AI Agents are the new SaaS

0:00Okay, 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 changed their 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 going to clearly explain this entire agents is the new SaaS opportunity. By the end of this, you're going to understand the playbook.

0:36You're going to understand how to find the niche. You're going to 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. 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.

1:22This is for anyone who wants to build a business or who just wants to be more productive. This episode is for you.

1:38So the first thing you need to understand is the product is the job. So, you know, 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.

2:34People 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 an affiliate, 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 OpenTable and Yelp and stuff like that. I'll give you another example.

3:14home 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, There's 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.

3:54And 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. If people are already paying for the work, they're paying an employee, they're paying an agency, a receptionist, a 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.

4:42So a good agent workflow has five traits. The first is it happens all the time. So daily is good, but hourly is better. Every inbound lead, every call, every 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.

5:32The 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, you know, zaps and stuff like that can do it. If it's pure human judgment, the first version will break. So the sweet spot is repetitive work with enough judgment that AI can help. the fifth is the buyer can feel the loss miss calls slow replies drop leads empty calendar slots expensive humans doing low value coordination so if this is you know you know if you want to start a business here what's a first rep to get started well pick one niche and write down 20 jobs people complain about.

6:25If it's roofers, maybe it's missed calls, financing questions, insurance paperwork, appointment reminders. If it's med spas, it's maybe lead qualifications or no-show recovery, membership upsells. If it's Shopify brands, maybe it's returns, exchanges, wholesale lead follow-ups. And then you want to score each job on five things. how often does it happen how expensive is the pain how easy it how easy is it to know when the job is done what tools does it need access to and who already owns the budget and that is where agent sass starts so you want to start with the job that has a paycheck attached super super key point here once you've done that you actually and this is this is the thing that a lot of people You actually want to shadow the human before you build.

7:24So once you find the job, you identify what the job is, before you prompt, before you start coding, just shadow a human being who does the job. I know a lot of founders want to skip this, but it's usually what's going to help you get an unfair advantage, an insight into building an agent that is high quality. So just watch someone do the job 10 or 20 jobs. Ask them to screen record it. Ask them to narrate what they're doing. Ask them what makes a case easy. Ask them what makes a case weird. What did they check before they make a decision? Ask them where the mistakes happen. Basically, you're looking for the real workflow.

8:10And even if you've done these tasks before, having it fresh in your memory is just going to be super, super helpful when you're building out this. So, for example, a restaurant host, if they answer, what time are you open? The real workflow is actually deeper than that. They know when the kitchen closes, which tables are good for strollers, when the patios close, how to handle a VIP, and when to route to a priving dining inquiry. So the detail is the product. and when you're specking out your agent, I think it should have seven key parts. What wakes the agent up? What context does it need? What tools can it use?

9:02What is it allowed to do itself? Where does it need approval? When should it escalate and bring a human in the loop there? And what does success look like? And if you understand all those things, you're not just going to build an agent slop. We want to build agents that are high quality, that are exceptional, that do the work as well, if not better than humans and way more consistently. And that's what people are going to pay for. So really helpful to just sort of internalize that. Now you're going to want, step four is you're going to want to build the smallest useful agent. I call it the minimal useful agent, the MUA.

9:45Most people hear agent and imagine a fully autonomous employee. And that's how you get these demos that you see on Twitter and they don't really work and it ends up being a bad business. You want to start smaller actually. So there are four good first versions. The first is a draft and approve agent. So it reads context, it drafts the reply, the quote, the summary or the next step. A human approves it. So this is great when there's workflow risk. Maybe there's creativity involved, approval processes, that sort of thing. The second is a triage agent. So it classifies inbound work and routes it to the right place.

10:30Maintenance requests, billing issue, or refund, that sort of thing. The third is a coordinator agent. So this goes between systems and people. So it'll check availability, it'll send reminders, It asks for missing info. And it keeps the work moving, basically. And the fourth is the bounded action agent. So it can do a specific thing under clear rules. Book an appointment, send a follow-up, process a refund under$50. These are the sorts of things you'll notice it in the wild. For example, with Uber Eats, you order something and your salad doesn't arrive, automatically you'll get the refund based on an agent that will do it.

11:19So that's basically the ladder here when you're building the minimum useful agent. Draft, triage, coordinate, and act. I was looking at Anthropics agent guidance recently and they made a really important point. A really important simple point. They said many agent problems should start actually as workflows. So a workflow follows a predictable path. An agent decides more dynamically. Founders should earn autonomy by starting with a predictable path and adding judgment only when it creates value. So if I were building this, I would start with one workflow and one promise. For example, we answer missed calls for roofers and book qualified jobs.

12:11or we triage maintenance requests for property managers and schedule the right vendor. We handle reservation calls for restaurants and alert staff when a human should jump in. That's enough. That's really enough. And one workflow that works enough is good enough for day one. And it's going to help build confidence not just in you that it's working but also in this customer. Because keep in mind, people are buying agents for the first time ever. So they don't want all of it at the same time, especially if you're not Microsoft or you're not Salesforce. So step five in building an agent is the product wrapper is what makes it a SaaS.

12:58So you don't want to just build a cool automation. And I think what separates a cool automation from a real agent-first SaaS product is the agent does the work, but the wrapper creates the trust. so customers actually need to see what happened. They need to see logs. They need approvals, controls, handoff rules, that sort of thing. And they need a way to test the agent before it goes live. They need to know basically why the agent did what it did. So that wrapper is the SaaS and the agent actually lives in the phone system, the inbox, the Slack channel, CRM. So the dashboard can be really simple, but the customer actually still needs the control room.

13:45At least that's what I'm noticing is working right now. So for a restaurant phone agent, the control room might be call summaries or reservation outcomes, missed human handoffs, that sort of thing. For a property maintenance agent, maybe it's tickets that have been created, vendor routes, or tenant updates, owner approvals, that sort of thing. And that's really why evals matter a lot when you're building an agent-first business. Because before you promise autonomy, you want to create basically a small test set is the best way to think about it. So take 50 real examples of the job and then mark the right answers, like 50 calls, 50 leads, 50 maintenance requests, depending on what it is.

14:41And then you want to run the agent system against them. So did it classify the problem correctly? Did it ask for the right missing information? Did it use the right policy? This is what's called an eval, right? Your eval set is basically like the gym. Every time you change the prompt, the model, the tools, the workflow, the agent goes back through the gym and is able to basically know what's good and know what's bad. It's also low-key a really good sales asset because imagine telling a property manager, we tested this on 50 of your old maintenance requests. It routed 42 correctly, flagged six of them for human review, and made two mistakes.

15:29Here are the two mistakes, and here's how we fix them. So it just helps you actually build trust, especially with people who own boring businesses, but who can actually really use some of these agents. When you just are transparent and open about these sorts of things, you're going to build a lot of trust with them. So the sixth step on building an agent is you're going to want to sell the pilot like labor and then you're going to want to productize it. So the fastest path is usually a pilot where you manually do the work with AI and then you productize the repeated parts. I'll explain what I mean by that.

16:12But basically I would start with three customers in one niche. So the same niche, same workflow, same pain, and then you sell the outcome. You actually want to be very, very constrained on this or else you're going to get bad results. So if you're selling the outcome, we will answer and qualify your missed calls. We will triage your maintenance request. And then you charge a setup fee and a simple monthly fee. You can keep the pricing just easy to understand. and then you can add usage or outcome pricing once you understand the value. I'm a huge believer, if you listen to the Startup Ideas podcast here and you're a subscriber here, I really believe that outcome pricing is the future of how a lot of these agent-first businesses and software is going to be priced because it just makes sense.

17:07The customer doesn't want to pay for another seat for something. But don't just jump there initially. So you'll get there. And you have to have patience with it a little bit. The pricing model, how do you think about pricing something like this? Maybe it's like a$1 ,500 setup, and then$1 ,000 a month for one workflow. Or maybe it's like$2 ,000 setup plus$30 per qualified appointment. So that's more of the outcome base eventually. or$3 ,000 a month up to 500 handled tickets. So the exact price actually matters less than the learning. You basically want to find out what the customer values and then where the agent breaks, what needs approval, and what would they miss if you took it away.

18:00Pretty much the most important question there is. And then you build a product around the repeated pattern. So if every roofer needs the same emergency call script, service area checked, financing question, an estimate follow-up, boom, you have a product. If every med spa needs lead scoring, consultation booking, no-show recovery, post-treatment follow-up, boom, you have a product. So this is agent SaaS. You earn the software by doing the work first. Step seven is distribution. Obviously you need people to hear about the thing you're building, hear about the agent, see it, and be like, I need this.

18:48And how can you do it? What are some tips to be thinking about this? Workflow teardowns is what I'm seeing in real time that's working really, really well. So show the old way of doing a process. A call comes in, nobody answers. the customer calls the next company or the CSR answers, asks five questions, checks the calendar, checks the service area, books the job, writes the notes, sends a reminder, and then forgets to follow up. And then the heart of the owner, of the manager, just absolutely breaks. And then you show the agent way. A call comes in, an agent answers. It asks the right questions.

19:32It checks the service area. It checks the urgency. It books the appointment. It updates the CRM. It sends the confirmation. It flags edge cases for a human. That's the type of content that works because the manager, the executive, the owner feels that pain. and you know you want to be in the business of selling painkillers not vitamins and that's why i love these building agent businesses because you are you know if you do this right and you go through some of these steps and these frameworks and this playbook for coming up with an idea building an idea you're building something that's really really helping people like it is very very valuable to them and the only way to really really get them to book a call or do something is to show them sort of make fun of the old way and then show them the new way pick one workflow make the internet associate you with it and you know the way i think about it is you want to make the checklist you want to make the benchmark make the teardown make like 50 examples of this workflow posts and you're going to be in the content game.

20:47A lot of people listen to this, don't want to create content and I totally understand, but you have to create content around this because there's just an opportunity in creating content. And then you can use some of those assets that are starting to work and then put paid ads around it. So distribution, think about these teardowns. Think about poking fun of the old way. Think about creating memes around it. And then creating content, picking the winners, putting paid ads against it. I would suggest focusing on one platform to start. And I'm going to be doing more episodes on just how do you get customers to your vibe-coded apps and stuff like that in the future.

21:40So stay tuned for that. but just how I'd be thinking about it. The last step, the zero to 100 plan. If I was starting this from zero, I feel like people would want to know what would be my plan. So I'll give you my, call it four-week plan. My first day, what I would do, how do you build an agent business in 30 days? Day one, we pick a niche where missed work costs money. We talked about this. Home services, property management, insurance agencies. Day two, I would interview 10 operators. Ask them to screen share the workflow. Keep the calls as research and just watch them. You can pay them for this, by the way.

22:30Day three, pick one workflow with frequency, pain, software access, and a clear success metric. Day four, write the agent spec. Trigger, context, tools, rules, handoffs, evals. Day five, run it manually with AI. Use Cloud or ChatGVT and copy and paste the context. Draft the output. Ask the human to approve. And you are testing whether the AI helps before you build the software. Day six, build that smallest useful version. Draft and approve or triage is usually enough here. Day seven, create the eval set from 50 real examples. Week two, sell two pilots in the same niche. Week three, add the product wrapper, right?

23:23The logs, the approvals, the settings, the analytics, the handoffs and use AI to actually build that software. I'd probably be using something like Claude Design and assuming that Fable is live, using Fable to actually code it up. Week four, I'm publishing workflow teardowns, I'm turning the pilots into proof, and I'm doubling down on my content strategy. I should have mentioned this, but while I'm doing all this, while I'm thinking about building this business, I'm building an audience all the way throughout. By the end of week four, I have formats that are working. I know where to double down.

24:00I know where I can spend money, paid money to acquire customers. And that's when my second and third month, I'm trying to understand what my LTV is. What are the channels that are working? Where can I double down on it? And I keep going. I think that's the episode. Basically, where I'm at is I think agents are the new SaaS because software is moving from help me do the work to do the work with me. and I think that a lot of people are just, they're not partaking in the shift. They see the shift, they understand the shift, you're listening to me and you're like, yeah, of course, but they're not building agent-first businesses.

24:42I think the opportunity is basically to find the smallest painful workflow that repeats all day in a niche that you understand and make it disappear. Answering a phone, booking a job, triaging the ticket. updating the system, escalating that weird case. And I think there's a ton of money to be made here and a ton of value to be created. So if you're watching this, you're listening to this and you're thinking, I want to build with AI, well, start with the job. Find the job, shadow it, spec it, run it manually, build the smallest useful agent, sell the pilot, then productize the repeatable parts.

25:25this is how you build an agent that people will pay for and this is why i think building agents is the new sass hope this is helpful hope this got the creative juices flowing people charge thousands of dollars for this type of thing but it is free like always on the startup ideas podcast let's i'll see you in the comment section i'll see you uh let's talk and let me know what you want me to cover next if this is helpful and i read every single comment on youtube i appreciate every single like and subscribe if you want more of this stuff in your feed thank you and i'll see you next time