they're just understandable. And so when you're thinking about coming up with an idea for a startup here, think about I handle this one annoying job better than a junior employee, faster than an agency, and it's cheaper than adding headcount. That's the mental model I think that you should be thinking about. The second step I have here is pick a workflow with a paycheck attached. So, how do you find the right agent idea? You want to start with the paycheck, right? If people are already paying for the work, they're paying an employee, they're paying an agency, receptionist, coordinator, dispatcher, there's an opportunity to sell that service cheaper and then unload some of that work that that person is doing to do more highly creative work. So, a good agent workflow has five traits. The first is it happens all the time. So, daily is good, but hourly is better. You know, every inbound lead, every call, every tech ticket, every quote request, every appointment, every order, every maintenance request. Second, it has to have a clear finish line. The job got booked, the ticket got categorized, the refund got approved, the vendor got scheduled, the customer got a useful answer. Third, if it touches already software. So, if it touches Gmail or Slack or Shopify, HubSpot, Zendesk, Stripe.
Agents need these tools so they can use it, and they also need the context that they can read. The fourth is the edge cases are actually really annoying, but they're learnable. So if a workflow is too basic, basically the problem is basic automation, zaps and stuff like that can do it.