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---
title: in the early days of SaaS you were going after customers...
description: Early SaaS success was partly due to greenfield markets where users weren&#x27;t already locked into existing tools, making user acquisition deceptively easy. Many...
canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/in-the-early-days-of-saas-you-were-going-after-customers-who-weren-t-already-using-something-so-it-w-xsl1h7eym
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og:title: in the early days of SaaS you were going after customers who weren&#x27;t already using something so it was kind of easy to get users

people started giving advice on how to build products and would say &quot;i&#x27;m successful listen to me&quot;

but most of the advice was completely wrong because things look totally different 10 years later in a world where software has proliferated

a similar thing is happening now with AI tools - everyone is hungry to try new workflows so it&#x27;s relatively easy to get users

the same dynamic is playing out again, there&#x27;s terrible advice proliferating with &quot;but we have users&quot; as validation

i&#x27;ve had a personal goal for myself to try and resist using this as an argument for any of my opinions | daily.dev
og:description: Early SaaS success was partly due to greenfield markets where users weren&#x27;t already locked into existing tools, making user acquisition deceptively easy. Many...
og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/in-the-early-days-of-saas-you-were-going-after-customers-who-weren-t-already-using-something-so-it-w-xsl1h7eym
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og:image:alt: in the early days of SaaS you were going after customers who weren&#x27;t already using something so it was kind of easy to get users

people started giving advice on how to build products and would say &quot;i&#x27;m successful listen to me&quot;

but most of the advice was completely wrong because things look totally different 10 years later in a world where software has proliferated

a similar thing is happening now with AI tools - everyone is hungry to try new workflows so it&#x27;s relatively easy to get users

the same dynamic is playing out again, there&#x27;s terrible advice proliferating with &quot;but we have users&quot; as validation

i&#x27;ve had a personal goal for myself to try and resist using this as an argument for any of my opinions
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[dax](https://daily.dev/sources/thdxr)

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Mar 03 • From x.com

![thdxr's profile](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1602333093485891584/mmVqjFNI_normal.jpg)

dax @thdxr

in the early days of SaaS you were going after customers who weren't already using something so it was kind of easy to get users people started giving advice on how to build products and would say "i'm successful listen to me" but most of the advice was completely wrong because things look totally different 10 years later in a world where software has proliferated a similar thing is happening now with AI tools - everyone is hungry to try new workflows so it's relatively easy to get users the same dynamic is playing out again, there's terrible advice proliferating with "but we have users" as validation i've had a personal goal for myself to try and resist using this as an argument for any of my opinions

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