Early-stage companies don't want to buy another piece of software; they want a problem solved. Quanta succeeded by providing a complete accounting service ("the work to be done"), which is what customers truly valued, using that as the wedge to build its underlying automation platform.

Disruptive AI innovations are counter-positioned against traditional seat-based SaaS pricing. Incumbents struggle to pivot because it would make them deeply unprofitable, spook investors, and require a complete cultural rewiring. This organizational inertia, not a technology gap, is their biggest vulnerability to AI-native startups.

Economist Bernd Hobart argues that large enterprises are too risk-averse for early AI adoption. The winning go-to-market strategy, similar to Stripe's, is for AI-native companies to sell to smaller, agile customers first. They can then grow with these customers, mature their product, and eventually sell the proven solution back to the legacy giants.

In the previous SaaS era, emulating giants like Salesforce was a common but flawed strategy for startups. In the new AI era, there is no playbook at all, forcing founders to rethink go-to-market strategies from first principles rather than copying incumbents.

Hanover Park's CEO argues the era of selling software tools is ending. The next wave of successful B2B companies will be "AI native services" that use agents to deliver concrete business outcomes, fundamentally shifting the model from selling tools to selling guaranteed results.

Founders are stuck in a SaaS mindset, selling tools to existing service providers. The bigger opportunity is to build new, AI-first service companies (e.g., accounting, legal) that use AI to deliver a superior end-to-end solution directly to customers.

Instead of selling AI tools to incumbents (e.g., law firms who bill by the hour), build an AI-first service that delivers the end result directly to the customer. This avoids conflicts of interest and captures more value.

Hanover Park's CEO argues B2B SaaS is dead. The winning model isn't selling another tool prone to commoditization, but building an “AI-native services company” that uses technology and experts to deliver a complete business outcome, effectively solving the entire customer problem.

For an existing SaaS company to become a credible AI player, it must do more than add features. It requires a fundamental reinvention, akin to 'open heart surgery.' This means re-architecting to be agent-first, shifting to outcomes-based pricing, and even rebranding—as seen with Intercom becoming Finn—to attract new funding.