Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Today’s guest is Andreas Goeldi, Partner at b2venture, who previously co-founded Pixability, a video advertising platform used by major global brands. He has worked in the internet industry since the early web era and now invests in and advises European startups while writing extensively about AI and software markets.
🎧 Tune in now on Spotify, Apple, YouTube and share your thoughts! In the meantime: Follow the Gradient and stay tuned!
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Why you should listen
You should listen to this if you want to understand why the traditional SaaS playbook is breaking in the age of AI and what replaces it.
As we kept diving deeper into the conversation, a clear tension emerged between fast AI demos that look magical and the deeper product and domain expertise required to build durable companies.
What we talk about
00:00 - Introduction
02:22 - The biggest delusion in AI right now
04:55 - Four buckets of AI business models
07:58 - AI pricing in times of vibe coding
13:55 - The real moats left in AI: data, regulation, and user experience
17:48 - Two startup ideas you should never build right now
22:17 - What existing SaaS founders must do to survive
25:49 - Why middle management is about to disappear
33:01 - How AI is transforming venture capital from the inside
37:11 - Do startups still need VCs when four people can hit millions?
43:03 - Rapid fire: thin wrappers, CTO hiring, and European quality
Our main take away’s
The SaaS playbook does not map cleanly onto AI businesses. Traditional SaaS assumed high gross margins and scalable software distribution, but AI introduces variable compute costs and pushes companies toward delivering outcomes rather than tools. This changes how products are packaged, sold, and priced.
Customers increasingly buy results instead of software. AI makes it possible to automate complex services while keeping the efficiency profile of software, which shifts products toward “service as software.” Goeldi saw this firsthand at Pixability, where AI automation allowed the company to more than double revenue in a year without hiring additional staff.
