SaaStr 842: The 90/10 Rule for AI Agents: What to Build vs Buy with SaaStr's CEO and CAIO
episode
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
1h 0m
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 19 days ago
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What is SaaStr’s 90/10 rule for AI agents and why does it matter?
Welcome to the official Saster Podcast, where you can hear some of the best Saster speakers. This is where the cloud meets. Up today on the Saster Podcast. You're either at the cutting edge of AI or you're getting displaced. And the question is just what's the speed? If all your customers are on five-year contracts, you can hide if you want. There is no middle ground anymore. That's the best advice I can tell you. One last thing I would say to founders on this. I wrote this on Twitter yesterday and then I'm a longer post on Saster. Ask yourself, calmly use your own product. Is your jaw dropping? You're jaw dropping. Almost every if anyone that has even a couple million in revenue up to billions, at some point your product was a jaw dropper or you never would have gotten there.
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Hello everyone. Welcome back to a Nether's Esther AI Live. We wanted to do a follow-up from the AI day we did a couple weeks ago. We did not make it through the whole thing, and I actually think a lot has changed in those two weeks, just with the wider, let's say release of Cloud Cowork to a lot of a lot more users, including ourselves, um, to use, try. And then obviously I know also Cloud Code. We've got a lot of updates in the last two weeks, as well as just like the model for that are core to Cloud and OpenAI. So we wanted to do an update basically on where we're at, just with the lens of our journey of like building versus Buy all these apps for AI agents and now apps. kind of encompassing some of that with you know everything that's been going on in the last two weeks because a lot has happened all right just i always like to put the slide first um for those who need it and just to preface as always you can go to satsburg.ai slash agents if you want more info on any of the either third party tools or things that we buy the apps we've i coded today are all listed there.
We have like a new community list newer community listing that we have there as well. that you can play around with and see. what we use and how we use it. So That's that. Okay. So getting into our so this is the ninety ten rule, Jason, that you originated. So would love to get your thoughts here just to kind of kick us off, but Basically, our rule from the last, you know, nine months, 20 plus agents, six plus, now, now maybe eight with the lot the two that I'll focus on today that we made recently in the last few weeks. So a bunch of apps we've made both for internal purposes and then actually now external facing.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is SaaStr’s 90/10 rule for AI agents and why does it matter?
0:01–8:15
2
How did Jason and Amelia decide what to build versus buy for their AI tools?
8:15–16:25
3
Why did Claude Cowork become a game‑changer for their recent projects?
16:25–24:43
4
How did they use a spec‑first approach to design the AI VP of Marketing?
24:43–31:36
5
What challenges did they face when adding true single‑sign‑on to the sponsor portal?
31:36–38:28
6
How did Claude Cowork help automate contract processing and sponsor code generation?
38:28–46:18
7
What are the hidden maintenance costs of custom vibe‑coded apps?
46:18–53:38
8
Why is a “jaw‑dropping” AI experience now essential for SaaS products?
53:38–1:00:52
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
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SaaStr 863: The Enterprise AI Reality Check: From Dashboard Graveyards to 30-Day Migrations with Databricks' Co-Founder and SVP of Field Engineering
SaaStr 853: The Agents #004: Tragedy Apps, Too Many AI SDRs, and Why Your Next Hire Should Report to an Agent
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SaaStr 851: The Agents, Episode 002. Managing 20+ AI Agents: Lazy Agents, Stealth Churn & the Death of 60% Solutions