SaaS isn’t dead. Bad SaaS is.

Blog Nr 4: Glattfelden, 01.03.2026

Vibe coding, micro-SaaS and the big illusion that everyone wants to build their own software.

Let’s address the hype cycle head-on:

Everyone is suddenly a “vibe coder”. People claim SaaS is dead: "Did you check Salesforce, HubSpot and Atlassian's stock, did you see their half-year performance? The market and the investors are always right, wait and see".

And their new future is: Just describe what you want, AI builds it, done.

First things first, I’m not here to really deny all of it. AI can build software fast now. Lovable, Bolt, Bubble AI, v0, Cursor… they’re good. Really good. But the conclusion most people jump to is wrong.

SaaS is not dead. What’s dying is a certain type of SaaS: bloated, generic, untrusted and especially painful to implement. And what replaces it is not “everyone builds everything.”
It’s something more practical (and more human):

Smaller solutions, more vertical workflows, more customization and a much higher demand for trust.

Vibe coding is real. But it mostly solves the start, not the finish.

Vibe coding (in the simplest sense) is: you explain intent, the model generates code, and you iterate by prompting. That’s an unlock. It means a founder, operator, or in my case, a sales leader can create:

• a small dashboard
• a custom form
• an internal workflow
• a prototype that would have taken weeks

…in a weekend. That’s impressive!

But here’s the part that gets skipped in the posts I see:

A prototype is not a product.

A working demo is not a reliable system. And “it runs on my laptop” is not “my team can depend on it for the next 3 years.”

The Micro-SaaS wave is the real shift (and it’s healthy)

Micro-SaaS is not new. It’s basically: one small product for one narrow problem and run by a tiny team. What AI changes is not the concept. It changes the economics:

• faster build cycles
• lower initial dev cost
• faster iteration with customers

So yes: expect a flood of micro products. But also expect something else:

Most micro tools will die for the same reason most internal tools die:

They don’t survive maintenance, reliability and trust requirements.

“SaaS is dead” is a lazy headline. The money didn’t disappear.

If SaaS was truly dying, software spending would collapse. It’s not. Worldwide IT spending is still projected to exceed $6T in 2026. And major SaaS incumbents are very publicly fighting the “SaaS-pocalypse” narrative while shipping AI-native layers into their products. So what’s actually happening?

The buying behavior is changing.

Buyers don’t want:

• long implementations
• shelfware bundles
• tool chaos
• unclear governance
• “we’ll see value in 3 months”

They want:

• fast time-to-value
• clean workflows
• predictable cost
• and software they can trust

The uncomfortable question nobody asks: Do you really want to become a business software owner?

It might be nice as a hobby. But when you “just build it yourself for your business”, you inherit a list nobody budgets for:

Maintenance is forever
Dependencies update. APIs change. Browsers change. Security vulnerabilities show up.
This is not theoretical. Security bodies like OWASP explicitly map new LLM-app risks, including supply-chain issues.

Reliability is a job
Monitoring. Alerts. Backups. Rate limits. Retry logic. Edge cases. It’s all invisible…
Until it breaks!

Security is not optional
AI-generated code can contain security flaws at meaningful rates. Developers themselves increasingly name security as the biggest concern when using AI code generation.

Your custom sales app still depends on paid systems:

• LLM APIs
• Fresh data of your leads
• Automations
• and many more...

So you’re not escaping SaaS. You’re creating a new stack with invoices and now you’re the integrator.

The real future: “Build a little. Buy the trusted core.”

Here’s the (sales) reality I see:

Teams are vibe coding small internal helpers.
Teams are still buying trusted sales systems.

The winning vendors will be the ones who:

• make the workflow lean
• provide strong APIs
•  and earn trust through individual relationships, governance and reliability 

So yes, we’ll see more customization. But no, most teams won’t build their own sales platforms, neither their own sales enrichment engine, nor their own deliverability stack or their own reporting truth. People want to focus on ther own strategy and grow their business.

Trust is the new moat and it’s slow to earn

In sales tech especially, trust means:

• your data is clean and auditable
• your system doesn’t burn domains
• your workflows don’t create compliance headaches
• your vendor can explain security clearly
• your platform also keeps working after year 1

That’s why HeySali is the difference for you between "I reached out to prospects today" and "I signed new clients today".

Where HeySali fits (and why I'm building it)

HeySali is built on a simple belief:

You don’t need your own (AI) software. You need sales execution you can trust.

That’s why HeySali is designed as a modern sales execution platform combining:

• CRM and pipeline
• verified/updated lead data and enrichment
• buyer intent signals
• outreach and follow-up discipline
• reporting that reflects reality

…with a Swiss-grade focus on trust and data handling (and an architecture that can support dockerized LLM setups).

And here’s the part I truly believe vibe coding can’t replace:

Sales isn’t just software. It’s human execution. A tool is only as good as the operating people behind it. HeySali is designed and built by sales veterans.

That’s why I'm not only building a sales platform, but also supporting teams individually with:

• vertical playbooks and GTM support
• practical execution routines: the kind of sales experience you only get after doing it for so many years (that a techie/vibe coder could only do up to a certain point)

SaaS isn’t dead. Bad SaaS is. Long live SaaS, the kind you can actually rely on!

About HeySali (Glatt Digital GmbH and myself)

I’m Can Bagriyanik, the Founder and Managing Director of HeySali, a brand of Glatt Digital GmbH in Switzerland.

I am building HeySali based on what I’ve seen in real sales environments: fragmented systems slow the teams and their revenue down. HeySali is a modern sales execution platform to help B2B teams move more concentrated and faster without losing control of data, pipeline, reporting and quality. Start working with buyer intent signals to focus on your potential clients who are looking exactly at this very moment at the products and services you are offering.