“Vertical SaaS platforms deeply embedded in regulated industries or physical workflows: insurance platforms like Guidewire, field service systems like ServiceTitan, fleet and IoT platforms like Samsara, vertical commerce platforms like Shopify.”
totally agree. these are incredibly safe bets. some of these might be replicable with a vibe coding session on the front end, but the scale and real world infra is not.
I've seen this exact shift happening with a lot of teams lately.
The moment you realize a custom internal workflow can replace dozens of expensive user seats for a fraction of the API cost, the math on traditional software completely changes.
Per-seat pricing for horizontal tools was always a bet on friction lasting forever.
It really was! And it paid off for a while, but not forever
“Vertical SaaS platforms deeply embedded in regulated industries or physical workflows: insurance platforms like Guidewire, field service systems like ServiceTitan, fleet and IoT platforms like Samsara, vertical commerce platforms like Shopify.”
totally agree. these are incredibly safe bets. some of these might be replicable with a vibe coding session on the front end, but the scale and real world infra is not.
great read!
Nice!
Thanks!
I've seen this exact shift happening with a lot of teams lately.
The moment you realize a custom internal workflow can replace dozens of expensive user seats for a fraction of the API cost, the math on traditional software completely changes.