Melker Pasternak Ivarsson: When Software Becomes Free, What Businesses Survive?
Episode #158: If anyone can build an app, what happens to SaaS? Melker Pasternak Ivarsson joins us to discuss what happens when AI makes software dramatically cheaper and easier to create. We explore whether SaaS is actually dying, the rise of micro SaaS and one-person companies, and the three business moats Melker believes AI cannot easily reproduce: network effects, proprietary data and licenses or IP. We also get into why the traditional hierarchical company might be badly structured for the AI era. Melker explains Haier's “zero distance” model, where a huge organization operates more like a collection of autonomous startups, and we compare it with the flatter structures used by companies like Valve and Spotify. We talk about AI implementation inside existing companies, why frontline employees often have better AI ideas than management, why bureaucracy can kill innovation and what happens when employees can suddenly build their own internal software. Melker also explains what he's building with Ordana, why startup collaborations could become increasingly important as software markets fragment, and how one integration generated a 32% conversion rate before dropping when it began to look like a traditional affiliate offer. Later, we get into founder psychology, obsession, failure, why people spend too much time preparing instead of starting and why entrepreneurship is mostly about sucking slightly less each time you try. #AI #SaaS #Startups #Entrepreneurship #FutureOfWork