The Era of Micro-SaaS powered by OpenAI
As a product manager with some development experience with web applications, data, and analytics, I have always been fascinated by the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning to solve complex problems. Recently, I have been working on launching a SaaS applications (future post to come about that) on the side and have started integrating OpenAI into my SaaS application to solve very specific issues in the e-commerce world. This led me to the train of thought in this post.
Background
If you haven’t heard of OpenAI yet (you may be living off the grid), OpenAI is an open-source platform that allows developers to easily access and use powerful AI models without the need for significant investment. This is a game changer for developers with some experience and great ideas, as it allows them to rapidly build and launch products without having to spend a lot of money on licensing or development.
Content creation has been one of the fastest growing areas of the digital economy, with estimates at the size of it being $14.9B USD in 2022 and expectation of growth to $47.2B USD by 2032. As a result, there have been countless service providers who have grown to provide content to clients (written, visual, audio, etc.). OpenAI has the potential to supercharge the way these content companies operate, and quite frankly — if people aren’t taking advantage of generative AI in 2023, they will fall behind.
If people aren’t taking advantage of generative AI in 2023, they will fall behind.
Developers vs ChatGPT
ChatGPT allowed OpenAI to explode into the mainstream. Everyone and their grandma now is typing questions at ChatGPT and getting highly convincing answers and responses. But what does this mean for developers? Does ChatGPT make their apps obsolete? In short — no.
Does ChatGPT make their apps obsolete? In short — no.
One of the key benefits of OpenAI is that it allows developers to customize AI models to suit their specific needs. If you are using OpenAI to generate blog posts, you would use different parameters than if you were using it to generate keywords or item descriptions. As another example, a company that sells clothing could use OpenAI to create a customized product recommendation system that suggests items based on a customer’s past purchase history and browsing behavior. This can result in a more personalized shopping experience for customers, which can lead to increased sales and customer loyalty.
The possibilities are endless but it really comes down to experimentation and delivering value. This is where the true value of OpenAI for developers comes through — quick testing and iteration. This is especially useful for individuals, startups and small companies that need to move quickly to stay competitive. With OpenAI, developers can quickly prototype and test new features and functionality, without having to invest a lot of money in development or licensing. This can help companies get their products to market faster and with less risk. It’s also where the real value of a developer shines. Merging the OpenAI models with a real use case, building in the “prompt engineering” that allows the OpenAI models to excel and provide really meaningful and valuable responses reliably, and then using those outputs to supercharge the offering from the company are all well within the realm of developers and can’t be done by others….yet.
Integrating OpenAI instead of building from scratch means far less maintenance in your application. Your customers will get a far more reliable solution, and with billions of dollars invested in the OpenAI R&D, you’ll be continuously plugged into the latest innovations (and so will your customers).
The era of Micro-SaaS powered by AI
In the years since the first SaaS product, the SaaS world has exploded. Huge companies have cropped up that have become verbs (Netflix, Airbnb, etc.). What has gone largely unnoticed though has been the Micro SaaS. Developers have long been building tools targeted at small niches. Their goal is not to make trillions of dollars, but to solve a very specific problem, solve it really well, gather a good amount of recurring paying customers, and make some decent (not billions) money. How does this get impacted by OpenAI?
Building a SaaS product has gotten much easier through the myriad of tools available to rapidly spin up and host a project from the comfort of one’s couch. The secret sauce comes from the problem being solved (i.e. the actual software). OpenAI opens up the possibility of rapidly solving problems for hundreds (if not thousands) of use cases without having to code too much. It’s almost like a “low code” solution for developers. If you want to build an app that generates product descriptions for budding entrepreneurs, optimizes for search engines, and provides suggestions on how to optimize the content for sales — OpenAI is your friend. Similarly, if you want to generate user stories or product management artifacts for businesses doing their own software development — OpenAI is waiting for you to use it. If you want to help generate product images for e-commerce sellers, OpenAI can help with that too. Combined with a boilerplate for a SaaS app, a decent developer with some great ideas can rapidly spin up a production level app with minimal investment and maximum impact (or not, but if it doesn’t stick, very little time has been invested so you can move on a lot easier).
Word of caution
Low code tools have made business apps and productivity enhancement solutions far more accessible for companies. The same is just around the corner for OpenAI. With Microsoft’s huge investment in OpenAI, the integration of OpenAI into their Azure platform, and their low code offerings, it won’t be too long before we see generative AI used in the simplest business apps. So, the key message is, if you have some decent ideas that you think would solve problems for a niche and would solve them well, and you have even a little development experience (like myself), take the plunge, try build a micro-SaaS to solve the problem. You have nothing to lose (Except maybe a tiny bit of money if you run out of free GPT credits).
Conclusion
Overall, OpenAI can help rapidly accelerate time to market for companies experimenting with new ideas, pivots, and just testing the waters in general. The investment needed to get something off the ground with the combination of open source software and OpenAI means you really only need an idea and you can start testing it. So what are you waiting for? Get started!
Who am I?
I’m a product leader with almost a decade of experience across startups and large enterprises. From engineering to data, development to product management, I’ve been hands on and led the development of several products across verticals from idea to launch in the nuclear industry.
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