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Ask HN: Is there still room for new SaaS products in 2026?

2 points by lifegrid ↗ HN
For people who build, buy, or use SaaS products: how do you think about the opportunity for new SaaS products today?

It feels like many categories are already crowded, while AI is also making it easier to build software and potentially easier to replace some existing SaaS products.

6 comments

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KenPainter
The plausible answer is yes, there is an opportunity. One line item in the entire bill of materials for a successful product got cheaper. The other line items are unchanged.

All else being equal, the organization that can leverage the improved code maintenance tools has an edge, but a small one. Code is only part of the winning package.

lifegrid
Good point on code being just one line item. But how do you see that playing out with category saturation? If cheaper code leads to 10x more products entering an already crowded market, does the winning edge come down purely to distribution, or do you think AI enables completely new product categories that aren't crowded yet?